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EDITED  BY 
HORACE  E.  SCUDDER 


LOWELL 

BY 

THE  EDITOR 


THE    COMPLETE 

POETICAL  WORKS   OF 

JAMES   RUSSELL  -LOWELL 

Camtiritige  CEDitton 


BOSTON  AND   NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON   MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

C&e  fttoerfioe  $regg,  CambriDgc 


COPYRIGHT  1848,  I857,  1866,  Z868,  1869,  1876,  1885,  1888,  1890,  BY  JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL 
COPYRIGHT  1894,  1896,  1897,  BY    MABEL  LOWELL  BURNETT 

COPYRIGHT  1895  BY  CHARLES   ELIOT  NORTON 
COPYRIGHT  1897  BY  HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  &   CO 

ALL   RIGHTS    RESERVED 


GIF1 


953n 


PUBLISHERS'   NOTE 

THE  present  Cambridge  Edition  of  Mr.  Lowell's  poems  contains,  substantially 
in  the  order  established  by  the  author,  the  poems  included  by  him  not  long  before 
his  death  in  the  definitive  Riverside  Edition  of  his  writings,  and  in  addition  the 
small  group  contained  in  the  Last  Poems,  collected  by  his  literary  executor,  Mr. 
Charles  Eliot  Norton.  In  the  brief  Prefatory  Note  to  the  four  volumes  of  his 
Poems  in  the  Riverside  Edition,  Mr.  Lowell  said :  — 

"  There  are  a  great  many  pieces  in  these  volumes,  especially  in  the  first  of  them, 
which  I  would  gladly  suppress  or  put  into  the  Coventry  of  smaller  print  in  an 
appendix.  But  '  ilka  mon  maun  dree  his  weird,'  and  the  avenging  litera  scripta 
manet  is  that  of  the  over-hasty  author.  Owing  to  the  unjust  distinction  made  by 
the  law  between  literary  and  other  property,  most  of  what  I  published  prematurely 
has  lost  the  protection  of  copyright,  and  is  reprinted  by  others  against  my  will.  I 
cannot  shake  off  the  burthen  of  my  early  indiscretions  if  I  would.  The  best  way, 
perhaps,  is  to  accept  with  silent  contrition  the  consequences  of  one's  own  mistakes, 
and  I  have,  after  much  hesitation,  consented  to  the  reprinting  of  the  old  editions 
without  excision. 

"  I  must  confess,  however,  that  I  have  attained  this  pitch  of  self-sacrifice  only  by 
compulsion,  and  should  have  greatly  preferred  to  increase  the  value  of  this  collec 
tion  by  lessening  its  bulk.  The  judicious  reader  will,  I  fear,  distinguish  only  too 
easily  what  I  should  wish,  in  parliamentary  phrase,  *  to  be  taken  as  read.'  As  we 
grow  older,  we  grow  the  more  willing  to  say,  as  Petrarca  in  Landor's  Pentameron 
says  to  Boccaccio,  '  We  neither  of  us  are  such  poets  as  we  thought  ourselves  when 
we  were  younger.'  *' 

The  Editor  of  this  volume  has  not  felt  at  liberty  either  to  add  poems  left  by  the 
author  in  the  deepening  obscurity  of  old  magazines,  or  to  follow  the  probable  judg 
ment  of  Mr.  Lowell  in  reducing  any  of  his  collected  verse  to  the  lower  terms  of  an 
appendix. 

The  method  followed  in  the  other  volumes  of  the  Cambridge  series  has  been 
observed  in  this.  The  head-notes  are  occupied  mainly  with  the  history  of  the 
several  poems  ;  criticism  has  been  given  only  when  the  author  himself  was  the 
critic.  The  Publishers  and  Editor  desire  to  make  acknowledgment  to  Mr.  Norton, 
the  editor,  and  Messrs.  Harper  &  Brothers,  the  publishers,  for  their  courtesy  in 
allowing  a  liberal  use  to  be  made  of  Letters  of  James  Russell  Lowell,  and  special 
thanks  are  due  Mr.  Norton  for  the  valuable  aid  which  he  has  given  the  editor  in 
the  preparation  of  the  volume. 

BOSTON,  4  PARK  STREET,  October  7,  1896. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH 


PAGE 

ix 


EARLIER  POEMS. 

THRENODIA 1 

THE  SIRENS 2 

IREN£ 4 

SERENADE  5 

WITH  A  PRESSED  FLOWER         .       .  5 

THE  BEGGAR 5 

MY  LOVE 6 

SUMMER  STORM         ....  7 

LOVE 8 

To  PERDITA,  SINGING       ...  8 

THE  MOON 9 

REMEMBERED  Music        ...  10 

SONG.    To  M.  L 10 

ALLEGRA 10 

THE  FOUNTAIN 11 

ODE 11 

THE  FATHERLAND        .       .       .       .14 

THE  FORLORN 14 

MIDNIGHT 15 

A  PRAYER 15 

THE  HERITAGE 15 

THE  ROSE  :  A  BALLAD    ...  16 

SONG,  "VIOLET!  SWEET  VIOLET!"  .  17 

ROSALINE 17 

A  REQUIEM 18 

A  PARABLE 19 

SONG,  "  O  MOONLIGHT  DEEP  AND  TEN 
DER  "  19 

SONNETS 

I.  To  A.  C.  L.    .       .       .  19 
II.  "  WHAT   WERE   I,   LOVE, 

IF     I     WERE      STRIPPED     OF 

THEE  ?  " 20 

III.  "  I  WOULD  NOT  HAVE   THIS 
PERFECT   LOVE  OF  OURS  "  20 

IV.  "  FOR    THIS    TRUE     NOBLE 
NESS  I  SEEK  IN  VAIN"          .  20 

V.  To  THE  SPIRIT  OF  KEATS  20 

VI.  "  GREAT  TRUTHS  ARE  POR 
TIONS  OF  THE  SOUL  OF  MAN  "  20 

VII.  "  I     ASK    NOT    FOR    THOSE 
THOUGHTS,       THAT       SUDDEN 
LEAP  "...  .21 


PAGE 

VIII.  To  M.  W.,  ON  HER  BIRTH 
DAY 21 

IX.  "MY  LOVE,  I  HAVE  NO 

FEAR  THAT  THOU  SHOULDST 

DIE" 21 

X.   "I    CANNOT     THINK    THAT 

THOU  SHOULDST  PASS  AWAY  "  21 

XI.  "THERE  NEVER  YET  WAS 

FLOWER  FAIR  IN  VAIN  "     .  21 

XII.   SUB    PONDERE   CRESCIT       .  22 

XIII.  "  BELOVED,  IN  THE  NOISY 

CITY  HERE  "           .           .           .  22 

XIV.  ON      READING      WORDS 
WORTH'S    SONNETS   IN   DE 
FENCE  OF  CAPITAL  PUNISH 
MENT       22 

XV.  THE  SAME  CONTINUED  .  22 

XVI.  THE  SAME  CONTINUED      .  23 

XVII.  THE  SAME  CONTINUED  .  23 

XVIII.  THE  SAME  CONTINUED      .  23 

XIX.  THE  SAME  CONCLUDED  .  23 

XX.  To  M.  O.  S.       .       .       .  23 

XXI.    C'OUR  LOVE  IS  NOT  A  FAD 
ING,  EARTHLY  FLOWER  "    .  24 

XXII.  IN  ABSENCE       ...  24 

XXIII.  WENDELL  PHILLIPS       .  24 

XXIV.  THE  STREET       ...  24 

XXV.    "  I       GRIEVE       NOT     THAT 

RIPE     KNOWLEDGE     TAKES 

AWAY"        ....  25 

XXVI.  To  J.  R.  GIDDINGS   .        .  25 

XXVII.    "  I  THOUGHT  OUR  LOVE  AT 

FULL,  BUT  I  DID  ERR  "  25 

L'ENVOi 25 

MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS. 

A  LEGEND  OF  BRITTANY        .       .  28 

PROMETHEUS 38 

THE  SHEPHERD  OF  KING  ADMETUS  44 

THE  TOKEN 44 

AN  INCIDENT  IN  A  RAILROAD  CAR  45 

RHCECUS 46 

THE  FALCON 48 

TRIAL 48 

A  GLANCE  BEHIND  THE  CURTAIN  .  49 

A  CHIPPEWA  LEGEND                        .  53 


VI 


CONTENTS 


STANZAS  ON  FREEDOM     ...  55 

COLUMBUS 55 

AN    INCIDENT    OF    THE     Fins     AT 

HAMBURG 59 

THE  SOWER 60 

HUNGER  AND  COLD  ....  61 

THE  LANDLORD 61 

To  A  PINE-TREE       ....  62 

Si  DESCENDERO  IN  INFERNUM,  ADES    .  63 

To  THE  PAST 63 

To  THE  FUTURE 64 

HEBE 65 

THE  SEARCH 66 

THE  PRESENT  CRISIS  ...  67 

AN  INDIAN-SUMMER  REVERIE  .  .  68 

THE  GROWTH  OF  THE  LEGEND  .  74 

A  CONTRAST 75 

EXTREME  UNCTION  ....  75 

THE  OAK 76 

AMBROSE 77 

ABOVE  AND  BELOW  .  .  .  .78 

THE  CAPTIVE 78 

THE  BIRCH-TREE  .  .  .  .79 
AN  INTERVIEW  WITH  MILES 

STANDISH 80 

ON  THE  CAPTURE  OF  FUGITIVE 

SLAVES  NEAR  WASHINGTON  .  .  82 

To  THE  DANDELION  ....  83 

THE  GHOST-SEER 83 

STUDIES  FOR  Two  HEADS  .  .  85 
ON  A  PORTRAIT  OF  DANTE  BY 

GIOTTO 87 

ON  THE  DEATH  OF  A  FRIEND'S 

CHILD 87 

EURYDICE 88 

SHE  CAME  AND  WENT         ...  89 

THE  CHANGELING        .        .       .       .89 

THE  PIONEER 90 

LONGING 91 

ODE  TO  FRANCE.    February,  1848  .  91 

ANTI-APIS 94 

A  PARABLE 95 

ODE  WRITTEN  FOR  THE  CELEBRA 
TION  OF  THE  INTRODUCTION  OF 
THE  COCHITUATE  WATER  INTO  THE 

CITY  OF  BOSTON  .  ...  96 

LlNES  SUGGESTED  BY  THE  GRAVES 
OF  Two  ENGLISH  SOLDIERS  ON 

CONCORD  BATTLE-GROUND  .  .  96 

To 97 

FREEDOM 97 

BlBLIOLATRES 99 

BEAVER  BROOK        ....  99 


MEMORIAL  VERSES. 

KOS8UTH 

To  LAMARTINE.    1848 


100 
101 


To  JOHN  GORHAM  PALFREY  .  .  101 
To  W.  L.  GARRISON  .  .  .102 
ON  THE  DEATH  OF  CHARLES  TURNER 

TORREY 104 

ELEGY  ON  THE  DEATH  OF  DR. 

CHANNING 104 

To  THE  MEMORY  OF  HOOD  .  .  105 

THE  VISION  OF  SIR  LAUNFAL     .      106 

LETTER  FROM  BOSTON.    December, 

1846 Ill 

A  FABLE  FOR  CRITICS     .       -       .113 

THE     UNHAPPY      LOT      OF      MR. 

KNOTT 149 

FRAGMENTS   OF  AN  UNFINISHED 

POEM 158 

AN  ORIENTAL  APOLOGUE  .   .   .161 
THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 

FIRST  SERIES. 

NOTICES  OF  AN  INDEPENDENT  PRESS  167 
NOTE  TO  TITLE-PAGE  .  .  .  .172 

INTRODUCTION 174 

No.    I.      A      LETTER     FROM    MR. 

EZEKIEL   BIGLOW   OF  JAALAM  TO 

THE  HON.  JOSEPH  T.  BUCKINGHAM   181 
No.    II.     A    LETTER     FROM     MR. 

HOSEA  BIGLOW  TO   THE  HON.  J. 

T.  BUCKINGHAM    .        .        .        .183 
No.    III.      WHAT     MR.     ROBINSON 

THINKS 187 

No.    IV.     REMARKS    OF    INCREASE 

D.   O'PHACE,   ESQ 191 

No.  V.  THE  DEBATE  IN  THE 
SENNIT 197 

No.  VI.  THE  Pious  EDITOR'S 
CREED 200 

No.  VII.  A  LETTER  FROM  A  CAN 
DIDATE  FOR  THE  PRESIDENCY  IN 
ANSWER  TO  SUTTIN  QUESTIONS 
PROPOSED  BY  MR.  HOSEA  BIGLOW  .  203 

No.  VIII.  A  SECOND  LETTER  FROM 
B.  SAWIN,  ESQ 206 

No.  IX.  A  THIRD  LETTER  FROM 
B.  SAWIN,  ESQ 212 

SECOND  SERIES. 

THE  COURTIN' 219 

NO.  I.   BlRDOFREDUM  SAWIN,  ESQ., 

TO  MR.  HOSEA  BIGLOW  .       .       .220 
No.  II.    MASON    AND  SUDELL:   A 
YANKEE  IDYLL       ....     228 
JONATHAN  TO  JOHN      .       .       .238 

NO.  III.    BlRDOFREDUM  SAWIN,  ESQ., 

TO  MB.  HOSEA  BIGLOW        •       •     239 


CONTENTS 


vii 


No.  IV.  A  MESSAGE  OF  JEFF  DAVIS 
IN  SECRET  SESSION  •  •  •  248 

No.  V.  SPEECH  OF  HONOURABLE 
PRESERVED  DOE  IN  SECRET 
CAUCUS 253 

No.  VI.  SUNTHIN'  IN  THE  PASTORAL 
LINE 260 

No.  VH.  LATEST  VIEWS  OF  MR. 
BIGLOW 265 

No.  VIII.  KETTELOPOTOMACHIA    .      269 

No.  IX.  SOME  MEMORIALS  OF  THE 
LATE  REVEREND  H.  WILBUR  .  .  272 

No.  X.  MR.  HOSEA  BIGLOW  TO 
THE  EDITOR  OF  THE  ATLANTIC 
MONTHLY 275 

No.  XI.  MR.  HOSEA  BIGLOW' s 
SPEECH  IN  MARCH  MEETING  •  •  277 

UNDER  THE  WILLOWS  AND  OTHER 

POEMS. 

To  CHARLES  ELIOT  NORTON  .  .  285 
UNDER  THE  WILLOWS  .  .  .  .286 

DARA 291 

THE  FIRST  SNOW-FALL  .  .  .292 
THE  SINGING  LEAVES  •  •  •  293 

SEAWEED 294 

THE  FINDING  OF  THE  LYRE  .  .  294 
NEW  YEAR'S  EVE,  1850  .  .  .295 
FOR  AN  AUTOGRAPH  .  .  .  295 

AL  FRESCO 295 

MASACCIO 296 

WITHOUT  AND  WITHIN        .       .       .297 

GODMINSTER  CHIMES  ...        297 

THE  PARTING  OF  THE  WAYS     .       .  298 

ALADDIN 300 

AN  INVITATION.    To  J.  F.  H.    .       .300 

THE  NOMADES 301 

SELF-STUDY 302 

PICTURES  FROM  APPLEDORE  .  .  302 
THE  WIND-HARP 307 

AUF   WlEDERSEHEN    ....        308 

PALINODE 308 

AFTER  THE  BURIAL  ....  308 
THE  DEAD  HOUSE  .  .  .  .309 

A  MOOD 310 

THE  VOYAGE  TO  VINLAND  .  .  311 
MAHMOOD  THE  IMAGE-BREAKER  .  315 

INVITA  MINERVA 315 

THE  FOUNTAIN  OF  YOUTH       .        .      316 

YUSSOUF 318 

THE  DARKENED  MIND  .  .  .319 
WHAT  RABBI  JEHOSHA  SAID  .  .  319 

ALL-SAINTS 319 

A   WINTER-EVENING  HYMN  TO  MY 

FIRE 320 

FANCY'S  CASUISTRY  ....  322 
To  MR.  JOHN  BARTLETT  .  .  .322 


ODE  TO  HAPPINESS  ....  323 
VILLA  FRANCA.  1859  .  .  .  .324 

THE  MINER 325 

GOLD  EGG  :  A  DREAM-FANTASY  .  .  326 
A  FAMILIAR  EPISTLE  TO  A  FRIEND  327 
AN  EMBER  PICTURE  ....  329 

To  H.  W.  L 330 

THE  NIGHTINGALE  IN  THE  STUDY  .  331 
IN  THE  TWILIGHT  ....  332 
THE  FOOT-PATH 333 


POEMS  OF  THE  WAR. 

THE  WASHERS  OF  THE  SHROUD  .  334 
Two  SCENES  FROM  THE  LIFE  OF 

BLONDEL 336 

MEMORLE  POSITUM  ....  337 
ON  BOARD  THE  '76  .  .  .  .339 

ODE      RECITED      AT  "   THE       HARVARD 

COMMEMORATION     ....      340 

L'ENVOI:  To  THE  MUSE  .  .  .  .347 
THE  CATHEDRAL  ....  349 
THREE  MEMORIAL  POEMS. 

ODE  READ  AT  THE  ONE  HUNDREDTH 
ANNIVERSARY  OF   THE   FIGHT   AT 
CONCORD  BRIDGE       ....  361 
UNDER  THE  OLD  ELM       .        .        .      364 
AN  ODE  FOR  THE  FOURTH  OF  JULY, 
1876 370 

HEARTSEASE  AND  RUE. 
I.  FRIENDSHIP. 

AGASSIZ 374 

To  HOLMES,  ON  HIS  SEVENTY-FIFTH 

BIRTHDAY 381 

IN  A  COPY  OF  OMAR  KHAYYAM     .      382 

ON      RECEIVING     A      COPY     OF      MR. 

AUSTIN   DOBSON'S    "  OLD   WORLD 

IDYLLS" 382 

To  C.  F.  BRADFORD         ...      383 

BANKSIDE 383 

JOSEPH  WINLOCK  ....  384 
SONNET,  To  FANNY  ALEXANDER  .  385 
JEFFRIES  WYMAN  .  .  .  .385 

To  A  FRIEND 385 

WITH  AN  ARMCHAIR         ...      385 

E.  G.  DE  R 386 

BON  VOYAGE 386 

To    WHITTIER,    ON    HIS    SEVENTY- 
FIFTH  BIRTHDAY        ....  386 
ON  AN  AUTUMN  SKETCH  OF  H.  G. 

WILD 387 

To  Miss  D.  T 387 

WITH   A   COPY   OF    AUCASSIN    AND 
NICOLETE 387 


Vlll 


CONTENTS 


ON  PLANTING  A  TREE  AT  INVERA- 
KAY 387 

AN  EPISTLE  TO  GEORGE  WILLIAM 
CURTIS 388 

II.  SENTIMENT. 

ENDYMION 392 

THE  BLACK  PREACHER  .  •  .395 
ARCADIA  REDIVIVA  ....  396 

THE  NEST 397 

A  YOUTHFUL  EXPERIMENT  IN  ENG 
LISH  HEXAMETERS     ....  398 
BIRTHDAY  VERSES     ....      398 

ESTRANGEMENT 398 

PH<EBE 399 

DAS  EWIG-WEIBLICHE  .  .  .  .399 
THE  RECALL  ...  .  .  .400 

ABSENCE 400 

MONNA  LISA 400 

THE  OPTIMIST 400 

ON  BURNING  SOME  OLD  LETTERS  .  401 
THE  PROTEST  .  .  .  .  .  401 

THE  PETITION 402 

FACT  OR  FANCY  ? 402 

AGRO-DOLCE 402 

THE  BROKEN  TRYST    .       .       .       .402 

CASA  SIN  ALMA 403 

A  CHRISTMAS  CAROL  .  .  .  .403 
MY  PORTRAIT  GALLERY  ...  403 
PAOLO  TO  FRANCESCA  .  .  .  .403 
SONNET,  SCOTTISH  BORDER  .  .  404 
SONNET,  ON  BEING  ASKED  FOR  AN 

AUTOGRAPH  IN  VENICE  .  .  .404 
THE  DANCING  BEAR  ...  404 
THE  MAPLE 405 

NlGHTWATCHES 405 

DEATH  OF  QUEEN  MERCEDES     .       .  405 
PRISON  OF  CERVANTES     .       .       .     405 
To  A  LADY  PLAYING  ON  THE  CITH 
ERN       406 

THE  EYE'S  TREASURY      ...     406 

PESSIMOPTIMISM 406 

THE  BRAKES 406 

A  FOREBODING 407 

IH.  FANCY. 

UNDER  THE  OCTOBER  MAPLES  •  407 
LOVE'S  CLOCK  ....  407 
ELEANOR  MAKES  MACAROONS  .  408 

TELEPATHY 408 

SCHERZO 408 


"  FRANCISCUS 
COGITAVIT" 

AUSPEX        .... 
THE  PREGNANT  COMMENT  . 
THE  LESSON 


DE    VERULAMIO     sic 

409 

409 

.  409 
.       410 


SCIENCE  AND  POETRY  . 
A  NEW  YEAR'S  GREETING 
THE  DISCOVERY     . 
WITH  A  SEASHELL     . 
THE  SECRET   . 


410 
410 
410 
411 
411 


IV.  HUMOR  AND  SATIRE. 
FITZ  ADAM'S  STORY  ....  411 
THE  ORIGIN  OF  DIDACTIC  POETRY  .  421 
THE  FLYING  DUTCHMAN  .  .  .  422 
CREDIDIMUS  JOVEM  REGNARE  .  .  423 
TEMPORA  MUTANTUR  ...  425 
IN  THE  HALF-WAY  HOUSE  .  .  426 
AT  THE  BURNS  CENTENNIAL  .  .  427 

IN  AN  ALBUM 430 

AT    THE    COMMENCEMENT    DINNER, 
1866    .        .        ...        .        .        .430 

A  PARABLE 432 


V.  EPIGRAMS. 

SAYINGS 
INSCRIPTIONS  . 
A  MISCONCEPTION 
THE  Boss 
SUN-WORSHIP    . 
CHANGED  PERSPECTIVE 


432 
.  432 

432 
.  433 

433 
.  433 


WITH  A  PAIR  OF  GLOVES  LOST  IN  A 

WAGER 433 

SIXTY-EIGHTH  BIRTHDAY  .  .  .433 
INTERNATIONAL  COPYRIGHT  .  .  433 

LAST  POEMS. 

HOW  I  CONSULTED  THE  ORACLE  OF 

THE  GOLDFISHES  ....  433 
TURNER'S  OLD  TEMERAERE  .  .  436 
ST.  MICHAEL  THE  WEIGHER  .  .  436 

A  VALENTINE 437 

AN  APRIL  BIRTHDAY  —  AT  SEA  .  437 
LOVE  AND  THOUGHT  ...  438 
THE  NOBLER  LOVER  ....  438 

ON    HEARING   A  SONATA   OF  BEETHO- 

VEN'S  PLAYED  IN  THE  NEXT  ROOM  .  438 
VERSES,  INTENDED  TO  GO  WITH  A 

POSSET  DISH 438 

ON  A  BUST  OF  GENERAL  GRANT  .  439 

APPENDIX. 

I.  INTRODUCTION  TO  THE  SECOND  SE 
RIES  OF  BIGLOW  PAPERS       .       .  441 
II.  GLOSSARY  TO  THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS    458 

III.  INDEX  TO  THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS     .  460 

IV.  NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS  .        .      471 
V.  A    CHRONOLOGICAL   LIST    OF   MR. 

LOWELL'S  POEMS  .        .        .481 


INDEX  OF  FIRST  LINES 
INDEX  OF  TITLES . 


485 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH 

ABOUT  half  a  mile  from  the  Craigie  House  in  Cambridge,  Massachusetts,  on  the  road 
leading  to  the  old  town  of  Watertown,  is  Elmwood,  a  spacious  square  house  set  amongst 
lilac  and  syringa  bushes,  and  overtopped  by  elms.  Pleasant  fields  are  on  either  side,  and 
from  the  windows  one  may  look  out  on  the  Charles  River  winding  its  way  among  the 
marshes.  The  house  itself  is  one  of  a  group  which  before  the  war  for  independence  be 
longed  to  Boston  merchants  and  officers  of  the  crown,  most  of  whom  refused  to  take  the 
side  of  the  revolutionary  party.  Tory  Row  was  the  name  given  to  the  broad  winding  road 
on  which  the  houses  stood.  Large  farms  and  gardens  were  attached  to  them,  and  some 
sign  of  their  roomy  ease  still  remains.  The  estates  fell  into  the  hands  of  various  persons 
after  the  war,  and  in  process  of  time  Longfellow  came  to  occupy  and  later  to  own  Craigie 
House.  Elmwood  at  that  time  was  the  property  of  the  Reverend  Charles  Lowell,  minister 
of  the  West  Church  in  Boston  ;  and  when  Longfellow  thus  became  his  neighbor,  James 
Russell  Lowell  was  a  junior  in  Harvard  College.  He  was  born  at  Elmwood  February 
22,  1819  ;  he  died  at  the  same  place  August  12,  1891. 

He  was  named  for  his  father's  maternal  grandfather,  and  was  the  youngest  of  a  family 
of  five,  two  daughters  and  three  sons.  His  father  at  the  time  of  Lowell's  birth  was 
thirty-seven  years  old  and  lived  till  1861.  His  son  has  drawn  his  portrait  in  a  letter  to 
C.  F.  Briggs,  written  in  1844  :  "  He  is  Dr.  Primrose  in  a  comparative  degree,  the  very 
simplest  and  charmingest  of  sexagenarians,  and  not  without  a  great  deal  of  the  truest 
magnanimity."  It  was  characteristic  of  Lowell  thus  to  find  a  prototype  of  his  father  in 
literature.  The  Lowells  traced  their  descent  from  Percival  Lowell,  —  a  name  which 
survives  in  the  family,  —  of  Bristol,  England,  who  settled  in  Newbury,  Massachusetts,  in 
1639.  The  great-grandfather  of  James  Russell  Lowell  was  a  minister  in  Newburyport, 
one  of  those,  as  Dr.  Hale  says,  "  who  preached  sermons  when  young  men  went  out  to 
fight  the  French,  and  preached  sermons  again  in  memory  of  their  death,  when  they  had 
been  slain  in  battle."  The  grandfather  was  John  Lowell,  a  member  of  the  Constitutional 
Convention  of  Massachusetts  in  1780.  It  was  he  who  introduced  into  the  Bill  of  Rights 
a  phrase  from  the  Bill  of  Rights  of  Virginia,  "  All  men  are  created  free  and  equal," 
with  the  purpose  which  it  effected  of  setting  free  every  man  then  held  as  a  slave  in 
Massachusetts.  A  son  of  John  Lowell  and  half-brother  of  the  Rev.  Charles  Lowell  was 
Francis  Cabot  Lowell,  who  gave  a  great  impetus  to  New  England  manufactures,  and 
from  whom  the  city  of  Lowell  took  its  name.  Another  son,  and  thus  also  an  uncle  of  the 
poet,  was  John  Lowell,  Jr.,  whose  wise  and  far-sighted  provision  gave  his  native  city  that 
important  centre  of  intellectual  influence,  the  Lowell  Institute. 

The  mother  of  the  poet,  Mrs.  Harriet  Spence  Lowell,  a  native  of  Portsmouth,  New 
Hampshire,  was  of  Scotch  origin.  She  is  described  as  having  "  a  great  memory,  an  ex 
traordinary  aptitude  for  language,  and  a  passionate  fondness  for  ancient  songs  and  bal 
lads."  It  pleased  her  to  fancy  herself  descended  from  the  hero  of  one  of  the  most  famous 
ballads,  Sir  Patrick  Spens.  In  a  letter  to  his  mother,  written  in  1837,  Lowell  says  :  "  I 
am  engaged  in  several  poetical  effusions,  one  of  which  I  have  dedicated  to  you,  who 
have  always  been  the  patron  and  encourager  of  my  youthful  muse."  The  Russell  in  his 
name  seems  to  intimate  a  strain  of  Jewish  ancestry  ;  at  any  rate  Lowell  took  pride  in 


JAMES   RUSSELL   LOWELL 


the  name  on  this  account,  for  he  was  not  slow  to  recognize  the  intellectual  power  of  the 
Hebrew  race.  An,  older  brother  of  the  poet  who  outlived  him  a  short  time,  was  the 
Rev.  Robert  Traill  Spence  Lowell,  who  wrote  some  poems,  a  story  of  school-boy  life,  and 
a  novel,  The  New  Priest  in  Conception  Bay,  which  contains  a  delightful  study  of  a  Yankee 
and  striking  sketches  of  life  in  Newfoundland,  where  its  author  was  for  a  while  a  mis 
sionary.  A  sister,  Mrs.  Anna  Lowell  Putnam,  will  be  remembered  among  older  lovers  of 
literature  for  a  group  of  singularly  fine  and  thoughtful  studies  under  the  title  Records 
of  an  Obscure  Life. 

Not  long  before  his  death,  Lowell  wrote  to  an  English  friend  a  description  of  Elm- 
wood  ;  and  as  he  was  very  fond  of  the  house  in  which  he  lived  and  died,  it  is  agreeable  to 
read  words  which  strove  to  set  it  before  the  eyes  of  one  who  had  never  seen  it.  "  'T  is 
a  pleasant  old  house,  just  about  twice  as  old  as  I  am,  four  miles  from  Boston,  in  what 
was  once  the  country  and  is  now  a  populous  suburb.  But  it  still  has  some  ten  acres  of 
open  about  it,  and  some  fine  old  trees.  When  the  worst  comes  to  the  worst  (if  I  live  so 
long)  I  shall  still  have  four  and  a  half  acres  left  with  the  house,  the  rest  belonging  to 
my  brothers  and  sisters  or  their  heirs.  It  is  a  square  house,  with  four  rooms  on  a  floor, 
like  some  houses  of  the  Georgian  era  I  have  seen  in  English  provincial  towns,  only  they 
are  of  brick,  and  this  is  of  wood.  But  it  is  solid  with  its  heavy  oaken  beams,  the  spaces 
between  which  in  the  four  outer  walls  are  filled  in  with  brick,  though  you  must  n't  fancy 
a  brick-and-timber  house,  for  outwardly  it  is  sheathed  with  wood.  Inside  there  is  much 
wainscot  (of  deal),  painted  white  in  the  fashion  of  the  time  when  it  was  built.  It  is  very 
sunny,  the  sun  rising  so  as  to  shine  (at  an  acute  angle  to  be  sure)  through  the  northern 
windows,  and  going  round  the  other  three  sides  in  the  course  of  the  day.  There  is  a 
pretty  staircase  with  the  quaint  old  twisted  banisters,  —  which  they  call  balusters  now  ; 
but  mine  are  banisters.  My  library  occupies  two  rooms  opening  into  each  other  by  arches 
at  the  sides  of  the  ample  chimneys.  The  trees  I  look  out  on  are  the  earliest  things  I 
remember.  There  you  have  me  in  my  new-old  quarters.  But  you  must  not  fancy  a 
large  Chouse  —  rooms  sixteen  feet  square,  and  on  the  ground  floor,  nine  high.  It  was 
large,  as  things  went  here,  when  it  was  built,  and  has  a  certain  air  of  amplitude  about  it 
as  from  some  inward  sense  of  dignity."  In  an  earlier  letter  he  wrote  :  "  Here  I  am  in 
my  garret.  I  slept  here  when  I  was  a  little  curly-headed  boy,  and  used  to  see  visions 
between  me  and  the  ceiling,  and  dream  the  so  often  recurring  dream  of  having  the  earth 
put  into  my  hand  like  an  orange.  In  it  I  used  to  be  shut  up  without  a  lamp,  —  my 
mother  saying  that  none  of  her  children  should  be  afraid  of  the  dark,  —  to  hide  my 
head  under  the  pillow,  and  then  not  be  able  to  shut  out  the  shapeless  monsters  that 
thronged  around  me,  minted  in  my  brain.  ...  In  winter  my  view  is  a  wide  one,  taking 
in  a  part  of  Boston.  I  can  see  one  long  curve  of  the  Charles  and  the  wide  fields  between 
me  and  Cambridge,  and  the  flat  marshes  beyond  the  river,  smooth  and  silent  with  glit 
tering  snow.  As  the  spring  advances  and  one  after  another  of  our  trees  puts  forth,  the 
landscape  is  cut  off  from  me  piece  by  piece,  till,  by  the  end  of  May,  I  am  closeted  in  a 
cool  and  rustling  privacy  of  leaves." 

Elmwood  in  the  days  of  Lowell's  boyhood  was  in  a  more  distinctly  rural  neighborhood 
than  now,  and  until  lately  had  the  charm  of  seclusion.  In  his  papers  "  My  Garden 
Acquaintance  "  and  "  A  Good  Word  for  Winter,"  in  many  of  his  poems,  such  as  "  An 
Indian-Summer  Reverie,"  "To  the  Dandelion,"  "Under  the  Willows,''  "  Al  Fresco," 
and  in  many  passages  in  his  letters,  he  bears  witness  to  the  intimacy  which  he  enjoyed 
with  that  phase  of  nature  which  we  may  call  homely  and  friendly.  He  once  expressed 
to  me  his  delight  in  Poussin's  landscapes,  not  because  of  their  homeliness,  for  they  have 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH  xi 

nothing  of  this  quality,  but  because  of  their  stately,  classical  scenery,  and  the  beauty  of 
their  composition  ;  but  in  his  descriptive  poetry  it  is  noticeable  that  the  large,  solemn, 
or  expansive  scenes  of  nature  make  no  such  appeal  to  his  interest  as  those  nearer  vistas 
which  come  close  to  human  life  and  connect  themselves  with  the  familiar  experience  of 
home-keeping  wits.  His  lively  paper  "  Cambridge  Thirty  Years  Ago  "  contains  many 
reminiscences  of  his  early  life  and  associations. 

Lowell's  school  days  were  spent  in  his  own  neighborhood.  Mr.  William  Wells,  an 
Englishman  and  at  one  time  a  publisher,  opened  a  classical  school  in  one  of  the  spacious 
Tory  Row  houses  near  Elmwood,  and,  bringing  with  him  English  public  school  thorough 
ness  and  severity,  gave  the  boy  a  drilling  in  Latin  which  his  quick  appropriation  of  strong 
influences  turned  into  a  familiar  possession,  to  judge  by  the  ease  with  which  he  handled 
it  afterward  in  mock  heroics.  Possibly  the  heavy  hand  of  the  schoolmaster,  by  its  repres 
sion,  gave  greater  buoyancy  to  the  spirit  of  the  student  when  the  comparative  freedom 
of  college  followed.  Lowell  was  in  his  sixteenth  year  when  he  entered  Harvard  College 
with  the  class  which  graduated  in  1838.  He  lived  at  his  father's  house,  more  than  a  mile 
away  from  the  college  yard  ;  but  this  could  have  been  no  great  privation  to  him,  for  he 
had  the  freedom  of  his  friends'  rooms,  and  he  loved  the  open  air.  The  Rev.  Edward 
Everett  Hale  has  given  a  sketch  of  their  common  life  in  college.  "  He  was  a  little  older 
than  I,"  he  says,  "  and  was  one  class  in  advance  of  me.  My  older  brother,  with  whom  I 
lived  in  college,  and  he  were  most  intimate  friends.  He  had  no  room  within  the  college 
walls  [he  had  for  a  time  a  room  close  by  on  Church  Street],  and  was  a  great  deal  with 
us.  The  fashion  of  Cambridge  was  then  literary.  Now  the  fashion  of  Cambridge  runs 
to  social  problems,  but  then  we  were  interested  in  literature.  We  read  Byron  and  Shelley 
and  Keats,  and  we  began  to  read  Tennyson  and  Browning.  I  first  heard  of  Tennyson 
from  Lowell,  who  had  borrowed  from  Mr.  Emerson  the  little  first  volume  of  Tennyson. 
We  actually  passed  about  Tennyson's  poems  in  manuscript.  Carlyle's  essays  were  being 
printed  at  the  time,  and  his  French  Revolution.  In  such  a  community  —  not  two  hundred 
and  fifty  students  all  told  —  literary  effort  was,  as  I  say,  the  fashion,  and  literary  men, 
among  whom  Lowell  was  recognized  from  the  very  first,  were  special  favorites.  In 
deed,  there  was  that  in  him  which  made  him  a  favorite  everywhere." 

Lowell  was  a  reader,  as  so  many  of  his  fellows  were,  and  the  letters  which  he  wrote 
shortly  after  leaving  college  show  how  intent  he  had  been  on  making  acquaintance  with 
the  best  things  in  literature.  He  began  also  to  scribble  verse,  and  he  wrote  both  poems 
and  essays  for  college  magazines,  and  literary  societies.  His  class  chose  him  their 
poet  for  Class  Day,  and  he  wrote  his  poem  ;  but  he  was  careless  about  conforming  to 
college  regulations  respecting  attendance  at  morning  prayers  ;  and  for  this  was  suspended 
from  college  the  last  term  of  his  last  year,  and  not  allowed  to  come  back  to  deliver 
his  poem.  He  was  sent  to  Concord  for  his  rustication,  and  so  passed  a  few  weeks  of 
his  youth  among  scenes  dear  to  every  lover  of  American  history  and  letters. 

In  "  An  Indian-Summer  Reverie  "  Lowell  says  :  — 

"  Though  lightly  prized  the  ribboned  parchments  three, 
Yet  collegisse  juvat,  I  am  glad 
That  here  what  colleging  was  mine  I  had,  — 
It  linked  another  tie,  dear  native  town,  with  thee  !  " 

Whether  or  no  there  had  been  a  reaction  from  the  discipline  of  school  days,  it  is  certain 
that  the  independence  which  characterized  Lowell  throughout  his  life  found  expression 
in  his  college  days,  not  in  insubordination,  but  in  a  frank  pursuit  of  those  courses  of  study 


xii  JAMES   RUSSELL   LOWELL 

and  lines  of  reading  to  which  he  was  led  by  his  own  likings  and  which  the  tolerable 
equipment  of  the  college  and  home  library  put  it  in  his  power  to  follow.  "  Never,"  says 
Lowell  in  his  essay,  "A  Great  Public  Character,"  when  speaking  of  college  life, — 
"  Never  were  we  ourselves  so  capable  of  the  various  great  things  we  have  never  done  ;  " 
and  however  much  he  may  have  been  generalizing  for  college  youth,  he  recalled  well 
his  own  spiritual  experience ;  with  an  impulse  which  outwardly  was  wayward,  he  obeyed 
that  law  of  his  being  which  his  growing  consciousness  of  intellectual  power  disclosed  to 
him.  In  his  penetrating  discrimination  between  talent  and  genius,  he  says  profoundly  : 
"  The  man  of  talents  possesses  them  like  so  many  tools,  does  his  job  with  them,  and  there 
an  end  ;  but  the  man  of  genius  is  possessed  by  it,  and  it  makes  him  into  a  book  or  a  life 
according  to  its  whim.  Talent  takes  the  existing  moulds  and  makes  its  castings,  better 
or  worse,  of  richer  or  baser  metal,  according  to  knack  and  opportunity  ;  but  genius  is 
always  shaping  new  ones  and  runs  the  man  in  them,  so  that  there  is  always  that  human 
feel  in  the  results  which  give  us  a  kindred  thrill.  What  it  will  make,  we  can  only  con 
jecture,  contented  always  with  knowing  the  infinite  balance  of  possibility  against  which 
it  can  draw  at  pleasure."  His  was  a  singularly  self-centred  nature,  and  he  was  always 
true  to  those  large  ideals  which  he  drew  from  history  and  literature  ;  but  so  various  were 
his  intellectual  interests  and  so  abundant  his  capacities,  that  the  precise  direction  was  un 
certain  in  which  his  genius  would  at  any  time  take  him. 

It  is  interesting  to  observe  this  self-centred  nature  in  its  early  struggle  after  equipoise. 
After  his  graduation  he  set  about  the  study  of  law,  and  for  a  short  time  even  was  a  clerk 
in  a  counting-room  ;  but  his  bent  was  strongly  toward  literature.  His  vacillation  of 
mind  regarding  his  vocation,  his  apparent  fickleness  of  purpose,  the  conflict  going  on  be 
tween  his  nature  craving  expression  and  the  world  with  its  imperious  demands,  the  stir 
ring  within  him  of  large  designs,  and  the  happy  contentment  in  the  pleasures  of  the  day, 
all  seek  outlet  in  his  natural  yet  uneasy  letters.  He  was  finding  himself  in  these  early 
days,  as  many  another  young  man,  and  there  are  glimpses  all  through  Lowell's  letters  of 
this  restlessness,  this  subtle  sense  of  one's  self  which  in  weaker  natures  hardens  into  a 
mordant  self-consciousness.  Now  and  then  he  turns  upon  himself  in  a  sort  of  mingled 
pride  and  shame,  as  if  at  once  aware  of  his  power  and  angry  that  he  has  it  not  wholly  at 
his  beck.  But  for  the  most  part  one  is  aware  of  a  nature  singularly  at  one  with  life, 
and  finding  its  greatest  satisfaction  in  getting  at  the  world  through  the  reflection  of  the 
world  in  literature.  No  one  would  deny  that  Lowell  was  eminently  a  man  of  books,  but 
it  would  be  a  wholly  inadequate  phrase  which  described  him  as  a  bookish  man.  That  he 
was  at  home  in  a  library  his  early  letters  show  ;  but  they  show  also  how  even  then  he  read 
through  his  books  into  life,  and  interpreted  history  and  literature  by  means  of  an  innate 
spiritual  faculty  which  was  independent  of  intellectual  authority.  It  is  this  criticism  at 
first  hand,  this  swift,  direct  penetration  of  the  reality,  which  mark  emphatically  what  I 
have  characterized  as  Lowell's  self-centred  nature.  He  has  told  us  that  his  brain  re 
quired  a  long  brooding  time  ere  it  could  hatch  anything.  He  was  speaking  of  the  matter 
of  expression;  but  the  phrase  is  a  fit  one  for  his  habitual  temper.  The  superficial  charge 
of  indolence  could  apply  only  to  his  apparent  disregard  of  bustling  activity.  His  nature 
was  of  the  sort  that  knows  the  power  of  stillness,  and  though  he  upbraids  himself  in  his 
letters  for  his  unproductiveness  at  times,  he  had  plainly  the  instinct  which  waits  on  op 
portunity.  His  faculty  of  observation  was  very  strong,  but  it  was  no  stronger  than  his 
power  of  assimilation  ;  and  thus  it  was  that  when  opportunity  came  he  had  not  hur 
riedly  to  adjust  himself  to  the  situation. 

It  was  while  he  was  engaged  with  his  books  and  his  friends,  professing  law  but  prac- 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH  xiii 

tising  literature  in  the  way  of  poetical  and  prose  contributions  to  the  magazines,  that  he 
was  roused  out  of  his  dreams  by  the  prick  of  necessity  in  the  sudden  loss  by  his  father 
of  much  of  his  property,  and  by  the  impulse  given  to  his  own  moral  force  by  the  coming 
into  his  life  of  Maria  White.  He  became  engaged  to  this  lady  in  the  fall  of  1840,  and 
the  next  twelve  years  of  his  life  were  profoundly  affected  by  her  influence.  Herself  a 
poet  of  delicate  power,  she  brought  an  intelligent  sympathy  with  his  work  ;  it  was,  how 
ever,  her  strong  moral  enthusiasm,  her  lofty  conception  of  purity  and  justice,  which 
kindled  his  spirit  and  gave  force  and  direction  to  a  character  which  was  ready  to  respond 
and  yet  might  otherwise  have  delayed  active  expression.  They  were  not  married  until 
1844,  but  they  were  not  far  apart  in  their  homes,  and  during  these  years  Lowell  was 
making  those  early  ventures  in  literature,  and  first  raids  upon  political  and  moral  evil, 
which  foretold  the  direction  of  his  later  work,  and  gave  some  hint  of  its  abundance. 

In  1841  he  collected  the  poems  which  he  had  written  and  sometimes  contributed  to 
periodicals  into  a  volume  entitled  A  Year's  Life,  and  inscribed  in  a  veiled  dedication  to 
his  future  wife.  In  hopes  of  bettering  his  fortune,  and  in  obedience  to  the  instinct  which 
most  young  men  of  letters  have,  he  undertook  with  Robert  Carter  the  publication  of  a 
literary  journal,  The  Pioneer,  which  died  under  their  inexperienced  hands  with  the  third 
number,  but  in  those  had  printed  contributions  by  Lowell,  Hawthorne,  Whittier,  Story, 
Poe,  and  Dr.  Parsons,  —  a  group  which  it  would  be  hard  to  match  in  any  of  the  little 
magazines  that  hop  across  the  world's  path  to-day.  He  began  also  to  turn  his  studies 
in  dramatic  and  early  poetic  literature  to  account,  and,  after  printing  a  portion  of  them  in 
Nathan  Hale's  Miscellany,  published,  in  1844,  Conversations  on  some  of  the  Old  Poets.  He 
did  not  keep  this  book  alive  ;  but  it  is  interesting  as  marking  the  enthusiasm  of  a  young 
scholar  treading  a  way  then  almost  wholly  neglected  in  America,  and  indicating  a  line  of 
thought  and  study  in  which  he  afterwards  made  most  noteworthy  venture.  In  the  same 
year  he  again  collected  his  poetic  work  into  a  volume  of  Poems.  The  difference  be 
tween  the  two  volumes  of  poems,  though  separated  by  three  years  only,  is  marked.  Few 
of  the  verses  from  A  Year's  Life  are  included  in  the  poet's  final  collection  of  his  writ 
ings,  few  are  omitted  from  Poems.  One  poem  in  the  earlier  volume,  Irene,  is  con 
spicuous  as  a  poetic  portrait  of  the  figure  of  peace  which  had  come  into  his  somewhat 
turbulent  spiritual  life  ;  but  the  volume  as  a  whole  is  characterized  by  vague  sentimen- 
talism  and  restless  beating  of  half-grown  wings.  Three  years  later,  some  of  this  same 
immaturity  is  discoverable,  but  along  with  the  poems  which  wander  in  somewhat 
unmeaning  ways  are  those  spirited  adventures  like  "  Rhoecus,"  "  The  Shepherd  of  King 
Admetus,"  and  "  Prometheus,"  which  denote  the  growing  consciousness  of  positive  poetic 
power,  and  also  those  stirring  Sonnets  to  Wendell  Phillips  and  J.  R.  Giddings,  and  the 
lines  entitled  "  A  Glance  behind  the  Curtain,"  which  disclose  a  new  passion  leaping  up  as 
the  champion  of  truth  and  righteousness.  It  is  noticeable,  too,  that  in  the  first  volume 
there  is  no  trace  of  humor  and  scarcely  any  singular  felicity  of  phrase  ;  in  the  second,  wit 
and  humor  begin  to  play  a  little  on  the  surface.  In  Conversations,  where  the  familiar 
form  gives  freer  scope,  there  is  a  gayety  of  speech  which  intimates  the  spontaneity  of  the 
man  and  anticipates  the  rich  fruitage  of  later  years.  In  all  these  books,  however,  there 
is  good  evidence  of  the  rapid  growth  which  was  taking  place  in  Lowell's  intellectual  and 
moral  life,  a  coming  to  his  own  which  it  would  take  only  some  strong  occasion  to  make 
sure. 

This  occasion  was  the  Mexican  War,  with  the  greater  contest  which  flamed  up  with  it 
over  the  encroachments  of  slavery.  Lowell  and  his  wife,  who  brought  a  fervid  anti- 
slavery  temper  as  part  of  her  marriage  portion,  were  both  contributors  to  the  Liberty  Bellt 


xiv  JAMES   RUSSELL  LOWELL 


and  Lowell  was  a  frequent  contributor  to  the  Antislavery  Standard,  and  was  indeed  for  a 
while  a  corresponding  editor  ;  but  in  June,  1846,  there  appeared  one  day  in  the  Boston 
Courier  a  letter  purporting  to  be  from  Mr.  Ezekiel  Biglow  of  Jalaam  to  the  Hon.  Joseph 
T.  Buckingham,  editor  of  the  Boston  Courier,  enclosing  a  poem  of  his  son,  Mr.  Hosea  Big- 
low.  It  was  no  new  thing  to  seek  to  arrest  the  public  attention  with  the  vernacular 
applied  to  public  affairs.  Major  Jack  Downing  and  Sam  Slick  had  been  notable  exam 
ples,  and  they  had  many  imitators  ;  but  the  reader  who  laughed  over  the  racy  narrative 
of  the  unlettered  Ezekiel,  and  then  took  up  Hosea's  poem  and  caught  the  gust  of  Yankee 
wrath  and  humor  blown  fresh  in  his  face,  knew  that  he  was  in  with  the  appearance  of 
something  new  in  American  literature.  A  score  of  years  afterward,  when  introducing 
the  Second  Series  of  The  Biglow  Papers,  Lowell  confessed  that  when  he  wrote  this 
letter  and  poem  he  had  no  definite  plan,  and  no  intention  of  ever  writing  another.  It 
was  struck  out  from  him  by  the  revolt  of  his  nature  at  the  iniquity  of  slavery  and  the 
war  into  which  slavery  was  dragging  the  nation.  But  he  adds,  "The  success  of  my 
experiment  soon  began  not  only  to  astonish  me,  but  to  make  me  feel  the  responsibility  of 
knowing  that  I  held  in  my  hand  a  weapon,  instead  of  the  mere  fencing  stick  I  had  sup 
posed.  ...  If  I  put  on  the  cap  and  bells,  and  made  myself  one  of  the  court  fools  of 
King  Demos,  it  was  less  to  make  his  Majesty  laugh  than  to  win  a  passage  to  his  royal 
ears  for  certain  serious  things  which  I  had  deeply  at  heart." 

The  Biglow  Papers  not  only  gave  Lowell  to  himself  and  opened  the  flood  gates  of 
his  patriotism  and  his  noble  indignation  ;  they  gave  him  a  public,  and  thus  furnished  the 
complement  which  every  author  demands.  "  Very  far,"  he  says,  in  the  same  Introduc 
tion,  "  from  being  a  popular  author  under  my  own  name,  so  far,  indeed,  as  to  be  almost 
unread,  I  found  the  verses  of  my  pseudonym  copied  everywhere  ;  I  saw  them  pinned  up 
in  workshops  ;  I  heard  them  quoted  and  their  authorship  debated."  The  force  which  he 
displayed  in  these  satires  made  his  book  at  once  a  powerful  ally  of  a  sentiment  which 
heretofore  had  been  ridiculed  ;  it  turned  the  tables  and  put  Antislavery,  which  had  been 
fighting  sturdily  on  foot  with  pikes,  into  the  saddle,  and  gave  it  a  flashing  sabre.  For 
Lowell  himself  it  won  an  accolade  from  King  Demos.  He  rose  up  a  knight,  and  thence 
forth  possessed  a  freedom  which  was  a  freedom  of  nature,  not  a  simple  badge  of  service 
in  a  single  cause.  His  patriotism  and  moral  fervor  found  other  vents  in  later  life,  and 
he  never  laid  down  the  sword  which  he  then  took  up,  but  it  is  significant  of  the  stability 
of  his  genius  that  he  was  not  misled  by  the  sudden  distinction  which  came  to  him  into  a 
limitation  of  his  powers.  It  was  shortly  after  this  that  he  wrote,  in  one  of  those  poetic 
absences  from  his  every-day  life,  which  were  to  overtake  him  more  than  once  afterward, 
his  Vision  of  Sir  Launfal ;  and  the  exuberance  of  his  nature,  together  with  his  keen 
power  of  criticism,  found  expression  about  the  same  time  in  his  witty  Fable  for  Critics, 
in  which  he  hit  off,  with  a  rough  and  ready  wit,  the  characteristics  of  the  writers  of  the 
day,  not  forgetting  himself  in  these  lines  :  — 

There  is  Lowell,  who  's  striving  Parnassus  to  climb 
With  a  whole  bale  of  isms  tied  together  with  rhyme ; 
He  might  get  on  alone,  spite  of  brambles  and  boulders, 
But  he  can't  with  that  bundle  he  has  on  his  shoulders ; 
The  top  of  the  hill  he  will  ne'er  come  nigh  reaching 
Till  he  learns  the  distinction  'twixt  singing  and  preaching ; 
His  lyre  has  some  chords  that  would  ring  pretty  well, 
But  he  'd  rather  by  half  make  a  drum  of  the  shell, 
And  rattle  away  till  he  's  old  as  Methusalem, 
At  the  head  of  a  march  to  the  last  new  Jerusalem. 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH  xv 

This,  of  course,  is  but  a  half  serious  portrait  of  himself,  and  it  touches  but  a  single 
feature.  A  third  volume  of  Poems  appeared  in  the  same  year,  1848,  as  the  last  named. 

A  year  in  Europe,  1851-52,  with  his  wife,  whose  health  was  then  precarious,  stimulated 
his  scholarly  interests,  and  gave  substance  to  his  study  of  Dante  and  Italian  literature. 
In  October,  1853,  his  wife  died;  she  had  borne  him  four  children  :  the  first-born,  Blanche, 
died  in  infancy,  as  did  the  second,  Rose  ;  the  third,  Walter,  also  died  young;  the  fourth, 
a  daughter,  Mrs.  Burnett,  survived  her  parents.  In  1855  he  was  chosen  successor  to 
Mr.  Longfellow  as  Smith  Professor  of  the  French  and  Spanish  Languages  and  Litera 
tures,  and  Professor  of  Belles  Lettres  in  Harvard  College.  He  spent  two  years  in  Europe 
in  further  preparation  for  the  duties  of  his  office,  and  in  1857  was  again  established  in 
Cambridge  and  installed  in  his  academic  chair.  He  married  also  at  this  time  his  second 
wife,  Miss  Frances  Dunlap,  of  Portland,  Maine. 

Lowell  was  now  in  his  thirty-ninth  year.  As  a  scholar,  in  his  professional  work,  he 
had  acquired  a  knowledge  of  the  Romance  languages  and  was  an  adept  in  Old  French 
and  Provencal  poetry  ;  he  had  given  a  course  of  twelve  lectures  on  English  Poetry 
before  the  Lowell  Institute  in  Boston  which  had  made  a  strong  impression  on  the  com 
munity  ;  and  his  work  on  the  series  of  British  Poets  in  connection  with  Professor  Child, 
especially  his  biographical  sketch  of  Keats,  had  been  recognized  as  of  a  high  order. 
In  poetry  he  had  published  the  volumes  already  mentioned.  In  general  literature  he 
had  printed  in  magazines  the  papers  which  he  afterward  collected  into  his  volume  Fire 
side  Travels.  Not  long  after  he  entered  on  his  college  duties  The  Atlantic  Monthly  was 
started,  and  the  editorship  given  to  him.  For  the  details  of  the  office  he  had  little 
aptitude,  although  he  looked  keenly  after  nice  points  of  literary  finish  in  the  proof-read 
ing  ;  he  was  relieved  of  much  of  the  detail  by  his  active  assistant,  Mr.  F.  H.  Underwood, 
to  whom  the  inception  of  the  magazine  was  largely  due.  But  the  Atlantic  afforded  a 
good  outlet  for  his  literary  production,  and  though  he  held  the  editorship  but  a  little 
more  than  two  years  he  stamped  the  magazine  with  the  impress  of  his  high  ideals  in  lit 
erature  and  criticism  ;  his  selection  of  articles  was  judicious,  his  own  contributions  and 
criticism  were  full  of  life,  and  he  was  most  generous  in  his  critical  aid  to  contributors. 
In  1862  he  was  associated  with  Mr.  Charles  Eliot  Norton  in  the  conduct  of  The  North 
American  Review,  and  continued  in  this  charge  for  ten  years.  Much  of  his  prose  was 
contributed  to  this  periodical. 

These  twenty  years,  from  1857  to  1877,  were  the  most  productive  period  of  Lowell's 
literary  activity.  He  was  in  the  maturity  of  his  mental  power,  he  held  a  convenient 
position  in  University  life,  his  home  relations  were  congenial  and  stimulating,  and  his 
collegiate  work,  as  well  as  his  editorial  charge  successively  of  the  Atlantic  and  North 
American,  gave  him  a  needed  impulse  to  literary  effort.  During  this  period  appeared  the 
most  of  that  body  of  literary  history  and  criticism  which  marks  him  as  the  most  distin 
guished  of  American  critics.  Any  one  reading  the  titles  of  the  papers  which  comprise 
the  volumes  of  his  prose  writings  will  readily  see  how  much  literature,  and  especially 
poetic  literature,  occupied  his  attention.  Shakespeare,  Dryden,  Lessing,  Rousseau, 
Dante,  Spenser,  Wordsworth,  Milton,  Keats,  Carlyle,  Percival,  Thoreau,  Swinburne, 
Chaucer,  Emerson,  Pope,  Gray,  —  these  are  the  principal  subjects  of  his  prose,  and  the 
range  of  topics  indicates  the  catholicity  of  his  taste.  These  papers  are  the  rich  deposit 
of  a  mind  at  once  sympathetic  and  discriminating,  capable  of  enjoying  to  the  full  the 
varied  manifestations  of  life  in  literature,  and  combining  judicial  fairness  with  keen 
critical  insight. 

While  this  broad  stream  of  literary  criticism  was  flowing,  there  was  another  expression 


xvi  JAMES   RUSSELL  LOWELL 

of  Lowell's  nature,  never  divorced  from  this  love  of  letters,  —  a  criticism  of  life,  espe 
cially  as  it  took  form  in  contemporaneous  American  history.  The  period  which  I  have 
named  covered  the  preparation  for  the  war  for  the  Union,  that  war  itself,  and  the  recon 
struction  era  afterward,  and  the  expression  of  Lowell's  nature  in  its  attitude  toward 
the  whole  period  was  manifold.  The  volume  of  Political  Essays  contains  the  incisive 
papers  which  stung  the  irresolute  and  time-serving,  and  inspirited  the  ardent  lovers  of 
truth  and  liberty.  It  is  impossible  to  read  these  papers  now  without  admiration  for  the 
political  sagacity  of  the  writer,  —  a  sagacity  before  the  event,  not  after.  Every  page 
bears  witness  to  the  sanity  with  which  he  regarded  contemporaneous  affairs,  when  mad 
ness  seemed  the  most  natural  temper  in  the  world,  and  his  insight  of  human  nature  was 
that  of  a  poet  who  did  not  regard  his  power  of  vision  as  excluding  the  necessity  of  paying 
taxes.  History  has  been  supplying  foot-notes  to  these  pages,  with  the  result,  not  of  cor 
recting  the  text,  but  of  confirming  it. 

In  this  same  period  also  he  wrote  and  published  the  Second  Series  of  The  Biglow 
Papers,  and  used  his  satire  and  his  moral  indignation  with  a  depth  of  feeling  which  sur 
passed  that  shown  in  the  first  series,  a  little  to  the  detriment  thereby,  it  may  be,  of  the 
gaiety  of  the  humor.  In  truth,  strong  as  was  Lowell's  power  of  invective,  his  passion 
of  patriotism  found  this  vent  too  narrow  ;  there  was  a  large,  constructive  imagination 
at  work  on  the  great  theme  of  national  life,  which  found  fuller  expression  in  the  Odes 
which  the  Centennial  and  Commemorative  occasions  called  out.  Lowell  seized  these 
occasions  with  a  spirit  which  scarcely  needed  them,  and  merely  employed  them  as  fit 
opportunities  for  casting  in  large  moulds  the  great  thoughts  and  feelings  which  rose 
out  of  the  life  of  a  man  conscious  of  his  inheritance  in  a  noble  patrimony. 

It  was  at  the  close  of  this  period,  in  which  he  had  done  incalculable  service  to  the 
Republic,  that  Lowell  was  called  on  to  represent  the  country,  first  at  Madrid,  where  he 
was  sent  by  President  Hayes  in  1877,  and  afterwards  at  London,  to  which  he  was  trans 
ferred  in  1880.  He  had  a  good  knowledge  of  Spanish  language  and  literature  when  he 
went  to  Spain,  but  he  at  once  took  pains  to  make  his  knowledge  fuller  and  his  accent 
more  perfect,  so  that  he  could  have  intimate  relations  with  the  best  Spanish  men  of 
the  time.  In  England  he  was  at  once  a  most  welcome  guest,  and  a  most  effective 
public  speaker.  Eight  years  were  thus  spent  by  him  in  the  foreign  service  of  the  coun 
try.  His  sole  participation  in  practical  politics,  as  the  term  is,  up  to  this  time  had  been 
to  attend  a  national  convention  once  as  delegate,  and  to  have  his  name  used  as  Presiden 
tial  Elector.  To  the  minds  of  many  of  his  countrymen  he  seemed  doubtless  a  dilettante 
in  politics.  Special  preparation  in  diplomacy  he  had  not,  but  he  had  what  was  more 
fundamental,  a  large  nature  enriched  by  a  familiar  intercourse  with  great  minds,  and  so 
sane,  so  sound  in  its  judgment,  that  whether  he  was  engaged  in  determining  a  reading  in 
an  Elizabethan  dramatist  or  in  deciding  to  which  country  an  Irish  colossus  belonged,  he 
was  bringing  his  whole  nature  to  the  bench.  No  one  can  read  Lowell's  despatches  from 
Madrid  and  London  without  being  struck  by  his  sagacity,  his  readiness  in  emergencies, 
his  interest  in  and  quick  perception  of  the  political  situation  in  the  country  where  he  was 
resident,  and  his  unerring  knowledge  as  a  man  of  the  world.  Nor  could  Lowell  lay  aside 
in  his  official  communications  the  art  and  the  wit  which  were  native  to  him.  "  I  asked 
Lord  Lyons,"  he  writes  in  one  letter,  "  whether  he  did  not  think  suzerainty  might  be  de 
fined  as  '  leaving  to  a  man  the  privilege  of  carrying  the  saddle  and  bridle  after  you  have 
stolen  his  horse.'  He  assented." 

But  though  Lowell's  studies  and  experience  had  given  him  a  preparation  for  dealing 
with  diplomatic  questions,  the  firmness  with  which  he  held  his  political  faith  afforded  as 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH  xvii 

sure  a  preparation  for  that  more  significant  embassy  which  he  bore  from  the  American 
people  to  the  English.  Not  long  after  his  return  he  published  a  little  volume  containing 
the  more  important  speeches  which  he  had  made  while  in  England.  Most  of  them  had 
to  do  with  literature,  but  the  title-address  in  the  volume,  Democracy,  was  an  epigram 
matic  confession  of  political  faith  as  hopeful  as  it  was  wise  and  keen.  A  few  years  later 
he  gave  another  address  to  his  own  countrymen  on  "  The  Place  of  the  Independent  in 
Politics."  It  was  a  noble  apologia,  not  without  a  trace  of  discouragement  at  the  appar 
ently  sluggish  movement  of  the  recent  years,  but  with  that  faith  in  the  substance  of  his 
countrymen  which  gave  him  the  right  to  use  words  of  honest  scorn  and  warning.  What 
impresses  one  especially  in  reading  this  address,  remembering  the  thoughtless  gibes 
which  had  been  flung  at  this  patriot,  is  the  perfect  self-respect  with  which  he  defines  his 
position,  the  entire  absence  of  petty  retaliation  upon  his  aspersers,  the  kindliness  of  na 
ture,  the  charity,  in  a  word,  which  is  the  finest  outcome  of  a  strong  political  faith.  It 
must  have  been  galling  to  Lowell  to  find  himself  taunted  with  being  un-American.  He 
could  afford  to  meet  such  a  charge  with  silence,  but  he  answered  it  with  something  better 
than  silence  when  he  reprinted  in  a  volume  his  scattered  political  essays. 

The  public  life  of  Mr.  Lowell  made  him  more  of  a  figure  before  the  world.  He  re 
ceived  honors  from  societies  and  universities  ;  he  was  decorated  by  the  highest  honors 
which  Harvard  could  pay  officially,  and  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  St.  Andrews  and  Edin 
burgh,  and  Bologna,  gave  gowns.  He  established  warm  personal  relations  with  English 
men,  and  after  his  release  from  public  office  he  made  several  visits  to  England.  There, 
too,  was  buried  his  wife,  who  died  in  1885.  The  closing  years  of  his  life  in  his  own 
country,  though  touched  with  domestic  loneliness  and  diminished  by  growing  physical 
infirmities  that  predicted  his  death,  were  rich  also  with  the  continued  expression  of  his 
large  personality.  He  delivered  the  public  address  in  commemoration  of  the  250th  anni 
versary  of  the  founding  of  Harvard  University,  he  gave  a  course  of  lectures  on  the  Old 
English  Dramatists  before  the  Lowell  Institute,  he  collected  a  volume  of  his  poems,  he 
spoke  and  wrote  on  public  affairs,  and  the  year  before  his  death  revised,  rearranged,  and 
carefully  edited  a  definitive  series  of  his  writings  in  ten  volumes.  Since  his  death  three 
small  volumes  have  been  added  to  his  collected  writings,  and  Mr.  Norton  has  published 
Letters  of  James  Russell  Lowell  in  two  volumes. 

For  anything  like  an  adequate  apprehension  of  Lowell's  rich  nature,  the  reader  unac 
quainted  with  him  during  his  lifetime,  needs  to  read  these  Letters  and  the  whole  body 
of  his  prose  and  poetry;  a  nature  at  once  so  spontaneous  and  so  lavish  of  its  best  gifts 
is  not  to  be  bounded  by  the  arbitrary  limits  of  a  biography,  brief  or  extended.  Yet  the 
poems  alone  as  contained  in  this  volume  do  much  to  reveal  to  the  attentive  reader  the 
personality  of  their  author.  He  was  the  most  companionable  of  men,  and  shared  his 
large  gifts  with  chance  acquaintance  so  freely  that  one  sometimes  wondered  what  he 
saved  for  more  intimate  friends  ;  and  yet  his  fine  reserve  was  apparent  even  to  those 
who  knew  him  best.  The  humor  which  underlies  so  much  even  of  his  stately  verse  was 
a  constant  quantity  in  his  temperament,  closely  allied  with  shrewd  sagacity;  the  senti 
ment  and  fancy  which  find  expression  sometimes  in  an  entire  poem,  more  often  in  phrase 
and  line,  played  about  his  conversation  in  familiar  intercourse;  but  as  his  verse  when 
read  in  its  fulness  is  charged  with  noble  passion  and  with  an  imagination  in  which 
human  experience  and  personal  emotion  are  fused  in  a  high  ideal,  so  no  one  could  long 
be  with  the  poet  without  recognizing  that  he  was  in  the  presence  of  a  character  which 
combined  the  unflinching  earnestness  of  the  Puritan  with  the  mellowness  of  a  man  of  the 
great  world.  H.  E.  S. 


EARLIER   POEMS 


THE  first  book  of  poetry  issued  by  Lowell, 
if  we  except  the  pamphlet  containing  his  Class 
Poem,  was  A  Year's  Life,  published  in  1841 
by  C.  C.  Little  and  J.  Brown,  Boston.  It  con 
tained  thirty-two  poems  and  songs  and  thirty- 
five  sonnets,  besides  a  Venvoi  headed  "  Goe,  Lit 
tle  Booke,"  and  a  dedication  addressed,  though 
not  formally,  to  Miss  Maria  White,  to  whom 
he  had  become  engaged  in  the  fall  of  1840. 

The  gentle  Una  I  have  loved, 

The  snowy  maiden,  pure  and  mild, 

Since  ever  by  her  side  I  roved 

Through  ventures  strange,  a  wondering  child, 

In  fantasy  a  Red  Cross  Knight 

Burning  for  her  dear  sake  to  fight. 

If  there  be  one  who  can,  like  her, 
Make  sunshine  in  life's  shady  places, 
One  in  whose  holy  bosom  stir 
Aa  many  gentle  household  graces,  — 
And  such  I  think  there  needs  must  be,  — 
Will  she  accept  this  book  from  me  ? 

The  poems  which  filled  the  volume  had 
appeared  in  The  Knickerbocker,  The  Southern 
Literary  Messenger,  and  some  of  the  Boston 


newspapers.  How  little  value  the  author  set 
upon  the  contents  of  this  first  volume  is  evident 
when  one  discovers  that  on  making  his  first 
general  collection  of  poems  in  1849,  he  retained 
but  seven  of  those  printed  in  A  Year's  Life. 
He  continued  to  contribute  to  the  magazines 
of  his  time,  especially  to  The  Democratic  Re 
view,  Graham's  Magazine,  The  Boston  Miscel 
lany,  and  The  Pioneer,  the  last  named  being  a 
very  short-lived  magazine  which  he  conducted 
in  company  with  Mr.  Robert  Carter,  and  in 
1843  he  issued  a  second  volume  of  Poems,  in 
which  he  gathered  the  product  of  the  inter 
vening  time,  whether  printed  or  in  manuscript. 
The  division  Earlier  Poems,  first  used  in  the 
collection  dated  1877,  contains  but  seven  of 
the  poems,  two  of  them  being  sonnets  included 
in  A  Yearns  Life.  Of  the  thirty-five  poems  and 
thirty-seven  sonnets  printed  in  the  1843  volume 
of  Poems,  seven  poems  and  thirteen  sonnets 
were  silently  dropped  from  later  collections, 
and  the  poems  included  in  the  two  volumes 
were  distributed  mainly  between  the  two  di 
visions  Earlier  Poems  and  Miscellaneous  Poems. 


THRENODIA 

As  first  printed  in  The  Knickerbocker  maga 
zine  for  May,  1839,  this  poem  bore  the  title 
Threnodia  on  an  Infant,  and  was  signed  H.  P., 
the  initials  for  Hugh  Perceval,  a  pseudonym 
which  Lowell  used  occasionally  at  the  outset 
of  his  career.  In  a  letter  to  G.  B.  Loring,  upon 
the  appearance  of  the  poem,  Lowell  says  that 
his  brother  Robert  animadverted  on  the  irreg 
ular  metre  of  the  Threnodia  ;  "  but  as  I  think," 
he  adds,  "  very  unphilosophically  and  without 
much  perception  of  the  true  rules  of  poetry. 
In  my  opinion  no  verse  ought  to  be  longer 
than  the  writer  can  sensibly  make  it.  It  lias 
been  this  senseless  stretching  of  verses  to  make 
them  octo-  or  deka-syllabic  or  what  not,  that 
has  brought  such  an  abundance  of  useless  epi 
thets  on  the  shoulders  of  poor  English  verse." 

GONE,  gone  from  us  !  and  shall  we  see 
Those  sibyl-leaves  of  destiny, 
Those  calm  eyes,  nevermore  ? 


Those  deep,  dark  eyes  so  warm  and  bright, 

Wherein  the  fortunes  of  the  man 

Lay  slumbering  in  prophetic  light, 

In  characters  a  child  might  scan  ? 

So  bright,  and  gone  forth  utterly  ! 

Oh  stern  word  —  Nevermore  ! 

The  stars  of  those  two  gentle  eyes 
Will  shine  no  more  on  earth; 
Quenched   are   the   hopes  that  had  their 

birth, 

As  we  watched  them  slowly  rise, 
Stars  of  a  mother's  fate; 
And  she  would  read  them  o'er  and  o'er, 
Pondering,  as  she  sate, 
Over  their  dear  astrology, 
Which  she  had  conned  and  conned  before, 
Deeming  she  needs  must  read  aright 
What  was  writ  so  passing  bright. 
And  yet,  alas  !  she  knew  not  why, 
Her  voice  would  falter  in  its  song, 


EARLIER   POEMS 


And  tears  would  slide  from  out  her  eye, 
Silent,  as  they  were  doing  wrong. 
Oh  stern  word  —  Nevermore  ! 

The  tongue  that  scarce  had  learned  to 

claim 

An  entrance  to  a  mother's  heart 
By  that  dear  talisman,  a  mother's  name, 
Sleeps  all  forgetful  of  its  art ! 
I  loved  to  see  the  infant  soul 
(How  mighty  in  the  weakness 
Of  its  untutored  meekness  !) 
Peep  timidly  from  out  its  nest, 
His  lips,  the  while, 
Fluttering  with  half-fledged  words, 
Or  hushing  to  a  smile 
That  more  than  words  expressed, 
When  his  glad  mother  on  him  stole 
And  snatched  him  to  her  breast ! 
Oh,  thoughts  were  brooding  in  those  eyes, 
That  would  have  soared  like  strong-winged 

birds 

Far,  far  into  the  skies, 
Gladding  the  earth  with  song, 
And  gushing  harmonies, 
Had  he  but  tarried  with  us  long  1 
Oh  stern  word  —  Nevermore  ! 

How  peacefully  they  rest, 
Crossfolded  there 
Upon  his  little  breast, 
Those  small,  white  hands  that  ne'er  were 

still  before, 

But  ever  sported  with  his  mother's  hair, 
Or  the  plain  cross  that  on  her  breast  she 

wore  ! 

Her  heart  no  more  will  beat 
To  feel  the  touch  of  that  soft  palm, 
That  ever  seemed  a  new  surprise 
Sending  glad  thoughts  up  to  her  eyes 
To  bless  him  with  their  holy  calm,  — 
Sweet   thoughts  !    they  made  her  eyes   as 

sweet. 

How  quiet  are  the  hands 
That  wove  those  pleasant  bands  ! 
But  that  they  do  not  rise  and  sink 
With  his  calm  breathing,  I  should  think 
That  he  were  dropped  asleep. 
Alas  !  too  deep,  too  deep 
Is  this  his  slumber  ! 
Time  scarce  can  number 
The  years  ere  he  shall  wake  again. 
Oh,  may  we  see  his  eyelids  open  then  ! 
Oh  stern  word  —  Nevermore  ! 


As  the  airy  gossamere, 
Floating  in  the  sunlight  clear, 
Where'er  it  toucheth  clingeth  tightly, 
Round  glossy  leaf  or  stump  unsightly, 
So  from  his  spirit  wandered  out 
Tendrils  spreading  all  about, 
Knitting  all  things  to  its  thrall 
With  a  perfect  love  of  all: 
Oh  stern  word  —  Nevermore  ! 

He  did  but  float  a  little  way 
Adown  the  stream  of  time, 
With   dreamy  eyes  watching  the   ripples 

play, 

Or  hearkening  their  fairy  chime; 
His  slender  sail 
Ne'er  felt  the  gale; 
He  did  but  float  a  little  way, 
And,  putting  to  the  shore 
While  yet  't  was  early  day, 
Went  calmly  on  his  way, 
To  dwell  with  us  no  more  ! 
No  jarring  did  he  feel, 
No  grating  on  his  shallop's  keel; 
A  strip  of  silver  sand 
Mingled  the  waters  with  the  land 
Where  he  was  seen  no  more: 
Oh  stern  word  —  Nevermore  ! 

Full  short  his  journey  was;  no  dust 
Of  earth  unto  his  sandals  clave; 
The  weary  weight  that  old  men  must, 
He  bore  not  to  the  grave. 
He  seemed  a  cherub  who  had  lost  his  way 
And  wandered  hither,  so  his  stay 
With  us  was  short,  and  't  was  most  meet 
That  he  should  be  no  delver  in  earth's  clod, 
Nor  need  to  pause  and  cleanse  his  feet 
To  stand  before  his  God: 
Oh  blest  word  —  Evermore  ! 


THE    SIRENS 

This  poem  in  A  Year's  Life  is  dated  Nan- 
tasket,  July,  1840. 

THE  sea  is  lonely,  the  sea  is  dreary, 
The  sea  is  restless  and  uneasy; 
Thou  seekest  quiet,  thou  art  weary, 
Wandering  thou  knowest  not  whither;  — 
Our  little  isle  is  green  and  breezy, 
Come  and  rest  thee  !     Oh  come  hither, 
Come  to  this  peaceful  home  of  ours, 
Where  evermore 


THE   SIRENS 


The  low  west-wind  creeps  panting  up  the 

shore 

To  be  at  rest  among  the  flowers; 
Full  of  rest,  the  green  moss  lifts, 

As  the  dark  waves  of  the  sea 
Draw  in  and  out  of  rocky  rifts, 

Calling  solemnly  to  thee 
With  voices  deep  and  hollow,  — 

"  To  the  shore 
Follow  !     Oh,  follow  ! 
To  be  at  rest  forevermore  ! 
Forevermore  ! " 

Look  how  the  gray  old  Ocean 
From  the  depth  of  his  heart  rejoices, 
Heaving  with  a  gentle  motion, 
When  he  hears  our  restful  voices; 
List  how  he  sings  in  an  undertone, 
Chiming  with  our  melody; 
And  all  sweet  sounds  of  earth  and  air 
Melt  into  one  low  voice  alone, 
That  murmurs  over  the  weary  sea, 
And  seems  to  sing  from  everywhere,  — 
"  Here  mayst  thou  harbor  peacefully, 
Here  mayst  thou  rest  from  the  aching  oar; 

Turn  thy  curved  prow  ashore, 
And  in  our  green  isle  rest  forevermore  ! 

Forevermore  ! " 

And  Echo  half  wakes  in  the  wooded  hill, 
And,  to  her  heart  so  calm  and  deep, 
Murmurs  over  in  her  sleep, 
Doubtfully  pausing  and  murmuring  still, 
"  Evermore  ! " 

Thus,  on  Life's  weary  sea, 

Heareth  the  marinere 

Voices  sweet,  from  far  and  near, 

Ever  singing  low  and  clear, 

Ever  singing  longingly. 

Is  it  not  better  here  to  be, 
Than  to  be  toiling  late  and  soon  ? 
In  the  dreary  night  to  see 
Nothing  but  the  blood-red  moon 
Go  up  and  down  into  the  sea; 
Or,  in  the  loneliness  of  day, 

To  see  the  still  seals  only 
Solemnly  lift  their  faces  gray, 

Making  it  yet  more  lonely  ? 
Is  it  not  better  than  to  hear 
Only  the  sliding  of  the  wave 
Beneath  the  plank,  and  feel  so  near 
A  cold  and  lonely  grave, 
A  restless  grave,  where  thou  shalt  lie 
Even  in  death  unquietly  ? 
Look  down  beneath  thy  wave-worn  bark, 


Lean  over  the  side  and  see 
The  leaden  eye  of  the  sidelong  shark 

Upturned  patiently, 
Ever  waiting  there  for  thee: 
Look  down  and  see  those  shapeless  forms, 
Which  ever  keep  their  dreamless  sleep 
Far  down  within  the  gloomy  deep, 
And  only  stir  themselves  in  storms, 
Rising  like  islands  from  beneath, 
And  snorting  through  the  angry  spray, 
As  the  frail  vessel  perisheth 
In  the  whirls  of  their  unwieldy  play; 

Look  down  !     Look  down  ! 
Upon  the  seaweed,  slimy  and  dark, 
That  waves  its  arms  so  lank  and  brown, 

Beckoning  for  thee  ! 
Look  down  beneath  thy  wave- worn  bark 

Into  the  cold  depth  of  the  sea  ! 
Look  down  !     Look  down  ! 
Thus,  on  Life's  lonely  sea, 
Heareth  the  marinere 
Voices  sad,  from  far  and  near, 
Ever  singing  full  of  fear, 
Ever  singing  dreadfully. 

Here  all  is  pleasant  as  a  dream; 
The  wind  scarce  shaketh  down  the  dew, 
The  green  grass  floweth  like  a  stream 
Into  the  ocean's  blue ; 

Listen  !     Oh,  listen  ! 
Here  is  a  gush  of  many  streams, 

A  song  of  many  birds, 
And  every  wish  and  longing  seems 
Lulled  to  a  numbered  flow  of  words,  — 

Listen  !     Oh,  listen  ! 
Here  ever  hum  the  golden  bees 
Underneath  full-blossomed  trees, 
At  once  with   glowing   fruit   and  flowers 

crowned;  — 

So  smooth  the  sand,  the  yellow  sand, 
That  thy  keel  will  not  grate  as  it  touches 

the  land; 

All  around  with  a  slumberous  sound, 
The  singing  waves  slide  up  the  strand, 
And  there,  where  the  smooth,  wet  pebbles  be, 
The  waters  gurgle  longingly, 
As  if  they  fain  would  seek  the  shore, 
To  be  at  rest  from  the  ceaseless  roar, 
To  be  at  rest  forevermore,  — 

Forevermore. 

Thus,  on  Life's  gloomy  sea, 
Heareth  the  marinere 
Voices  sweet,  from  far  and  near, 
Ever  singing  in  his  ear, 
"  Here  is  rest  and  peace  for  thee  ! " 


EARLIER   POEMS 


IREN£ 

The  indirect  as  well  as  direct  references  to 
Maria  White  are  frequent  in  these  early  poems. 
Lowell,  in  a  letter  to  G.  B.  Loring  shortly  after 
this  poem  appeared,  wrote  :  "  Maria  fills  my 
ideal  and  I  satisfy  hers,  and  I  mean  to  live 
as  one  beloved  by  such  a  woman  should  live. 
She  is  every  way  noble.  People  have  called 
Irene  a  beautiful  piece  of  poetry.  And  so  it  is. 
It  owes  all  its  beauty  to  her." 

HERS  is  a  spirit  deep,  and  crystal-clear; 
Calmly  beneath  her  earnest  face  it  lies, 
Free   without    boldness,   meek  without   a 

fear, 

Quicker  to  look  than  speak  its  sympathies; 
Far  down  into  her  large  and  patient  eyes 
I  gaze,  deep-drinking  of  the  infinite, 
As,  in  the  mid-watch  of  a  clear,  still  night, 
I  look  into  the  fathomless  blue  skies. 

So  circled   lives   she   with   Love's   holy 

light, 
That  from  the  shade  of  self  she  walketh 

free; 

The  garden  of  her  soul  still  keepeth  she 
An  Eden  where  the  snake  did  never  enter; 
She  hath  a  natural,  wise  sincerity, 
A  simple  truthfulness,  and  these  have  lent 

her 

A  dignity  as  moveless  as  the  centre ; 
So  that  no  influence  of  our  earth  can  stir 
Her  steadfast  courage,  nor  can  take  away 
The  holy  peacefulness,    which  night   and 

day, 
Unto  her  queenly  soul  doth  minister. 

Most  gentle  is  she;  her  large  charity 
(An  all  unwitting,  childlike  gift  in  her) 
Not  freer  is  to  give  than  meek  to  bear; 
And,  though  herself  not  unacquaint  with 

care, 
Hath  in  her  heart  wide  room  for  all  that 

be,— 

Her  heart  that  hath  no  secrets  of  its  own, 
But  open  is  as  eglantine  full  blown. 
Cloudless  forever  is  her  brow  serene, 
Speaking  calm  hope  and  trust  within  her, 

whence 

Welleth  a  noiseless  spring  of  patience, 
That  keepeth  all  her  life  so  fresh,  so  green 
And  full  of  holiness,  that  every  look, 
The  greatness  of  her  woman's  soul  reveal 
ing, 


Unto  me  bringeth  blessing,  and  a  feeling 
As  when  I  read  in  God's  own  holy  book. 

A  graciousness  in  giving  that  doth  make 
The    small'st   gift   greatest,   and   a  sense 

most  meek 

Of  worthiness,  that  doth  not  fear  to  take 
From   others,  but  which  always   fears   to 

speak 
Its   thanks   in   utterance,   for   the   giver's 

sake ; — 

The  deep  religion  of  a  thankful  heart, 
Which  rests  instinctively  in  Heaven's  clear 

law 

With  a  full  peace,  that  never  can  depart 
From  its  own  steadfastness ;  —  a  holy  awe 
For  holy   things,  —  not  those   which  men 

call  holy, 

But  such  as  are  revealed  to  the  eyes 
Of  a  true   woman's  soul   bent   down  and 

lowly 

Before  the  face  of  daily  mysteries;  — 
A    love   that    blossoms    soon,   but  ripens 

slowly 

To  the  full  goldenness  of  fruitful  prime, 
Enduring  with  a  firmness  that  defies 
All   shallow    tricks   of   circumstance    and 

time, 

By  a  sure  insight  knowing  where  to  cling, 
And  where  it  clingeth  never  withering;  — 
These  are  Irene"s  dowry,  which  no  fate 
Can  shake  from  their  serene,  deep-builded 

state. 

In-seeing  sympathy  is  hers,  which  clias- 

teneth 

No  less  than  loveth,  scorning  to  be  bound 
With  fear  of  blame,  and  yet   which  ever 

hasteneth 
To  pour  the   balm  of   kind  looks   on  the 

wound, 

If  they  be  wounds  which  such  sweet  teach 
ing  makes, 

Giving  itself  a  pang  for  others'  sakes; 
No  want  of  faith,  that  chills  with  sidelong 

eye, 

Hath  she  ;  no  jealousy,  no  Levite  pride 
That  passeth  by  upon  the  other  side; 
For  in  her  soul  there  never  dwelt  a  lie. 
Right  from  the   hand   of   God  her  spirit 

came 
Unstained,  and  she   hath   ne'er  forgotten 

whence 

It  came,  nor  wandered  far  from  thence, 
But  laboreth  to  keep  her  still  the  same, 


WITH    A    PRESSED    FLOWER 


Near  to  her  place  of  birth,  that  she  may 

not 
Soil  her   white   raiment   with   an   earthly 

spot. 

Yet  sets  she  not  her  soul  so  steadily 
Above,  that  she  forgets  her  ties  to  earth, 
But  her  whole  thought  would  almost  seem 

to  be 
How    to    make    glad    one    lowly    human 

hearth ; 

For  with  a  gentle  courage  she  doth  strive 
In  thought  and  word  and  feeling  so  to  live 
As  to  make  earth  next   heaven;    and  her 

heart 

Herein  doth  show  its  most  exceeding  worth, 
That,  bearing  in  our  frailty  her  just  part, 
She  hath  not  shrunk  from  evils  of  this  life, 
But  hath  gone  calmly  forth  into  the  strife, 
And  all  its  sins  and  sorrows  hath  withstood 
With  lofty  strength  of  patient  womanhood: 
For  this  I  love  her  great  soul  more  than 

all, 
That,  being  bound,  like   us,   with   earthly 

thrall, 

She  walks  so  bright  and  heaven-like  there 
in, — 
Too  wise,  too  meek,  too  womanly,  to  sin. 

Like  a  lone   star  through  riven   storm- 
clouds  seen 

By  sailors,  tempest-tost  upon  the  sea, 
Telling  of  rest  and  peaceful  heavens  nigh, 
Unto  my  soul  her  star-like  soul  hath  been, 
Her  sight  as   full   of  hope   and  calm   to 

me;  — 

For  she  unto  herself  hath  builded  high 
A  home  serene,  wherein  to  lay  her  head, 
Earth's  noblest  thing,  a  Woman  perfected. 


SERENADE 

FROM  the  close-shut  windows  gleams  no 

spark, 

The  night  is  chilly,  the  night  is  dark, 
The  poplars  shiver,  the  pine-trees  moan, 
My  hair  by  the  autumn  breeze  is  blown, 
Under  thy  window  I  sing  alone, 
Alone,  alone,  ah  woe  !  alone  ! 

The  darkness  is  pressing  coldly  around, 
The  windows  shake  with  a  lonely  sound, 
The  stars  are  hid  and  the  night  is  drear, 
The  heart  of  silence  throbs  in  thine  ear, 


In  thy  chamber  thou  sittest  alone, 
Alone,  alone,  ah  woe  !  alone  ! 

The  world  is  happy,  the  world  is  wide, 
Kind  hearts  are  beating  on  every  side; 
Ah,  why  should  we  lie  so  coldly  curled 
Alone  in  the  shell  of  this  great  world  ? 
Why  should  we  any  more  be  alone  ? 
Alone,  alone,  ah  woe  !  alone  ! 

Oh,  't  is  a  bitter  and  dreary  word, 
The  saddest  by  man's  ear  ever  heard  ! 
We  each  are  young,  we  each  have  a  heart,, 
Why  stand  we  ever  coldly  apart  ? 
Must  we  forever,  then,  be  alone  ? 
Alone,  alone,  ah  woe  !  alone  ! 


WITH   A   PRESSED   FLOWER 

THIS  little  blossom  from  afar 
Hath  come  from  other  lands  to  thine; 
For,  once,  its  white  and  drooping  star 
Could  see  its  shadow  in  the  Rhine. 

Perchance  some  fair-haired  German  maid 
Hath  plucked  one  from  the  selfsame  stalk. 
And  numbered  over,  half  afraid, 
Its  petals  in  her  evening  walk. 

"He  loves  me,  loves  me  not,"  she  cries; 
"  He  loves  me  more  than  earth  or  heaven  ! " 
And  then  glad  tears  have  filled  her  eyes 
To  find  the  number  was  uneven. 

And  thou  must  count  its  petals  well, 
Because  it  is  a  gift  from  me; 
And  the  last  one  of  all  shall  tell 
Something  I  've  often  told  to  thee. 

But  here  at  home,  where  we  were  born, 
Thou  wilt  find  blossoms  just  as  true, 
Down-bending  every  summer  morn, 
With  freshness  of  New  England  dew. 

For  Nature,  ever  kind  to  love, 

Hath  granted  them  the  same  sweet  tongue, 

Whether  with  German  skies  above, 

Or  here  our  granite  rocks  among. 


THE   BEGGAR 

A  BEGGAR  through  the  world  am  I, 
From  place  to  place  I  wander  by. 


EARLIER  POEMS 


Fill  up  my  pilgrim's  scrip  for  me, 
For  Christ's  sweet  sake  and  charity  ! 

A  little  of  thy  steadfastness, 

Rounded  with  leafy  gracefulness, 

Old  oak,  give  me, 

That  the  world's  blasts  may  round  me  blow, 

And  I  yield  gently  to  and  fro, 

While  my  stout-hearted  trunk  below 

And  firm-set  roots  unshaken  be. 

Some  of  thy  stern,  unyielding  might, 
Enduring  still  through  day  and  night 
Rude  tempest-shock  and  withering  blight, 
That  I  may  keep  at  bay 
The  changeful  April  sky  of  chance 
And  the  strong  tide  of  circumstance,  — 
Give  me,  old  granite  gray. 

Some  of  thy  pensiveness  serene, 

Some  of  thy  never-dying  green, 

Put  in  this  scrip  of  mine, 

That  griefs  may  fall  like  snow-flakes  light, 

And  deck  me  in  a  robe  of  white, 

Ready  to  be  an  angel  bright, 

0  sweetly  mournful  pine. 

A  little  of  thy  merriment, 
Of  thy  sparkling,  light  content, 
Give  me,  my  cheerful  brook, 
That  I  may  still  be  full  of  glee 
And  gladsomeness,  where'er  I  be, 
Though  fickle  fate  hath  prisoned  me 
In  some  neglected  nook. 

Ye  have  been  very  kind  and  good 
To  me,  since  I  Ve  been  in  the  wood ; 
Ye  have  gone  nigh  to  fill  my  heart; 
But  good-by,  kind  friends,  every  one, 

1  've  far  to  go  ere  set  of  sun ; 

Of  all  good  things  I  would  have  part, 
The  day  was  high  ere  I  could  start, 
And  so  my  journey  's  scarce  begun. 

Heaven  help  me  !  how  could  I  forget 

To  beg  of  thee,  dear  violet ! 

Some  of  thy  modesty, 

That  blossoms  here  as  well,  unseen, 

As  if  before  the  world  thou  'dst  been, 

Oh,  give,  to  strengthen  me. 

MY    LOVE 

NOT  as  all  other  women  are 
Is  she  that  to  my  soul  is  dear; 


Her  glorious  fancies  come  from  far, 
Beneath  the  silver  evening-star, 
And  yet  her  heart  is  ever  near. 

Great  feelings  hath  she  of  her  own, 
Which  lesser  souls  may  never  know; 
God  giveth  them  to  her  alone, 
And  sweet  they  are  as  any  tone 
Wherewith  the  wind  may  choose  to  blow. 

Yet  in  herself  she  dwelleth  not, 
Although  no  home  were  half  so  fair; 
No  simplest  duty  is  forgot, 
Life  hath  no  dim  and  lowly  spot 
That  doth  not  in  her  sunshine  share. 

She  doeth  little  kindnesses, 

Which  most  leave  undone,  or  despise: 

For  naught  that  sets  one  heart  at  ease, 

And  giveth  happiness  or  peace, 

Is  low-esteemed  in  her  eyes. 

She  hath  no  scorn  of  common  things, 
And,  though  she  seem  of  other  birth, 
Round  us  her  heart  intwines  and  clings, 
And  patiently  she  folds  her  wings 
To  tread  the  humble  paths  of  earth. 

Blessing  she  is  :  God  made  her  so, 
And  deeds  of  week-day  holiness 
Fall  from  her  noiseless  as  the  snow, 
Nor  hath  she  ever  chanced  to  know 
That  aught  were  easier  than  to  bless. 

She  is  most  fair,  and  thereunto 
Her  life  doth  rightly  harmonize; 
Feeling  or  thought  that  was  not  true 
Ne'er  made  less  beautiful  the  blue 
Unclouded  heaven  of  her  eyes. 

She  is  a  woman:  one  in  whom 
The  spring-time  of  her  childish  years 
Hath  never  lost  its  fresh  perfume, 
Though  knowing  well  that  life  hath  room 
For  many  blights  and  many  tears. 

I  love  her  with  a  love  as  still 
As  a  broad  river's  peaceful  might, 
Which,  by  high  tower  and  lowly  mill, 
Seems  following  its  own  wayward  will, 
And  yet  doth  ever  flow  aright. 

And,  on  its  full,  deep  breast  serene, 

Like  quiet  isles  my  duties  lie; 

It  flows  around  them  and  between, 


SUMMER   STORM 


And  makes  them  fresh  and  fair  and  green, 
Sweet  homes  wherein  to  live  and  die. 


SUMMER  STORM 

UNTREMULOUS  in  the  river  clear, 
Toward  the  sky's  image,  hangs  the  imaged 

bridge; 

So  still  the  air  that  I  can  hear 
The  slender  clarion  of  the  unseen  midge; 
Out  of   the  stillness,  with  a  gathering 

creep, 

Like  rising  wind  in  leaves,  which  now  de 
creases, 
Now  lulls,  now  swells,  and  all  the  while 

increases, 
The    huddling   trample   of    a   drove   of 

sheep 

Tilts  the  loose  planks,  and  then  as  gradu 
ally  ceases 
In  dust  on  the  other  side  ;  life's  emblem 

deep, 

A  confused  noise  between  two  silences, 
Finding  at  last  in  dust  precarious  peace. 
On  the  wide  marsh  the  purple-blossomed 

grasses 

Soak  up  the  sunshine;  sleeps  the  brim 
ming  tide, 

Save  when  the  wedge-shaped  wake  in  si 
lence  passes 
Of  some  slow  water-rat,  whose  sinuous 

glide 
Wavers  the  sedge's  emerald   shade   from 

side  to  side; 

But  up  the  west,  like  a  rock-shivered  surge, 
Climbs  a  great  cloud  edged  with  sun- 
whitened  spray; 
Huge  whirls  of  foam  boil  toppling  o'er  its 

verge, 

And  falling  still  it   seems,  and  yet  it 
climbs  alway. 

Suddenly  all  the  sky  is  hid 
As  with  the  shutting  of  a  lid, 
One  by  one  great  drops  are  falling 

Doubtful  and  slow, 

Down  the  pane  they  are  crookedly  crawl 
ing, 

And  the  wind  breathes  low; 
Slowly  the  circles  widen  on  the  river, 

Widen  and  mingle,  one  and  all; 
Here    and    there    the  slenderer  flowers 

shiver, 
Struck  by  an  icy  rain-drop's  fall. 


Now  on  the  hills  I  hear  the  thunder  mutter, 

The  wind  is  gathering  in  the  west; 
The  upturned  leaves  first  whiten  and  flutter, 

Then  droop  to  a  fitful  rest; 
Up  from  the  stream  with  sluggish  flap 

Struggles  the  gull  and  floats  away; 
Nearer  and  nearer  rolls  the  thunder-clap,  — 
We  shall  not  see  the  sun  go  down  to-day: 
Now  leaps  the  wind  on  the  sleepy  marsh, 

And  tramples  the  grass  with  terrified  feet, 
The  startled  river  turns  leaden  and  harsh, 
You  can  hear  the  quick  heart  of  the 
tempest  beat. 

Look  !  look  !  that  livid  flash  ! 
And  instantly  follows  the  rattling  thunder, 
As  if  some  cloud-crag,  split  asunder, 

Fell,  splintering  with  a  ruinous  crash, 
On  the  Earth,  which  crouches  in  silence 

under; 

And  now  a  solid  gray  wall  of  rain 
Shuts  off  the  landscape,  mile  by  mile; 
For  a  breath's  space  I  see  the  blue  wood 

again, 

And   ere   the   next   heart-beat,  the   wind- 
hurled  pile, 

That  seemed  but  now  a  league  aloof, 
Bursts   crackling  o'er   the    sun-parched 

roof; 

Against  the  windows  the  storm  comes  dash 
ing, 

Through  tattered  foliage  the  hail    tears 
crashing, 

The  blue  lightning  flashes, 
The  rapid  hail  clashes, 
The  white  waves  are  tumbling, 

And,  in  one  baffled  roar, 
Like  the  toothless  sea  mumbling 

A  rock-bristled  shore, 
The  thunder  is  rumbling 
And  crashing  and  crumbling,  — 
Will  silence  return  nevermore  ? 

Hush  !     Still  as  death, 
The  tempest  holds  his  breath 
As  from  a  sudden  will; 
The  rain  stops  short,  but  from  the  eaves 
You  see  it  drop,  and  hear  it  from  the 


All  is  so  bodingly  still; 

Again,  now,  now,  again 

Plashes  the  rain  in  heavy  goutSj 

The  crinkled  lightning 

Seems  ever  brightening, 

And  loud  and  long 


3 


EARLIER   POEMS 


Again  the  thunder  shouts 
His  battle-song,  — 
One  quivering  flash, 
One  wildering  crash, 
Followed  by  silence  dead  and  dull, 
As  if  the  cloud,  let  go, 
Leapt  bodily  below 

To   whelm  the   earth  in   one   mad   over 
throw, 
And  then  a  total  lull. 

Gone,  gone,  so  soon  ! 
No  more  my  half-dazed  fancy  there, 
Can  shape  a  giant  in  the  air, 
No  more  I  see  his  streaming  hair, 
The  writhing  portent  of  his  form;  — 

The  pale  and  quiet  moon 
Makes  her  calm  forehead  bare, 
And  the  last  fragments  of  the  storm, 
Like  shattered  rigging  from  a  fight  at  sea, 
Silent  and  few,  are  drifting  over  me. 


LOVE 

TRUE  Love  is  but    a    humble,   low-born 

thing, 
And  hath  its  food   served   up   in   earthen 

ware; 

It  is  a  thing  to  walk  with,  hand  in  hand, 
Through  the   everydayness  of   this  work 
day  world, 

Baring  its  tender  feet  to  every  flint, 
Yet  letting  not  one  heart-beat  go  astray 
From  Beauty's  law  of  plainness  and  con 
tent; 

A  simple,  fireside  thing,  whose  quiet  smile 
Can  warm  earth's  poorest  hovel  to  a  home ; 
Which,  when  our  autumn  cometh,  as  it 

must, 
And  life  in  the  chill  wind  shivers  bare  and 

leafless, 
Shall   still   be   blest   with    Indian-summer 

youth 
In  bleak   November,   and,    with  thankful 

heart, 

Smile  on  its  ample  stores  of  garnered  fruit, 
As  full  of  sunshine  to  our  aged  eyes 
As  when  it   nursed   the    blossoms   of   our 

spring. 
Such  is  true  Love,  which  steals  into  the 

heart 

With  feet  as  silent  as  the  lightsome  dawn 
That  kisses  smooth  the  rough  brows  of  the 
dark. 


And  hath  its  will  through  blissful  gentle 
ness, 
Not  like  a  rocket,  which,  with  passionate 

glare, 
Whirs  suddenly  up,  then  bursts,  and  leaves 

the  night 

Painfully  quivering  on  the  dazed  eyes; 
A  love  that  gives   and   takes,   that  seeth 

faults, 
Not   with    flaw-seeking   eyes    like   needle 

points, 

But  loving-kindly  ever  looks  them  down 
With  the    o'ercomiug  faith  that  still  for 
gives; 
A  love  that  shall  be  new   and  fresh  each 

hour, 

As  is  the  sunset's  golden  mystery, 
Or  the  sweet  coming  of  the  evening-star, 
Alike,  and  yet  most  unlike,  every  day, 
And  seeming  ever  best  and  fairest  now; 
A  love  that  doth   not  kneel   for   what   it 

seeks, 

But  faces  Truth  and  Beauty  as  their  peer, 
Showing  its  worthiness  of  noble  thoughts 
By  a  clear  sense  of  inward  nobleness; 
A  love  that  in  its  object  findeth  not 
All  grace  and  beauty,  and  enough  to  sate 
Its  thirst  of  blessing,  but,  in  all  of  good 
Found  there,  sees  but  the  Heaven-implanted 

types 

Of  good  and  beauty  in  the  soul  of  man, 
And  traces,  in  the  simplest  heart  that  beats, 
A  family-likeness  to  its  chosen  one, 
That  claims  of  it  the  rights  of  brotherhood. 
For  love  is  blind  but  with  the  fleshly  eye, 
That  so  its  inner  sight  may  be  more  clear; 
And  outward  shows  of  beauty  only  so 
Are  needful  at  the  first,  as  is  a  hand 
To  guide  and  to  uphold  an  infant's  steps: 
Fine  natures  need  them  not:  their  earnest 

look 

Pierces  the  body's  mask  of  thin  disguise, 
And  beauty  ever  is  to  them  revealed, 
Behind  the  unshapeliest,  meanest  lump  of 

clay, 
With   arms   outstretched   and   eager  face 

ablaze, 
Yearning  to  be  but  understood  and  loved. 


TO    PERDITA,   SINGING 

THY  voice  is  like  a  fountain, 

Leaping  up  in  clear  moonshine; 
Silver,  silver,  ever  mounting, 


THE   MOON 


Ever  sinking, 
Without  thinking, 
To  that  brimful  heart  of  thine. 
Every  sad  and  happy  feeling, 
Thou  hast  had  in  bygone  years, 
Through  thy  lips  comes  stealing,  stealing, 

Clear  and  low; 

All  thy  smiles  and  all  thy  tears 
In  thy  voice  awaken, 
And  sweetness,  wove  of  joy  and  woe, 
From  their  teaching  it  hath  taken: 
Feeling  and  music  move  together, 
Like  a  swan  and  shadow  ever 
Floating  on  a  sky-blue  river 
In  a  day  of  cloudless  weather. 

It  hath  caught  a  touch  of  sadness, 

Yet  it  is  not  sad; 
It  hath  tones  of  clearest  gladness, 

Yet  it  is  not  glad; 
A  dim,  sweet  twilight  voice  it  is 

Where  to-day's  accustomed  blue 
Is  over-grayed  with  memories, 

With  starry  feelings  quivered  through. 

Thy  voice  is  like  a  fountain 
Leaping  up  in  sunshine  bright, 

And  I  never  weary  counting 
Its  clear  droppings,  lone  and  single, 
Or  when  in  one  full  gush  they  mingle, 

Shooting  in  melodious  light. 

Thine  is  music  such  as  yields 
Feelings  of  old  brooks  and  fields, 
And,  around  this  pent-up  room, 
Sheds  a  woodland,  free  perfume; 

Oh,  thus  forever  sing  to  me  ! 

Oh,  thus  forever ! 
The  green,  bright  grass  of  childhood  bring 

to  me, 

Flowing  like  an  emerald  river, 
And  the  bright  blue  skies  above  ! 
Oh,  sing  them  back,  as  fresh  as  ever, 
Into  the  bosom  of  my  love,  — 
The  sunshine  and  the  merriment, 
The  unsought,  evergreen  content, 

Of  that  never  cold  time, 
The  joy,  that,  like  a  clear  breeze,  went 

Through  and  through  the  old  time  ! 

Peace  sits  within  thine  eyes, 

With  white  hands  crossed  in  joyful  rest, 
While,  through  thy  lips  and  face,  arise 
The  melodies  from  out  thy  breast; 
She  sits  and  sings, 


With  folded  wings 

And  white  arms  crost, 
"  Weep  not  for  bygone  things, 

They  are  not  lost: 
The  beauty  which  the  summer  time 
O'er  thine  opening  spirit  shed, 
The  forest  oracles  sublime 
That  filled  thy  soul  with  joyous  dread, 
The  scent  of  every  smallest  flower 
That  made  thy  heart  sweet  for  an  hour, 
Yea,  every  holy  influence, 
Flowing  to  thee,  thou  knewest  not  whence, 
In  thine  eyes  to-day  is  seen, 
Fresh  as  it  hath  ever  been; 
Promptings  of  Nature,  beckonings  sweet, 
Whatever  led  thy  childish  feet, 
Still  will  linger  unawares 
The  guiders  of  thy  silver  hairs; 
Every  look  and  every  word 
Which  thou  givest  forth  to-day, 
Tell  of  the  singing  of  the  bird 
Whose  music  stilled  thy  boyish  play." 

Thy  voice  is  like  a  fountain, 
Twinkling  up  in  sharp  starlight, 
When  the  moon  behind  the  mountain 
Dims  the  low  East  with  faintest  white, 
Ever  darkling, 
Ever  sparkling, 

We  know  not  if  't  is  dark  or  bright; 
But,  when  the  great  moon  hath  rolled  round, 

And,  sudden-slow,  its  solemn  power 
Grows  from  behind  its  black,  clear-edged 

bound, 

No  spot  of  dark  the  fountain  keepeth, 
But,  swift  as  opening  eyelids,  leapeth 
Into  a  waving  silver  flower. 


THE    MOON 

MY  soul  was  like  the  sea, 

Before  the  moon  was  made, 
Moaning  in  vague  immensity, 

Of  its  own  strength  afraid, 

Unrestful  and  unstaid. 
Through  every  rift  it  foamed  in  vain, 

About  its  earthly  prison, 
Seeking  some  unknown  thing  in  pain, 
And  sinking  restless  back  again, 

For  yet  no  moon  had  risen: 
Its  only  voice  a  vast  dumb  moan, 

Of  utterless  anguish  speaking, 
It  lay  unhopefully  alone, 

And  lived  but  in  an  aimless  seeking. 


TO 


EARLIER   POEMS 


So  was  my  soul;  but  when  't  was  full 

Of  unrest  to  o'erloading, 
A  voice  of  something  beautiful 

Whispered  a  dim  foreboding, 
And  yet  so  soft,  so  sweet,  so  low, 
It  had  not  more  of  joy  than  woe; 

And,  as  the  sea  doth  oft  lie  still, 

Making  its  waters  meet, 
As  if  by  an  unconscious  will, 

For  the  moon's  silver  feet, 
So  lay  my  soul  within  mine  eyes 
When  thou,  its  guardian  moon,  didst  rise. 

And  now,  howe'er  its  waves  above 

May  toss  and  seem  uneaseful, 
One  strong,  eternal  law  of  Love, 

With  guidance  sure  and  peaceful, 
As  calm  and  natural  as  breath, 
Moves  its  great  deeps  through  life  and  death. 


REMEMBERED    MUSIC 

A   FRAGMENT 

THICK-RUSHING,  like  an  ocean  vast 
Of  bisons  the  far  prairie  shaking, 
The  notes  crowd  heavily  and  fast 
As  surfs,  one  plunging  while  the  last 
Draws  seaward  from  its  foamy  breaking. 

Or  in  low  murmurs  they  began, 

Rising  and  rising  momently, 
As  o'er  a  harp  .ZEolian 
A  fitful  breeze,  until  they  ran 

Up  to  a  sudden  ecstasy. 

And  then,  like  minute-drops  of  rain 

Ringing  in  water  silverly, 
They  lingering  dropped  and  dropped  again, 
Till  it  was  almost  like  a  pain 

To  listen  when  the  next  would  be. 


SONG 

TO   M.   L. 

A  LILY  thou  wast  when  I  saw  thee  first, 
A  lily-bud  not  opened  quite, 
That  hourly  grew  more  pure  and  white, 
By  morning,  and   noontide,    and   evening 

nursed : 
In  all  of  nature  thou  hadst  thy  share; 


Thou  wast  waited  on 

By  the  wind  and  sun; 
The  rain  and  the  dew  for  thee  took  care; 
It  seemed  thou   never  couldst  be  more 
fair. 

A  lily  thou  wast  when  I  saw  thee  first, 
A  lily-bud;  but  oh,  how  strange, 
How  full  of  wonder  was  the  change, 
When,   ripe    with   all   sweetness,  thy  full 

bloom  burst ! 

How  did  the  tears  to  my  glad  eyes  start, 
When  the  woman-flower 
Reached  its  blossoming  hour, 
And  I  saw  the  warm  deeps  of  thy  golden 
heart! 

Glad  death  may  pluck  thee,  but  never  before 
The  gold  dust  of  thy  bloom  divine 
Hath  dropped  from  thy  heart  into  mine, 
To  quicken  its  faint  germs  of  heavenly  lore ; 
For  no  breeze  comes  nigh  thee  but  carries 
away 

Some  impulses  bright 
Of  fragrance  and  light, 
Which  fall  upon  souls  that  are  lone  and 

astray, 

To  plant  fruitful  hopes  of  the  flower  of 
day. 

ALLEGRA 

I  WOULD  more  natures  were  like  thine, 
That  never  casts  a  glance  before, 

Thou  Hebe,  who  thy  heart's  bright  wine 
So  lavishly  to  all  dost  pour, 

That  we  who  drink  forget  to  pine, 
And  can  but  dream  of  bliss  in  store. 

Thou  canst  not  see  a  shade  in  life ; 

With  sunward  instinct  thou  dost  rise, 
And,  leaving  clouds  below  at  strife, 

Gazest  undazzled  at  the  skies, 
With  all  their  blazing  splendors  rife, 

A  songful  lark  with  eagle's  eyes. 

Thou    wast    some    foundling    whom    the 

Hours 
Nursed,    laughing,   with    the    milk    of 

Mirth; 
Some  influence  more  gay  than  ours 

Hath  ruled  thy  nature  from  its  birth, 
As  if  thy  natal  stars  were  flowers 

That  shook  their  seeds  round  thee  on 
earth. 


ODE 


ii 


And  thou,  to  lull  thine  infant  rest, 
Wast  cradled  like  an  Indian  child; 

All  pleasant  winds  from  south  and  west 
With  lullabies  thine  ears  beguiled, 

Rocking  thee  in  thine  oriole's  nest, 
Till  Nature  looked  at  thee  and  smiled. 

Thine  every  fancy  seems  to  borrow 
A  sunlight  from  thy  childish  years, 

Making  a  golden  cloud  of  sorrow, 
A  hope-lit  rainbow  out  of  tears,  — 

Thy  heart  is  certain  of  to-morrow, 
Though  'yond  to-day  it  never  peers. 

I  would  more  natures  were  like  thine, 

So  innocently  wild  and  free, 
Whose  sad  thoughts,  even,  leap  and  shine, 

Like  sunny  wavelets  in  the  sea, 
Making  us  mindless  of  the  brine, 

In  gazing  on  the  brilliancy. 

THE   FOUNTAIN 

INTO  the  sunshine, 

Full  of  the  light, 
Leaping  and  flashing 

From  morn  till  night; 

Into  the  moonlight, 

Whiter  than  snow, 
Waving  so  flower-like 

When  the  winds  blow; 

Into  the  starlight 
Rushing  in  spray, 
>py  at  midnight, 
[appy  by  day; 

Ever  in  motion, 

Blithesome  and  cheery, 

Still  climbing  heavenward. 
Never  aweary; 

Glad  of  all  weathers, 

Still  seeming  best, 
Upward  or  downward, 

Motion  thy  rest-, 

Full  of  a  nature 

Nothing  can  tame, 
Changed  every  moment, 

Ever  the  same ; 

Ceaseless  aspiring, 
Ceaseless  content, 


Darkness  or  sunshine 
Thy  element; 

Glorious  fountain, 

Let  my  heart  be 
Fresh,  changeful,  constant, 

Upward,  like  thee  ! 


ODE 


IN   the  old  days   of  awe  and   keen-eyed 

wonder, 
The  Poet's  song  with  blood-warm  truth 

was  rife; 
He  saw  the  mysteries  which  circle  under 

The  outward  shell  and  skin  of  daily  life. 
Nothing  to   him  were  fleeting   time   and 

fashion, 

His  soul  was  led  by  the  eternal  law; 
There  was  in  him  no  hope  of  fame,  no  pas 
sion, 

But  with  calm,  godlike  eyes  he  only  saw. 
He   did    not    sigh   o'er   heroes   dead   and 

buried, 
Chief  -  mourner    at    the    Golden   Age's 

hearse, 
Nor  deem  that  souls  whom  Charon  grim 

had  ferried 

Alone  were  fitting  themes  of  epic  verse: 
He  could  believe  the  promise  of  to-morrow, 
And  feel  the  wondrous  meaning  of  to 
day; 

He  had  a  deeper  faith  in  holy  sorrow 
Than  the  world's  seeming  loss  could  take 

away. 
To  know  the  heart  of  all  things  was  his 

duty, 
All  things  did  sing  to  him  to  make  him 

wise, 
And,   with  a    sorrowful    and   conquering 

beauty, 
The  soul  of  all  looked  grandly  from  his 

eyes. 
He  gazed  on  all  within  him  and  without 

him, 
He  watched  the  flowing  of  Time's  steady 

tide, 

And  shapes  of  glory  floated  all  about  him 
And  whispered  to  him,  and  he  prophe 
sied. 

Than  all  men  he  more  fearless  was  and 
freer, 


12 


EARLIER   POEMS 


And  all  his  brethren  cried  with  one  ac 
cord,  — 

"  Behold  the  holy  man  !   Behold  the  Seer  ! 
Him  who  hath  spoken  with  the  unseen 

Lord  ! " 
He   to  his  heart  with  large   embrace  had 

taken 

The  universal  sorrow  of  mankind, 
And,  from  that  root,  a  shelter  never  shaken, 
The   tree  of   wisdom  grew  with  sturdy 

rind. 

He  could  interpret  well  the  wondrous  voices 

Which  to  the  calm  and  silent  spirit  come ; 

He  knew  that  the  One  Soul  no  more  rejoices 

In  the   star's   anthem   than  the  insect's 

hum. 

He  in  his  heart  was  ever  meek  and  humble, 
And  yet  with  kingly  pomp  his  numbers 

ran, 
As  he  foresaw  how  all  things  false  should 

crumble 

Before  the  free,  uplifted  soul  of  man: 
And,  when  he  was  made  full  to  overflowing 
With   all  the  loveliness   of   heaven  and 

earth, 

Out  rushed  his  song,  like  molten  iron  glow 
ing* 
To   show  God  sitting  by  the   humblest 

hearth. 

With  calmest  courage  he  was  ever  ready 
To   teach  that   action  was   the  truth  of 

thought, 
And,  with  strong  arm  and  purpose  firm  and 

steady, 
An    anchor  for   the   drifting   world   he 

wrought. 
So  did  he  make  the  meanest  man  partaker 

Of  all  his  brother-gods  unto  him  gave; 
All  souls  did  reverence  him  and  name  him 

Maker, 
And  when  he  died  heaped  temples  on  his 

grave. 
And  still  his  deathless  words  of  light  are 

swimming 

Serene  throughout  the  great  deep  infinite 

Of  human  soul,  unwaning  and  undimming, 

To  cheer  and  guide  the  mariner  at  night. 


But  now  the  Poet  is  an  empty  rhymer 
Who  lies  with  idle  elbow  on  the  grass, 

And  fits  his  singing,  like  a  cunning  timer, 
To  all  men's  prides  and  fancies  as  they 


Not  his  the  song,  which,  in  its  metre  holy, 
Chimes  with  the   music  of   the  eternal 

stars, 

Humbling  the  tyrant,  lifting  up  the  lowly, 
And  sending  sun  through  the  soul's  prison- 
bars. 

Maker  no  more,  —  oh  no  !  unmaker  rather, 
For  he  unmakes  who  doth  not  all  put 

forth 

The  power  given  freely  by  our  loving  Father 
To   show  the  body's   dross,  the   spirit's 

worth. 
Awake  !  great  spirit  of  the  ages  olden  ! 

Shiver  the  mists  that  hide  thy  starry  lyre, 
And  let  man's  soul  be  yet  again  beholden 
To  thee  for  wings  to  soar  to  her  desire. 
Oh,  prophesy  no  more  to-morrow's  splendor, 
Be  no  more  shamefaced  to  speak  out  for 

Truth, 

Lay  on  her  altar  all  the  gushings  tender, 
The   hope,  the  fire,  the   loving  faith  of 

youth  ! 

Oh,  prophesy  no  more  the  Maker's  coming, 
Say  not  his  onward  footsteps  thou  canst 

hear 

In  the  dim  void,  like  to  the  awful  humming 
Of  the  great  wings  of  some  new-lighted 

sphere  ! 
Oh,  prophesy  no  more,  but  be  the  Poet ! 

This  longing  was  but  granted  unto  thee 
That,  when  all  beauty  thou  couldst  feel  and 

know  it, 
That  beauty  in  its  highest  thou  shouldst 

be. 

O  thou  who  meanest  tost  with  sealike  long 
ings, 

Who  dimly  hearest  voices  call  on  thee, 
Whose  soul  is  overfilled  with  mighty  throng- 
ings 

Of  love,  and  fear,  and  glorious  agony, 
Thou  of  the  toil-strung  hands  and  iron  sinews 
And  soul  by  Mother  Earth  with  freedom 

fed, 

In  whom  the  hero-spirit  yet  continues, 
The  old   free   nature  is  not  chained   or 

dead, 

Arouse  !  let  thy  soul  break  in  music-thun 
der, 

Let  loose  the  ocean  that  is  in  thee  pent, 
Pour  forth  thy  hope,  thy  fear,  thy  love,  thy 

wonder, 
And  tell  the  age  what  all  its  signs  have 

meant. 

Where'er  thy  wildered-  crowd  of  brethren 
jostles, 


ODE 


Where'er  there  lingers  but  a  shadow  of 

wrong, 

There  still  is  need  of  martyrs  and  apos 
tles, 

There  still  are  texts  for  never-dying  song: 

From  age  to  age  man's  still  aspiring  spirit 

Finds  wider  scope  and  sees  with  clearer 

eyes, 

And  thou  in  larger  measure  dost  inherit 
What  made  thy  great  forerunners  free 

and  wise. 

Sit  thou  enthroned  where  the  Poet's  moun 
tain 

Above  the  thunder  lifts  its  silent  peak, 
And  roll  thy  songs  down  like  a  gathering 

fountain, 
They  all  may  drink  and  find  the  rest  they 

seek. 
Sing  !  there  shall  silence  grow  in  earth  and 

heaven, 

A  silence  of  deep  awe  and  wondering; 
For,  listening  gladly,  bend  the  angels,  even, 
To  hear  a  mortal  like  an  angel  sing. 

in 

Among  the  toil-worn  poor  my  soul  is  seek 
ing 
For  who  shall  bring  the  Maker's  name  to 

light, 

To  be  the  voice  of  that  almighty  speaking 
Which  every  age  demands  to  do  it  right. 
Proprieties  our  silken  bards  environ; 

He  who  would  be  the  tongue  of  this  wide 

land 
Must  string  his  harp  with  chords  of  sturdy 

iron 

And  strike  it  with  a  toil-imbrowned  hand ; 
One  who  hath  dwelt  with  Nature  well  at 
tended, 
Who  hath  learnt  wisdom  from  her  mystic 

books, 
Whose  soul  with  all  her  countless  lives  hath 

blended, 

So  that  all  beauty  awes  us  in  his  looks; 
Who  not  with  body's  waste  his  soul  hath 

pampered, 
Who  as  the  clear  northwestern  wind  is 

free, 

Who  walks  with  Form's  observances   un 
hampered, 

And  follows  the  One  Will  obediently; 
Whose  eyes,  like  windows  on  a  breezy  sum 
mit, 
Control  a  lovely  prospect  every  way; 


Who  doth  not  sound  God's  sea  with  earthly 

plummet, 

And  find  a  bottom  still  of  worthless  clay  ; 
Who  heeds  not  how  the   lower  gusts  are 

working, 
Knowing  that  one  sure  wind  blows  on 

above, 

And  sees,  beneath  the  foulest  faces  lurking, 
One  God-built  shrine  of  reverence  and 

love; 
Who  sees  all  stars  that  wheel  their  shining 

marches 

Around  the  centre  fixed  of  Destiny, 
Where  the  encircling  soul  serene  o'erarches 

The  moving  globe  of  being  like  a  sky; 
Who  feels  that  God   and  Heaven's  great 

deeps  are  nearer 
Him  to  whose   heart   his  fellow-man  is 

nigh, 
Who  doth  not  hold  his  soul's  own  freedom 

dearer 
Than  that  of   all  his  brethren,  low  or 

high; 

Who  to  the  Right  can  feel  himself  the  truer 
For  being  gently  patient  with  the  wrong, 
Who  sees  a  brother  in  the  evil-doer, 

And  finds  in  Love  the  heart's-blood  of  his 

song;  — 

This,  this  is  he  for  whom  the  world  is  wait 
ing 

To  sing  the  beatings  of  its  mighty  heart, 
Too  long  hath  it  been  patient  with  the  grat 
ing 
Of  scrannel-pipes,  and  heard  it  misnamed 

Art. 

To  him  the  smiling  soul  of  man  shall  listen, 
Laying  awhile  its  crown  of  thorns  aside, 
And  once  again  in  every  eye  shall  glisten 

The  glory  of  a  nature  satisfied. 
His  verse  shall  have  a  great  commanding 

motion, 

Heaving  and  swelling  with  a  melody 
Learnt  of  the  sky,  the  river,  and  the  ocean, 
And  all  the  pure,  majestic  things  that  be. 
Awake,  then,  thou  !  we  pine  for  thy  great 

presence 

To  make  us  feel  the  soul  once  more  sub 
lime, 
We  are  of  far  too  infinite  an  essence 

To  rest  contented  with  the  lies  of  Time. 
Speak  out !  and  lo  !  a  hush  of  deepest  won 
der 

Shall  sink  o'er  all  this  many-voiced  scene, 
As  when  a  sudden  burst  of  rattling  thunder 
Shatters  the  blueness  of  a  sky  serene. 


EARLIER  POEMS 


THE  FATHERLAND 

WHERE  is  the  true  man's  fatherland  ? 

Is  it  where  he  by  chance  is  born  ? 

Doth  not  the  yearning  spirit  scorn 
In  such  scant  borders  to  be  spanned  ? 
Oh  yes  !  his  fatherland  must  be 
As  the  blue  heaven  wide  and  free  ! 

Is  it  alone  where  freedom  is, 

Where  God  is  God  and  man  is  man  ? 
Doth  he  not  claim  a  broader  span 

For  the  soul's  love  of  home  than  this  ? 

Oh  yes  !  his  fatherland  must  be 

As  the  blue  heaven  wide  and  free  ! 

Where'er  a  human  heart  doth  wear 
Joy's  myrtle-wreath  or  sorrow's  gyves, 
Where'er  a  human  spirit  strives 

After  a  life  more  true  and  fair, 

There  is  the  true  man's  birthplace  grand, 

His  is  a  world- wide  fatherland  ! 

Where'er  a  single  slave  doth  pine, 

Where'er  one  man  may  help  another, — 
Thank  God  for  such  a  birthright,  bro 
ther,— 

That  spot  of  earth  is  thine  and  mine  ! 

There  is  the  true  man's  birthplace  grand, 

His  is  a  world-wide  fatherland  ! 


THE  FORLORN 

THE  night  is  dark,  the  stinging  sleet, 
Swept  by  the  bitter  gusts  of  air, 

Drives  whistling  down  the  lonely  street, 
And  glazes  on  the  pavement  bare. 


The  street-lamps  flare  and  strug 
Through  the  gray  sleet-clouc 


le  dim 

;  as  they 


Or,  governed  by  a  boisterous  whim, 
Drop  down  and  rustle  on  the  glass. 

One  poor,  heart-broken,  outcast  girl 
Faces  the  east-wind's  searching  flaws, 

And,  as  about  her  heart  they  whirl, 
Her  tattered  cloak  more  tightly  draws. 

The  flat  brick  walls  look  cold  and  bleak, 
Her  bare  feet  to  the  sidewalk  freeze; 

Yet  dares  she  not  a  shelter  seek, 

Though  faint  with  hunger  and  disease. 


The  sharp  storm  cuts  her  forehead  bare, 
And,  piercing  through  her  garments  thin, 

Beats  on  her  shrunken  breast,  and  there 
Makes  colder  the  cold  heart  within. 

She  lingers  where  a  ruddy  glow 

Streams  outward  through  an  open  shut 
ter, 
Adding  more  bitterness  to  woe, 

More  loneliness  to  desertion  utter. 

One  half  the  cold  she  had  not  felt 
Until  she  saw  this  gush  of  light 

Spread  warmly  forth,  and  seem  to  melt 
Its  slow  way  through  the  deadening  night. 

She  hears  a  woman's  voice  within, 

Singing  sweet  words  her  childhood  knew, 

And  years  of  misery  and  sin 

Furl  off,  and  leave  her  heaven  blue. 

Her  freezing  heart,  like  one  who  sinks 
Outwearied  in  the  drifting  snow, 

Drowses  to  deadly  sleep  and  thinks 
No  longer  of  its  hopeless  woe: 

Old  fields,  and  clear  blue  summer  days, 
Old  meadows,  green  with  grass,  and  trees 

That  shimmer  through  the  trembling  haze 
And  whiten  in  the  western  breeze, 

Old  faces,  all  the  friendly  past 

Rises  within  her  heart  again, 
And  sunshine  from  her  childhood  cast 

Makes  summer  of  the  icy  rain. 

Enhaloed  by  a  mild,  warm  glow, 

From  man's  humanity  apart, 
She  hears  old  footsteps  wandering  slow 

Through  the  lone  chambers  of  the  heart 

Outside  the  porch  before  the  door, 
Her  cheek  upon  the  cold,  hard  stone, 

She  lies,  no  longer  foul  and  poor, 
No  longer  dreary  and  alone. 

Next  morning  something  heavily 
Against  the  opening  door  did  weigh, 

And  there,  from  sin  and  sorrow  free, 
A  woman  on  the  threshold  lay. 

A  smile  upon  the  wan  lips  told 

That  she  had  found  a  calm  release, 

And  that,  from  out  the  want  and  cold, 
The  song  had  borne  her  soul  in  peace. 


THE   HERITAGE 


For,  whom  the  heart  of  man  shuts  out, 
Sometimes  the  heart  of  God  takes  in, 

And  fences  them  all  round  about 

With  silence  mid  the  world's  loud  din; 

And  one  of  his  great  charities 
Is  Music,  and  it  doth  not  scorn 

To  close  the  lids  upon  the  eyes 
Of  the  polluted  and  forlorn; 

Far  was  she  from  her  childhood's  home, 
Farther  in  guilt  had  wandered  thence, 

Yet  thither  it  had  bid  her  come 
To  die  in  maiden  innocence. 


MIDNIGHT 

THE  moon  shines  white  and  silent 
On  the  mist,  which,  like  a  tide 

Of  some  enchanted  ocean, 

O'er  the  wide  marsh  doth  glide, 

Spreading  its  ghost-like  billows 
Silently  far  and  wide. 

A  vague  and  starry  magic 
Makes  all  things  mysteries, 

And  lures  the  earth's  dumb  spirit 
Up  to  the  longing  skies; 

I  seem  to  hear  dim  whispers, 
And  tremulous  replies. 

The  fireflies  o'er  the  meadow 

In  pulses  come  and  go; 
The  elm-trees'  heavy  shadow 

Weighs  on  the  grass  below; 
And  faintly  from  the  distance 

The  dreaming  cock  doth  crow. 

All  things  look  strange  and  mystic, 

The  very  bushes  swell 
And  take  wild  shapes  and  motions, 

As  if  beneath  a  spell; 
They  seem  not  the  same  lilacs 

From  childhood  known  so  welL 

The  snow  of  deepest  silence 
O'er  everything  doth  fall, 

So  beautiful  and  quiet, 
And  yet  so  like  a  pall; 

As  if  all  life  were  ended, 
And  rest  were  come  to  all. 

O  wild  and  wondrous  midnight, 
There  is  a  might  in  thee 


To  make  the  charmed  body 

Almost  like  spirit  be, 
And  give  it  some  faint  glimpses 

Of  immortality  ! 


A    PRAYER 

GOD  !  do  not  let  my  loved  one  die, 
But  rather  wait  until  the  time 

That  I  am  grown  in  purity 

Enough  to  enter  thy  pure  clime, 

Then  take  me,  I  will  gladly  go, 

So  that  my  love  remain  below  ! 

Oh,  let  her  stay  !     She  is  by  birth 

What  I  through  death  must  learn  to  be; 

We  need  her  more  on  our  poor  earth 
Than  thou  canst  need  in  heaven  with  thee : 

She  hath  her  wings  already,  I 

Must  burst  this  earth-shell  ere  1  fly. 

Then,  God,  take  me  !     We  shall  be  near, 
More  near  than  ever,  each  to  each: 

Her  angel  ears  will  find  more  clear 
My  heavenly  than  my  earthly  speech; 

And  still,  as  I  draw  nigh  to  thee, 

Her  soul  and  mine  shall  closer  be. 


THE    HERITAGE 

THE  rich  man's  son  inherits  lands, 

And  piles  of  brick  and  stone,  and  gold, 

And  he  inherits  soft  white  hands, 
And  tender  flesh  that  fears  the  cold, 
Nor  dares  to  wear  a  garment  old; 

A  heritage,  it  seems  to  me, 

One  scarce  would  wish  to  hold  in  fee. 

The  rich  man's  son  inherits  cares; 

The  bank  may  break,  the  factory  burn, 

A  breath  may  burst  his  bubble  shares, 
And  soft  white  hands  could  hardly  earn 
A  living  that  would  serve  his  turn; 

A  heritage,  it  seems  to  me, 

One  scarce  would  wish  to  hold  in  fee. 

The  rich  man's  son  inherits  wants, 
His  stomach  craves  for  dainty  fare; 

With  sated  heart,  he  hears  the  pants 
Of  toiling  hinds  with  brown  arms  bare. 
And  wearies  in  his  easy-chair; 

A  heritage,  it  seems  to  me, 

One  scarce  would  wish  to  hold  in  fee, 


i6 


EARLIER   POEMS 


What  doth  the  poor  man's  son  inherit  ? 

Stout  muscles  and  a  sinewy  heart, 
A  hardy  frame,  a  hardier  spirit; 

King  of  two  hands,  he  does  his  part 

In  every  useful  toil  and  art; 
A  heritage,  it  seems  to  me, 
A  king  might  wish  to  hold  in  fee. 

What  doth  the  poor  man's  son  inherit  ? 
Wishes  o'erjoyed  with  humble  things, 

A  rank  adjudged  by  toil-won  merit, 

Content  that  from  employment  springs, 
A  heart  that  in  his  labor  sings; 

A  heritage,  it  seems  to  me, 

A  king  might  wish  to  hold  in  fee. 

What  doth  the  poor  man's  son  inherit  ? 
A  patience  learned  of  being  poor, 

Courage,  if  sorrow  come,  to  bear  it, 
A  fellow-feeling  that  is  sure 
To  make  the  outcast  bless  his  door; 

A  heritage,  it  seems  to  me, 

A  king  might  wish  to  hold  in  fee. 

O  rich  man's  son  !  there  is  a  toil 
That  with  all  others  level  stands; 

Large  charity  doth  never  soil, 

But  only  whiten,  soft  white  hands; 
This  is  the  best  crop  from  thy  lands, 

A  heritage,  it  seems  to  me, 

Worth  being  rich  to  hold  in  fee. 

O  poor  man's  son  !  scorn  not  thy  state; 
There  is  worse  weariness  than  thine, 

In  merely  being  rich  and  great; 
Toil  only  gives  the  soul  to  shine, 
And  makes  rest  fragrant  and  benign; 

A  heritage,  it  seems  to  me, 

Worth  being  poor  to  hold  in  fee. 

Both,  heirs  to  some  six  feet  of  sod, 
Are  equal  in  the  earth  at  last; 

Both,  children  of  the  same  dear  God, 
Prove  title  to  your  heirship  vast 
By  record  of  a  well-filled  past; 

A  heritage,  it  seems  to  me, 

Well  worth  a  life  to  hold  in  fee. 


THE    ROSE:  A   BALLAD 


IN  his  tower  sat  the  poet 
Gazing  on  the  roaring  sea, 


"  Take  this  rose,"  he  sighed,  "  and  throw  it 

Where  there  's  none  that  loveth  me. 
On  the  rock  the  billow  bursteth 

And  sinks  back  into  the  seas, 
But  in  vain  my  spirit  thirsteth 

So  to  burst  and  be  at  ease. 
Take,  O  sea  !  the  tender  blossom 

That  hath  lain  against  my  breast; 
On  thy  black  and  angry  bosom 

It  will  find  a  surer  rest. 
Life  is  vain,  and  love  is  hollow, 

Ugly  death  stands  there  behind, 
Hate  and  scorn  and  hunger  follow 

Him  that  toileth  for  his  kind." 
Forth  into  the  night  he  hurled  it, 

And  with  bitter  smile  did  mark 
How  the  surly  tempest  whirled  it 

Swift  into  the  hungry  dark. 
Foam  and  spray  drive  back  to  leeward, 

And  the  gale,  with  dreary  moan, 
Drifts  the  helpless  blossom  seaward, 

Through  the  breakers  all  alone. 

II 

Stands  a  maiden,  on  the  morrow, 

Musing  by  the  wave-beat  strand, 
Half  in  hope  and  half  in  sorrow, 

Tracing  words  upon  the  sand: 
"  Shall  I  ever  then  behold  him 

Who  hath  been  my  life  so  long, 
Ever  to  this  sick  heart  fold  him, 

Be  the  spirit  of  his  song  ? 
Touch  not,  sea,  the  blessed  letters 

I  have  traced  upon  thy  shore, 
Spare  his  name  whose  spirit  fetters 

Mine  with  love  f orevermore  ! " 
Swells  the  tide  and  overflows  it, 

But,  with  omen  pure  and  meet, 
Brings  a  little  rose,  and  throws  it 

Humbly  at  the  maiden's  feet. 
Full  of  bliss  she  takes  the  token, 

And,  upon  her  snowy  breast, 
Soothes  the  ruffled  petals  broken 

With  the  ocean's  fierce  unrest. 
"  Love  is  thine,  O  heart !  and  surely 

Peace  shall  also  be  thine  own, 
For  the  heart  that  trusteth  purely 

Never  long  can  pine  alone." 

in 

In  his  tower  sits  the  poet, 

Blisses  new  and  strange  to  him 

Fill  his  heart  and  overflow  it 
With  a  wonder  sweet  and  dim. 


ROSALINE 


17 


Up  the  beach  the  ocean  slideth 

With  a  whisper  of  delight, 
And  the  moon  in  silence  glideth 

Through  the  peaceful  blue  of  night. 
Rippling  o'er  the  poet's  shoulder 

Flows  a  maiden's  golden  hair, 
Maiden  lips,  with  love  grown  bolder, 

Kiss  his  moon-lit  forehead  bare. 
"  Life  is  joy,  and  love  is  power. 

Death  all  fetters  doth  unbind, 
Strength  and  wisdom  only  flower 

When  we  toil  for  all  our  kind. 
Hope  is  truth,  —  the  future  giveth 

More  than  present  takes  away, 
And  the  soul  forever  liveth 

Nearer  God  from  day  to  day." 
Not  a  word  the  maiden  uttered, 

Fullest  hearts  are  slow  to  speak, 
But  a  withered  rose-leaf  fluttered 

Down  upon  the  poet's  cheek. 


SONG 

VIOLET  !  sweet  violet  ! 
Thine  eyes  are  full  of  tears; 
Are  they  wet 
Even  yet 

With  the  thought  of  other  years  ? 
Or  with  gladness  are  they  full, 
For  the  night  so  beautiful, 
And  longing  for  those  far-off  spheres  ? 

Loved  one  of  my  youth  thou  wast, 
Of  my  merry  youth, 
And  I  see, 
Tearfully, 

All  the  fair  and  sunny  past, 
All  its  openness  and  truth, 
Ever  fresh  and  green  in  thee 
As  the  moss  is  in  the  sea. 

Thy  little  heart,  that  hath  with  love 
Grown  colored  like  the  sky  above, 
On  which  thou  lookest  ever,  — 
Can  it  know 
All  the  woe 

Of  hope  for  what  returneth  never, 
All  the  sorrow  and  the  longing 
To  these  hearts  of  ours  belonging  ? 

Out  on  it !  no  foolish  pining 
For  the  sky 
Dims  thine  eye, 
Or  for  the  stars  so  calmly  shining; 


Like  thee  let  this  soul  of  mine 
Take  hue  from  that  wherefor  I  long, 
Self-stayed  and  high,  serene  and  strong, 
Not  satisfied  with  hoping  —  but  divine^ 

Violet  !  dear  violet  ! 

Thy  blue  eyes  are  only  wet 
With  joy  and  love  of  Him  who  sent  thee, 
And  for  the  fulfilling  sense 
Of  that  glad  obedience 
Which  made   thee  all  that  Nature  meant 
thee! 

ROSALINE 

THOU  look'dst  on  me  all  yesternight, 
Thine  eyes  were  blue,  thy  hair  was  bright 
As  when  we  murmured  our  troth-plight 
Beneath  the  thick  stars,  Rosaline  ! 
Thy  hair  was  braided  on  thy  head, 
As  on  the  day  we  two  were  wed, 
Mine  eyes  scarce  knew  if  thou  wert  dead, 
But  my  shrunk  heart  knew,  Rosaline  ! 

The  death-watch  ticked  behind  the  wall, 
The  blackness  rustled  like  a  pall, 
The  moaning  wind  did  rise  and  fall 
Among  the  bleak  pines,  Rosaline  ! 
My  heart  beat  thickly  in  mine  ears: 
The  lids  may  shut  out  fleshly  fears, 
But  still  the  spirit  sees  and  hears, 
Its  eyes  are  lidless,  Rosaline  ! 

A  wildness  rushing  suddenly, 

A  knowing  some  ill  shape  is  nigh, 

A  wish  for  death,  a  fear  to  die, 

Is  not  this  vengeance,  Rosaline  ? 

A  loneliness  that  is  not  lone, 

A  love  quite  withered  up  and  gone, 

A  strong  soul  ousted  from  its  throne, 

What  wouldst  thou  further,  Rosaline  ? 

'T  is  drear  such  moonless  nights  as  these. 
Strange  sounds  are  out  upon  the  breeze, 
And  the  leaves  shiver  in  the  trees, 
And  then  thou  comest,  Rosaline  ! 
I  seem  to  hear  the  mourners  go, 
With  long  black  garments  trailing  slow, 
And  plumes  anodding  to  and  fro, 
As  once  I  heard  them,  Rosaline  ! 

Thy  shroud  is  all  of  snowy  white, 
And,  in  the  middle  of  the  night, 
Thou  standest  moveless  and  upright, 
Gazing  upon  me,  Rosaline  ! 


i8 


EARLIER   POEMS 


There  is  no  sorrow  in  thine  eyes, 
But  evermore  that  nieek  surprise,  — 

0  God  !  thy  gentle  spirit  tries 
To  deem  me  guiltless,  Rosaline  ! 

Above  thy  grave  the  robin  sings, 

And  swarms  of  bright  and  happy  things 

Flit  all  about  with  sunlit  wings, 

But  I  am  cheerless,  Rosaline  ! 

The  violets  in  the  hillock  toss, 

The  gravestone  is  o'ergrowii  with  moss; 

For  nature  feels  not  any  loss, 

But  I  am  cheerless,  Rosaline  ! 

1  did  not  know  when  thou  wast  dead; 
A  blackbird  whistling  overhead 
Thrilled  through  my  brain;  I  would  have 

fled, 

But  dared  not  leave  thee,  Rosaline  ! 
The  sun  rolled  down,  and  very  soon, 
Like  a  great  fire,  the  awful  moon 
Rose,  stained  with  blood,  and  then  a  swoon 
Crept  chilly  o'er  me,  Rosaline  ! 

The  stars  came  out;  and,  one  by  one, 
Each  angel  from  his  silver  throne 
Looked  down  and  saw  what  I  had  done : 
I  dared  not  hide  me,  Rosaline  ! 
I  crouched;  I  feared  thy  corpse  would  cry 
Against  me  to  God's  silent  sky, 
I  thought  I  saw  the  blue  lips  try 
To  utter  something,  Rosaline  ! 

I  waited  with  a  maddened  grin 

To  hear  that  voice  all  icy  thin 

Slide  forth  and  tell  my  deadly  sin 

To  hell  and  heaven,  Rosaline  ! 

But  no  voice  came,  and  then  it  seemed, 

That,  if  the  very  corpse  had  screamed, 

The  sound  like  sunshine  glad  had  streamed 

Through  that  dark  stillness,  Rosaline  ! 

And  then,  amid  the  silent  night, 

I  screamed  with  horrible  delight, 

And  in  my  brain  an  awful  light 

Did  seem  to  crackle,  Rosaline  ! 

It  is  my  curse  !  sweet  memories  fall 

From  me  like  snow,  and  only  all 

Of  that  one  night,  like  cold  worms,  crawl 

My  doomed  heart  over,  Rosaline  ! 

Why  wilt  thou  haunt  me  with  thine  eyes, 
Wherein  such  blessed  memories, 
Such  pitying  forgiveness  lies, 
Than  hate  more  bitter,  Rosaline  ! 


Woe  's  me  !     I  know  that  love  so  high 
As  thine,  true  soul,  could  never  die, 
And  with  mean  clay  in  churchyard  lie,  — 
Would  it  might  be  so,  Rosaline  ! 

A   REQUIEM 

AY,  pale  and  silent  maiden, 

Cold  as  thou  liest  there, 
Thine  was  the  sunniest  nature 

That  ever  drew  the  air; 
The  wildest  and  most  wayward, 

And  yet  so  gently  kind, 
Thou  seemedst  but  to  body 

A  breath  of  summer  wind. 

Into  the  eternal  shadow 

That  girds  our  life  around, 
Into  the  infinite  silence 

Wherewith  Death's  shore  is  bound, 
Thou  hast  gone  forth,  beloved  ! 

And  I  were  mean  to  weep, 
That  thou  hast  left  Life's  shallows, 

And  dost  possess  the  Deep. 

Thou  liest  low  and  silent, 

Thy  heart  is  cold  and  still, 
Thine  eyes  are  shut  forever, 

And  Death  hath  had  his  will; 
He  loved  and  would  have  taken, 

I  loved  and  would  have  kept, 
We  strove,  —  and  he  was  stronger, 

And  I  have  never  wept. 

Let  him  possess  thy  body, 

Thy  soul  is  still  with  me, 
More  sunny  and  more  gladsome 

Than  it  was  wont  to  be: 
Thy  body  was  a  fetter 

That  bound  me  to  the  flesh, 
Thank  God  that  it  is  broken, 

And  now  I  live  afresh  ! 

Now  I  can  see  thee  clearly; 

The  dusky  cloud  of  clay, 
That  hid  thy  starry  spirit, 

Is  rent  and  blown  away: 
To  earth  I  give  thy  body, 

Thy  spirit  to  the  sky, 
I  saw  its  bright  wings  growing, 

And  knew  that  thou  must  fly. 

Now  I  can  love  thee  truly, 
For  nothing  comes  between 


SONNETS 


The  senses  and  the  spirit, 
The  seen  and  the  unseen; 

Lifts  the  eternal  shadow, 
The  silence  bursts  apart, 

And  the  soul's  boundless  future 
Is  present  in  my  heart. 


A   PARABLE 

WORN  and  footsore  was  the  Prophet, 
When  he  gained  the  holy  hill; 

"  God  has  left  the  earth,"  he  murmured, 
"  Here  his  presence  lingers  still. 

"  God  of  all  the  olden  prophets, 

Wilt  thou  speak  with  men  no  more  ? 

Have  I  not  as  truly  served  thee 
As  thy  chosen  ones  of  yore  ? 

"  Hear  me,  guider  of  my  fathers, 

Lo  !  a  humble  heart  is  mine ; 
By  thy  mercy  I  beseech  thee 

Grant  thy  servant  but  a  sign  ! " 

Bowing  then  his  head,  he  listened 

For  an  answer  to  his  prayer; 
No  loud  burst  of  thunder  followed, 

Not  a  murmur  stirred  the  air: 

But  the  tuft  of  moss  before  him 

Opened  while  he  waited  yet, 
And,  from  out  the  rock's  hard  bosom, 

Sprang  a  tender  violet. 

"God  !  I  thank  thee,"  said  the  Prophet; 

"  Hard  of  heart  and  blind  was  I, 
Looking  to  the  holy  mountain 

For  the  gift  of  prophecy. 

"  Still  thou  speakest  with  thy  children 

Freely  as  in  eld  sublime ; 
Humbleness,  and  love,  and  patience, 

Still  give  empire  over  time. 

"  Had  I  trusted  in  my  nature, 
And  had  faith  in  lowly  things, 

Thou  thyself  wouldst  then  have  sought  me, 
And  set  free  my  spirit's  wings. 

"  But  I  looked  for  signs  and  wonders, 
That  o'er  men  should  give  me  sway; 

Thirsting  to  be  more  than  mortal, 
I  was  even  less  than  clay. 


Ere  I  entered  on  my  journey, 

As  I  girt  my  loins  to  start, 
Ran  to  me  my  little  daughter, 

The  beloved  of  my  heart; 

In  her  hand  she  held  a  flower, 

Like  to  this  as  like  may  be, 
Which,  beside  my  very  threshold, 

She  had  plucked  and  brought  to  me." 


SONG 

O  MOONLIGHT  deep  and  tender, 

A  year  and  more  agone, 
Your  mist  of  golden  splendor 

Round  my  betrothal  shone  ! 

O  elm-leaves  dark  and  dewy, 

The  very  same  ye  seem, 
The  low  wind  trembles  through  ye, 

Ye  murmur  in  my  dream  ! 

O  river,  dim  with  distance, 

Flow  thus  forever  by, 
A  part  of  my  existence 

Within  your  heart  doth  lie  ! 

O  stars,  ye  saw  our  meeting, 
Two  beings  and  one  soul, 

Two  hearts  so  madly  beating 
To  mingle  and  be  whole  ! 

O  happy  night,  deliver 

Her  kisses  back  to  me, 
Or  keep  them  all,  and  give  her 

A  blissful  dream  of  me  ! 


SONNETS 


TO   A.    C.   L. 

A.  C.  L.  was  Mrs.  Anna  Cabot  Lowell  (Mrs. 
Charles  Lowell),  the  wife  of  the  eldest  brother 
of  the  poet,  and  mother  of  those  gallant  bro 
thers,  Charles  and  James,  who  fell  in  the  war 
for  the  union,  and  to  whom  Lowell  refers  in 
the  tenth  of  the  second  series  of  BiglowPapers. 

THROUGH  suffering  and  sorrow  thou  hast 


To  show  us  what  a  woman  true  may  be: 
They  have  not  taken  sympathy  from  thee, 
Nor  made  thee  any  other  than  thou  wast, 


20 


EARLIER   POEMS 


Save   as   some   tree,   which,   in   a   sudden 

blast, 
Sheddeth  those  blossoms,  that  are  weakly 

grown, 

Upon  the  air,  but  keepeth  every  one 
Whose  strength  gives  warrant  of  good  fruit 

at  last: 

So  thou  hast  shed  some  blooms  of  gayety, 
But  never  one  of  steadfast  cheerfulness; 
Nor  hath  thy  knowledge  of  adversity 
Robbed  thee  of  any  faith  in  happiness, 
But  rather  cleared  thine  inner  eyes  to  see 
How  many  simple  ways  there  are  to  bless. 

II 

WHAT  were  I,  Love,  if  I  were  stripped  of 

thee, 

If  thine  eyes  shut  me  out  whereby  I  live, 
Thou,  who  unto  my  calmer  soul  dost  give 
Knowledge,  and  Truth,  and  holy  Mystery, 
Wherein  Truth  mainly  lies  for  those  who 

see 

Beyond  the  earthly  and  the  fugitive,, 
Who  in  the  grandeur  of  the  soul  believe, 
And  only  in  the  Infinite  are  free  ? 
Without  thee   I  were   naked,  bleak,   and 

bare 

As  yon  dead  cedar  on  the  sea-cliff's  brow; 
And  Nature's  teachings,  which  come  to  me 

now, 

Common  and  beautiful  as  light  and  air, 
Would  be  as  fruitless  as  a  stream  which  still 
Slips  through  the  wheel  of  some  old  ruined 

mill. 

ill 

I  WOULD  not  have  this  perfect  love  of  ours 
Grow  from  a  single  root,  a  single  stem, 
Bearing  no  goodly  fruit,  but  only  flowers 
That  idly  hide  life's  iron  diadem: 
It  should   grow  alway  like   that   Eastern 

tree 
Whose  limbs  take  root  and  spread  forth 

constantly; 
That  love  for  one,  from  which  there  doth 

not  spring 

Wide  love  for  all,  is  but  a  worthless  thing. 
Not  in  another  world,  as  poets  prate, 
Dwell  we  apart  above  the  tide  of  things, 
High  floating  o'er  earth's  clouds  on  faery 

wings ; 

But  our  pure  love  doth  ever  elevate 
Into  a  holy  bond  of  brotherhood 
All  earthly  things,  making  them  pure  and 

good. 


IV 

"  FOR  this  true  nobleness  I  seek  in  vain, 

In  woman  and  in  man  I  find  it  not; 

I  almost  weary  of  my  earthly  lot, 

My  life-springs  are  dried  up  with  burning 

pain." 
Thou  find'st   it   not?     I  pray   thee   look 

again, 
Look  inward  through  the  depths  of  thine 

own  soul. 
How  is  it  with  thee  ?     Art  thou  sound  and 

whole  ? 
Doth  narrow  search  show  thee  no  earthly 

stain? 

BE  NOBLE  !  and  the  nobleness  that  lies 
In  other  men,  sleeping,  but  never  dead, 
Will  rise  in  majesty  to  meet  thine  own; 
Then  wilt  thou  see  it  gleam  in  many  eyes, 
Then  will  pure  light  around  thy  path  be 

shed, 
And  thou  wilt  nevermore  be  sad  and  lone. 


TO    THE   SPIRIT   OF   KEATS 

GREAT  soul,  thou  sittest  with  me  in  my 

room, 

Uplifting  me  with  thy  vast,  quiet  eyes, 
On  whose  full  orbs,  with  kindly  lustre,  lies 
The   twilight   warmth    of    ruddy    ember- 
gloom: 

Thy  clear,  strong  tones  will  oft  bring  sud 
den  bloom 

Of  hope  secure,  to  him  who  lonely  cries, 
Wrestling  with  the  young  poet's  agonies, 
Neglect  and  scorn,  which  seem  a  certain 

doom: 
Yes  !    the    few  words   which,   like    great 

thunder-drops, 

Thy  large  heart  down  to  earth  shook  doubt 
fully, 
Thrilled   by   the   inward  lightning  of  its 

might, 

Serene  and  pure,  like  gushing  joy  of  light, 
Shall  track  the  eternal  chords  of  Destiny, 
After  the  moon-led  pulse  of  ocean  stops. 

VI 

GREAT  Truths  are  portions  of  the  soul  of 

man; 

Great  souls  are  portions  of  Eternity; 
Each  drop  of  blood  that  e'er  through  true 

heart  ran 
With  lofty  message,  ran  for  thee  and  me; 


SONNETS 


21 


For  God's  law,  since  the  starry  song  began, 
Hath  been,  and  still  forevermore  must  be, 
That  every  deed  which  shall  outlast  Time's 

span 

Must  spur  the  soul  to  be  erect  and  free; 
Slave  is  no  word  of  deathless  lineage 

sprung; 
Too  many  noble  souls  have  thought  and 

died, 

Too  many  mighty  poets  lived  and  sung, 
And  our  good  Saxon,  from  lips  purified 
With  martyr-fire,  throughout  the  world 

hath  rung 
Too  long  to  have  God's  holy  cause  denied. 

VII 

I  ASK  not  for  those  thoughts,  that  sudden 

leap 
From   being's   sea,   like    the   isle-seeming 

Kraken, 
With   whose   great  rise  the   ocean   all  is 

shaken 
And  a  heart-tremble  quivers  through  the 

deep; 
Give  me  that  growth  which  some  perchance 

deem  sleep, 

Wherewith  the  steadfast  coral-stems  uprise, 
Which,  by  the  toil  of  gathering  energies, 
Their    upward   way    into    clear    sunshine 

keep, 

Until,  by  Heaven's  sweetest  influences, 
Slowly  and  slowly  spreads  a  speck  of  green 
Into  a  pleasant  island  in  the  seas, 
Where,   mid   tall   palms,   the  cane-roofed 

home  is  seen, 

And  wearied  men  shall  sit  at  sunset's  hour, 
Hearing  the  leaves  and  loving  God's  dear 

power. 

VIII 
TO   M.   W.,   ON   HER   BIRTHDAY 

MAIDEN,  when  such  a  soul  as  thine  is  born, 
The    morning  -  stars    their    ancient    music 

make, 

And,  joyful,  once  again  their  song  awake, 
Long  silent  now  with  melancholy  scorn; 
And  thou,  not  mindless  of  so  blest  a  morn, 
By  no  least  deed  its  harmony  shalt  break, 
But  shalt  to  that  high  chime  thy  footsteps 

take, 
Through  life's  most   darksome  passes  un- 

f orlorn ; 
Therefore  from  thy  pure  faith  thou   shalt 

not  fall, 


Therefore  shalt  thou  be  ever  fair  and  free, 

And  in  thine  every  motion  musical 

As  summer  air,  majestic  as  the  sea, 

A  mystery  to  those  who  creep  and  crawl 

Through  Time,  and  part  it  from  Eternity. 

IX 

MY  Love,  I  have  no  fear  that  thou  shouldst 

die; 

Albeit  I  ask  no  fairer  life  than  this, 
Whose  numbering-clock  is  still  thy  gentle 

kiss, 

While    Time   and   Peace   with   hands   en- 
locked  fly; 

Yet  care  I  not  where  in  Eternity 
We  live  and  love,  well  knowing  that  there  is 
No  backward  step  for  those  who  feel  the 

bliss 
Of    Faith   as   their  most   lofty  yearnings 

high: 

Love  hath  so  purified  my  being's  core, 
Meseems   I    scarcely   should   be   startled, 

even, 
To  find,  some  morn,  that  thou  hadst  gone 

before ; 
Since,  with  thy  love,  this  knowledge  too 

was  given, 
Which   each    calm   day    doth    strengthen 

more  and  more, 
That  they  who  love  are  but  one  step  from 

Heaven. 

x 

I  CANNOT   think   that  thou  shouldst  pass 

away, 

Whose  life  to  mine  is  an  eternal  law, 
A  piece  of  nature  that  can  have  no  flaw, 
A  new  and  certain  sunrise  every  day; 
But,  if  thou  art  to  be  another  ray 
About  the  Sun  of  Life,  and  art  to  live 
Free  from  what  part  of  thee  was  fugitive, 
The  debt  of  Love  I  will  more  fully  pay, 
Not  downcast  with  the  thought  of  thee  so 

high, 

But  rather  raised  to  be  a  nobler  man, 
And  more  divine  in  my  humanity, 
As  knowing  that  the  waiting  eyes  which 

scan 

My  life  are  lighted  by  a  purer  being, 
And  ask  high,  calm-browed  deeds,  with  it 

agreeing. 

XI 

THERE  never  yet  was  flower  fair  in  vain, 
Let  classic  poets  rhyme  it  as  they  will ; 
The  seasons  toil  that  it  may  blow  again, 


22 


EARLIER   POEMS 


And  summer's  heart  doth  feel  its  every  ill; 

Nor  is  a  true  soul  ever  born  for  naught; 

Wherever  any  such  hath  lived  and  died, 

There  hath  been  something  for  true  free 
dom  wrought, 

Some  bulwark  levelled  on  the  evil  side: 

Toil  on,  then,  Greatness  !  thou  art  in  the 
right, 

However  narrow  souls  may  call  thee 
wrong; 

Be  as  thou  wouldst  be  in  thine  own  clear 
sight, 

And  so  thou  shalt  be  in  the  world's  erelong; 

For  worldlings  cannot,  struggle  as  they 
may, 

From  man's  great  soul  one  great  thought 
hide  away. 


XII 


SUB   PONDERE   CRESCIT 

THE  hope  of  Truth  grows  stronger,  day  by 

day; 

I  hear  the  soul  of  Man  around  me  waking, 
Like  a  great  sea,  its  frozen  fetters  break 
ing, 

And  flinging  up  to  heaven  its  sunlit  spray, 
Tossing  huge  continents  in  scornful  play, 
And  crushing  them,  with  din  of  grinding 

thunder, 
That  makes  old  emptinesses  stare  in  won- 

der; 

The  memory  of  a  glory  passed  away 
Lingers  in  every  heart,  as,  in  the  shell, 
Resounds  the  bygone  freedom  of  the  sea, 
And  every  hour  new  signs  of  promise  tell, 
That  the  great  soul  shall  once  again  be  free, 
For  high,  and  yet  more  high,  the  murmurs 

swell 
Of  inward  strife  for  truth  and  liberty. 

XIII 

BELOVED,  in  the  noisy  city  here, 

The  thought  of  thee  can  make  all  turmoil 

cease; 

Around  my  spirit,  folds  thy  spirit  clear 
Its    still,   soft   arms,   and"  circles   it   with 

peace ; 

There  is  no  room  for  any  doubt  or  fear 
In  souls  so  overfilled  with  love's  increase, 
There  is  no  memory  of  the  bygone  year 
But  growth  in  heart's  and  spirit's  perfect 

ease: 
How  hath  our  love,  half  nebulous  at  first, 


Rounded  itself  into  a  full-orbed  sun  ! 
How  have  our  lives  and  wills  (as  haply  erst 
They  were,  ere  this  forgett'ulness  begun) 
Through   all    their   earthly  distances  out 
burst, 
And  melted,  like  two  rays  of  light  in  one  ! 

XIV 

ON     READING    WORDSWORTH'S     SONNETS 
IN   DEFENCE   OF    CAPITAL   PUNISHMENT 

These  sonnets,  XIV-XIX,  when  printed  in 
The  Democratic  Review  for  May,  1842,  bore 
merely  the  title  Sonnets. 

As  the  broad  ocean  endlessly  upheaveth, 
With  the  majestic  beating  of  his  heart, 
The  mighty  tides,  whereof  its  rightful  part 
Each  sea-wide  bay  and  little  weed  receiv- 

eth, 

So,  through  his  soul  who  earnestly  believeth, 
Life  from  the  universal  Heart  doth  flow, 
WThereby    some    conquest   of    the    eternal 

Woe, 

By  instinct  of  God's  nature,  he  achieveth: 
A  fuller  pulse  of  this  all-powerful  beauty 
Into  the  poet's  gulf-like  heart  doth  tide, 
And  he  more  keenly  feels  the  glorious  duty 
Of  serving  Truth,  despised  and  crucified, — 
Happy,  unknowing  sect  or  creed,  to  rest, 
And  feel   God   flow   forever   through   his 

breast. 

XV 

THE   SAME   CONTINUED 

ONCE  hardly  in  a  cycle  blossometh 

A  flower-like  soul   ripe  with  the  seeds  of 

song, 

A  spirit  foreordained  to  cope  with  wrong, 
Whose    divine    thoughts    are    natural   as 

breath, 

Who  the  old  Darkness  thickly  scattereth 
With  starry  words,  that  shoot  prevailing 

light 

Into  the  deeps,  and  wither,  with  the  blight 
Of   serene    Truth,    the    coward    heart    of 

Death: 

Woe,  if  such  spirit  thwart  its  errand  high, 
And  mock  with  lies   the   longing  soul   of 

man  ! 

Yet  one  age  longer  must  true  Culture  lie, 
Soothing  her  bitter  fetters  as  she  can, 
Until  new  messages  of  love  outstart 
At  the  next  beating  of  the  infinite  Heart. 


SONNETS 


XVI 
THE   SAME   CONTINUED 

THE  love  of  all  things  springs  from  love  of 

one; 

Wider  the  soul's  horizon  hourly  grows, 
And  over  it  with  fuller  glory  flows 
The  sky-like  spirit  of  God;  a  hope  begun 
In  doubt  and  darkness  'neath  a  fairer  sun 
Cometh  to  fruitage,  if  it  be  of  Truth; 
And   to   the   law   of  meekness,  faith,  and 

ruth, 

By  inward  sympathy,  shall  all  be  won : 
This  tliou  shouldst   know,  who,  from  the 

painted  feature 
Of  shifting  Fashion,  couldst  thy  brethren 

turn 

Unto  the  love  of  ever-youthful  Nature, 
And  of  a  beauty  fadeless  and  eterne; 
And  always  't  is  the  saddest  sight  to  see 
An  old  man  faithless  in  Humanity. 

XVII 
THE   SAME   CONTINUED 

A  POET  cannot  strive  for  despotism; 
His  harp  falls  shattered  ;  for  it  still  must  be 
The  instinct  of  great  spirits  to  be  free, 
And  the  sworn  foes  of  cunning  barbarism: 
He   who   has   deepest  searched   the   wide 

abysm 
Of   that   life-giving  Soul  which  men  call 

fate, 
Knows  that  to  put  more  faith  in  lies  and 

hate 

Than  truth  and  love  is  the  true  atheism: 
Upward  the  soul  forever  turns  her  eyes: 
The  next  hour  always  shames  the  hour  be 
fore; 

One  beauty,  at  its  highest,  prophesies 
That  by  whose  side  it  shall  seem  mean  and 

poor; 
No  Godlike  thing  knows  aught  of  less  and 

less, 
But  widens  to  the  boundless  Perfectness. 

XVIII 
THE   SAME   CONTINUED 

THEREFORE  think  not  the    Past  is  wise 

alone, 

For  Yesterday  knows  nothing  of  the  Best, 
And  thou  shalt  love  it  only  as  the  nest 
Whence    glory-winged   things   to   Heaven 

have  flown: 


To    the    great   Soul    only    are   all    things 

known; 

Present  and  future  are  to  her  as  past, 
While  she  in  glorious  madness  doth  fore 
cast 
That  perfect  bud,  which   seems   a  flower 

full-blown 

To  each  new  Prophet,  and  yet  always  opes 
Fuller  and  fuller  with  each  day  and  hour, 
Heartening   the   soul  with   oclor  of   fresh 

hopes, 
And  longings  high,  and  gushings  of  wide 

power, 

Yet  never  is  or  shall  be  fully  blown 
Save  in   the   forethought  of  the   Eternal 
One. 

XIX 
THE   SAME    CONCLUDED 

FAR  'yond  this  narrow  parapet  of  Time, 
With  eyes  uplift,  the   poet's   soul   should 

look 

Into  the  Endless  Promise,  nor  should  brook 
One  prying  doubt  to  shake  his   faith  sub 
lime; 

To  him  the  earth  is  ever  in  her  prime 
And  dewiness  of  morning;  he  can  see 
Good  lying  hid,  from  all  eternity, 
Within    the    teeming    womb   of    sin   and 

crime ; 

His  soul  should  not  be  cramped  by  any  bar, 
His  nobleness  should  be  so  Godlike  high, 
That  his  least  deed  is  perfect  as  a  star, 
His  common  look  majestic  as  the  sky, 
And  all  o'erflooded  with  a  light  from  far, 
Undimmed  by  clouds  of  weak  mortality. 

XX 

TO  M.  o.  s. 

Mary  Orne  Story,  sister  to  William  Wetmore 
Story,  afterward  married  to  George  Ticknor 
Curtis. 

MARY,  since  first  I  knew  thee,  to  this  hour, 

My  love  hath  deepened,  with  my  wiser 
sense 

Of  what  in  Woman  is  to  reverence; 

Thy  clear  heart,  fresh  as  e'er  was  forest- 
flower, 

Still  opens  more  to  me  its  beauteous 
dower;  — 

But  let  praise  hush,  —  Love  asks  no 
evidence 

To  prove  itself  well-placed;  we  know  not 
whence 


EARLIER   POEMS 


It  gleans  the  straws  that  thatch  its  humble 

bower: 

We  can  but  say  we  found  it  in  the  heart, 
Spring  of  all  sweetest  thoughts,  arch  foe  of 

blame, 

Sower  of  flowers  iu  the  dusty  mart, 
Pure  vestal  of  the  poet's  holy  flame,  — 
This  is  enough,  and  we  have  done  our  part 
If  we  but  keep  it  spotless  as  it  came. 

XXI 

OUR  love  is  not  a  fading,  earthly  flower: 
Its  winged  seed  dropped  down  from  Para 
dise, 
And,  nursed  by  day  and  night,  by  sun  and 

shower, 

Doth  momently  to  fresher  beauty  rise: 
To  us  the  leafless  autumn  is  not  bare, 
Nor   winter's   rattling   boughs   lack  lusty 

green. 

Our  summer  hearts  make   summer's  ful 
ness,  where 

No  leaf,  or  bud,  or  blossom  may  be  seen : 
For  nature's  life  in  love's  deep  life  doth  lie, 
Love,  —  whose    forge tfulness    is    beauty's 

death, 

Whose  mystic  key  these  cells  of  Thou  and  I 
Into  the  infinite  freedom  openeth, 
And   makes  the  body's  dark   and  narrow 

grate 

The  wide-flung  leaves  of   Heaven's  own 
palace-gate. 

XXII 
IN   ABSENCE 

THESE  rugged,  wintry  days  I  scarce  could 

bear, 

Did  I  not  know  that,  in  the  early  spring, 
When   wild  March  winds  upon  their  er 
rands  sing, 
Thou  wouldst  return,  bursting  on  this  still 

air, 
Like  those  same  winds,  when,  startled  from 

their  lair, 

They  hunt  up  violets,  and  free  swift  brooks 
From  icy  cares,  even  as  thy  clear  looks 
Bid  my  heart  bloom,  and  sing,  and  break 

all  care: 
When  drops  with  welcome  rain  the  April 

day, 
My  flowers  shall  find  their  April  in  thine 

eyes, 
Save  there  the  rain  in  dreamy  clouds  doth 

stay, 


As  loath  to  fall  out  of  those  happy  skies; 
Yet  sure,  my  love,  thou   art  most  like  to 

May, 
That  comes  with  steady   sun   when   April 

dies. 

XXIII 
WENDELL   PHILLIPS 

HE  stood  upon  the  world's  broad  thresh 
old;  wide 

The  din  of  battle  and  of  slaughter  rose; 
He  saw  God  stand  upon  the  weaker  side, 
That  sank  in  seeming  loss  before  its  foes: 
Many  there  were  who  made   great  haste 

and  sold 

Unto  the  cunning  enemy  their  swords, 
He  scorned  their  gifts  of  fame,  and  power, 

and  gold, 
And,   underneath   their   soft   and   flowery 

words, 
Heard  the  cold  serpent  hiss ;  therefore  he 

went 
And   humbly   joined   him    to   the   weaker 

part, 

Fanatic  named,  and  fool,  yet  well  content 
So  he  could  be  the  nearer  to  God's  heart, 
And  feel  its  solemn  pulses  sending  blood 
Through  all  the  widespread  veins  of  end 
less  good. 

XXIV 
THE   STREET 

THEY  pass  me  by  like  shadows,  crowds  on 

crowds, 

Dim  ghosts  of  men,  that  hover  to  and  fro, 
Hugging  their  bodies  round  them  like  thin 

shrouds 

Wherein  their  souls  were  buried  long  ago: 
They  trampled  on  their  youth,  and  faith, 

and  love, 

They  cast  their  hope  of  human-kind  away, 
With  Heaven's  clear  messages  they  madly 

strove, 
And  conquered,  —  and  their  spirits  turned 

to  clay: 
Lo!  how  they   wander   round   the   world, 

their  grave, 

Whose  ever-gaping  maw  by  such  is  fed, 
Gibbering  at  living  men,  and  idly  rave, 
"  We  only  truly  live,  but  ye  are  dead." 
Alas  !   poor  fools,  the   anointed   eye   may 

trace 
A  dead  soul's  epitaph  in  every  face  ! 


L'ENVOI 


25 


XXV 

I  GRIEVE  not  that   ripe  Knowledge  takes 

away 
The  charm  that   Nature  to  my  childhood 

wore, 

For,  with  that  insight,  cometh,  day  by  day, 
A  greater  bliss  than  wonder  was  before; 
The  real  doth  not  clip  the  poet's  wings, — 
To  win  the  secret  of  a  weed's  plain  heart 
Reveals  some  clue  to  spiritual  things, 
And  stumbling  guess  becomes  firm-footed 

art: 
Flowers   are   not   flowers   unto  the   poet's 

eyes, 
Their   beauty   thrills   him   by   an   inward 

sense ; 
He  knows  that  outward  seemings  are  but 

lies, 
Or,   at   the    most,    but    earthly    shadows, 

whence 
The  soul  that  looks  within  for  truth  may 

guess 
The  presence  of  some  wondrous  heavenli- 

ness. 

XXVI 
TO  J.   R.   GIDDINGS 

GIDDINGS,  far  rougher  names  than  thine 

have  grown 

Smoother  than  honey  on  the  lips  of  men; 
And  thou  shalt  aye  be  honorably  known, 
As  one  who  bravely  used  his  tongue  and  pen, 
As  best  befits  a  freeman,  —  even  for  those 
To  whom  our  Law's  unblushing  front  de 
nies 

A  right  to  plead  against  the  lifelong  woes 
Which  are  the   Negro's  glimpse  of  Free 
dom's  skies: 
Fear  nothing,  and  hope  all  things,  as  the 

Right 

Alone  may  do  securely;  every  hour 
The    thrones   of    Ignorance    and     ancient 

Night 
Lose    somewhat    of     their    long -usurped 

power, 
And  Freedom's   lightest   word   can   make 

them  shiver 

With  a  base  dread  that  clings  to  them  for 
ever. 

XXVII 

I  THOUGHT  our  love  at  full,  but  I  did  err; 
Joy's  wreath   drooped   o'er  mine    eyes;  I 
could  not  see 


That  sorrow  in  our  happy  world  must  be 
Love's  deepest  spokesman  and  interpreter: 
But,  as  a  mother  feels  her  child  first  stir 
Under  her  heart,  so  felt  I  instantly 
Deep  in  my  soul  another  bond  to  thee 
Thrill  with  that  life  we  saw  depart  from 

her; 

O  mother  of  our  angel  child  !  twice  dear  ! 
Death  knits  as  well  as  parts,  and   still,  I 

wis, 

Her  tender  radiance  shall  infold  us  here, 
Even  as  the  light,  borne  up  by  inward  bliss, 
Threads  the  void  glooms  of  space  without 

a  fear, 
To  print  on  farthest  stars  her  pitying  kiss. 


L'ENVOI 

WHETHER  my  heart  hath  wiser  grown  or 

not, 

In  these  three  years,  since  I  to   thee   in 
scribed, 
Mine  own  betrothed,  the  firstlings  of  my 

muse,  — 

Poor  windfalls  of  unripe  experience, 
Young  buds   plucked   hastily   by   childish 

hands 

Not  patient  to  await  more  full-blown  flow 
ers,  — 

At  least  it  hath  seen  more  of  life  and  men, 
And  pondered  more,  and  grown   a    shade 

more  sad; 

Yet  with  no  loss  of  hope  or  settled  trust 
In  the  benignness  of  that  Providence 
Which  shapes  from  out  our  elements  awry 
The  grace  and  order  that  we  wonder  at, 
The  mystic  harmony  of  right  and  wrong, 
Both   working   out   His   wisdom   and   our 

good: 

A  trust,  Beloved,  chiefly  learned  of  thee, 
Who  hast  that  gift  of  patient  tenderness, 
The  instinctive  wisdom  of  a  woman's  heart. 

They  tell  us  that  our  land  was  made  for 

song, 
With    its    huge    rivers    and    sky-piercing 

peaks, 

Its  sealike  lakes  and  mighty  cataracts, 
Its  forests  vast  and  hoar,  and  prairies  wide, 
And  mounds  that  tell  of  wondrous  tribes 

extinct. 
But    Poesy   springs   not   from   rocks   and 

woods; 
Her  womb  and  cradle  are  the  human  heart, 


EARLIER   POEMS 


And  she  can  find  a  nobler  theme  for  song 
In  the  most  loathsome  man  that  blasts  the 

sight 

Than  in  the  broad  expanse  of  sea  and  shore 
Between  the  frozen  deserts  of  the  poles. 
All  nations  have    their   message  from   on 

high, 

Each  the  messiah  of  some  central  thought, 
For  the  fulfilment  and  delight  of  Man: 
One  has  to  teach  that  labor  is  divine; 
Another  Freedom;  and  another  Mind; 
And  all,  that  God  is  open-eyed  and  just, 
The  happy  centre  and  calm  heart  of  all. 

Are,  then,  our  woods,  our  mountains,  and 

our  streams, 

Needful  to  teach  our  poets  how  to  sing  ? 
O  maiden  rare,  far  other  thoughts  were  ours, 
When   we    have   sat  by    ocean's   foaming 

marge, 
And  watched  the  waves  leap  roaring  on  the 

rocks, 

Than  young  Leander  and  his  Hero  had, 
Gazing  from  Sestos  to  the  other  shore. 
The  moon  looks  down  and  ocean  worships 

her, 

Stars  rise  and  set,  and  seasons  come  and  go 
Even  as  they  did  in  Homer's  elder  time, 
But  we  behold  them  not  with  Grecian  eyes: 
Then  they   were  types   of  beauty  and  of 

strength, 

But  now  of  freedom,  unconfined  and  pure, 
Subject  alone  to  Order's  higher  law. 
What  cares  the  Russian  serf  or  Southern 

slave 
Though  we   should   speak  as    man   spake 

never  yet 

Of  gleaming  Hudson's  broad  magnificence, 
Or  green  Niagara's  never-ending  roar  ? 
Our  country  hath  a  gospel  of  her  own 
To    preach    and    practise    before    all    the 

world,  — 

The  freedom  and  divinity  of  man, 
The    glorious   claims   of    human   brother 
hood,  — 

Which  to  pay  nobly,  as  a  freeman  should, 
Gains    the    sole   wealth   that   will   not   fly 

away,  — 

And  the  soul's  fealty  to  none  but  God. 
These  are  realities,  which  make  the  shows 
Of  outward  Nature,  be  they  ne'er  so  grand. 
Seem  small,  and  worthless,  and  contempti- 

ble. 
These  are  the   mountain-summits   for  our 

bards, 


Which  stretch  far  upward  into  heaven  it 
self, 
And  give   such   widespread   and   exulting 

view 

Of  hope,  and  faith,  and  onward  destiny, 
That    shrunk     Parnassus    to    a     molehill 

dwindles. 

Our  new  Atlantis,  like  a  morning-star, 
Silvers    the    mirk    face   of    slow  -  vieldinof 

Night, 

The  herald  of  a  fuller  truth  than  yet 
Hath  gleamed  upon   the  upraised   face  of 

Man 
Since  the  earth   glittered  in  her   stainless 

prime,  — 

Of  a  more  glorious  sunrise  than  of  old 
Drew   wondrous    melodies  from   Menmon 

huge, 
Yea,  draws  them  still,  though  now  he  sit 

waist-deep 

In  the  ingulfing  flood  of  whirling  sand, 
And  look  across  the  wastes  of  endless  gray, 
Sole  wreck,  where  once  his  hundred-gated 

Thebes 
Pained    with   her  mighty   hum   the   calm, 

blue  heaven: 

Shall  the  dull  stone  pay  grateful  orisons, 
And  we  till  noonday  bar  the  splendor  out, 
Lest  it  reproach  and   chide  our  sluggard 

hearts, 

Warm-nestled  in  the  down  of  Prejudice, 
And   be  content,  though  clad  with   angel- 
wings, 
Close-clipped,  to  hop  about  from  perch  to 

perch, 
In    paltry    cages    of     dead     men's    dead 

thoughts  ? 

Oh,  rather,  like  the  skylark,  soar  and  sing, 
And  let  our  gushing  songs  befit  the  dawn 
And  sunrise,  and  the  yet  unshaken  dew 
Brimming-  the  chalice  of   each   full-blown 

hope, 
Whose    blithe    front   turns   to    greet   the 

growing  day  ! 

Never  had  poets  such  high  call  before, 
Never  can  poets  hope  for  higher  one, 
And,  if  they  be  but  faithful  to  their  trust, 
Earth  will  remember  them  with  love  and  joy, 
And  oh,  far  better,  God  will  not  forget. 
For  be  who  settles  Freedom's  principles 
Writes  the  death-warrant  of  all  tyranny; 
Who  speaks  the  truth   stabs  Falsehood  to 

the  heart, 
And  his  mere  word  makes  despots  tremble 


L'ENVOI 


27 


Than  ever  Brutus  with  his  dagger  could. 
Wait  for  no  hints  from  waterfalls  or 

woods, 
Nor  dream  that  tales   of   red  men,   brute 

and  fierce, 

Repay  the  finding  of  this  Western  World, 
Or  needed   half   the   globe   to   give  them 

birth: 

Spirit  supreme  of  Freedom  !  not  for  this 
Did  great  Columbus  tame  his  eagle  soul 
To  jostle  with  the  daws  that  perch  in 

courts; 

Not  for  this,  friendless,  on  an  unknown  sea, 
Coping  with  mad  waves  and  more  mutin 
ous  spirits, 

Battled  he  with  the  dreadful  ache  at  heart 
Which  tempts,  with  devilish  subtleties  of 

doubt, 

The  hermit  of  that  loneliest  solitude, 
The  silent  desert  of  a  great  New  Thought; 
Though  loud  Niagara  were  to-day  struck 

dumb, 

Yet  would  this  cataract  of  boiling  life 
Rush  plunging  on  and  on  to  endless  deeps, 
And   utter   thunder  till    the    world    shall 

cease,  — 

A  thunder  worthy  of  the  poet's  song, 
And  which  alone  can  fill  it  with  true  life. 
The  high  evangel  to  our  country  granted 


Could  make  apostles,  yea,  with  tongues  of 

fire, 
Of  hearts   half-darkened    back    again   to 

clay  ! 

'T  is  the  soul  only  that  is  national, 
And  he  who  pays  true  loyalty  to  that 
Alone  can  claim  the  wreath  of  patriotism. 

Beloved  !  if  I  wander  far  and  oft 
From  that  which  I  believe,  and  feel,  and 

know, 
Thou  wilt  forgive,  not  with  a  sorrowing 

heart, 
But   with   a  strengthened  hope  of   better 

things ; 
Knowing  that   I,  though  often   blind  and 

false 
To  those  I  love,  and  oh,  more  false  than 

all 

Unto  myself,  have  been  most  true  to  thee, 
And  that  whoso   in   one  thing   hath   been 

true 

Can  be  as  true  in  all.  Therefore  thy  hope 
May  yet  not  prove  unfruitful,  and  thy  love 
Meet,  day  by  day,  with  less  unworthy 

thanks, 

Whether,  as  now,  we  journey  hand  in  hand, 
Or,  parted  in  the  body,  yet  are  one 
In  spirit  and  the  love  of  holy  things. 


MISCELLANEOUS   POEMS 


WHEN  Lowell  published  his  second  volume, 
Poems,  in  1843,  he  opened  it  with  A  Legend  of 
Brittany,  and  dedicated  it  in  the  following  let 
ter  to  the  painter,  William  Page  :  — 

MY  DEAR  FRIEND,  — 

The  love  between  us,  which  can  now  look 
back  upon  happy  years  of  still  enlarging  con 
fidence,  and  forward,  with  a  sure  trust  in  its 
own  prophecy  of  yet  deeper  and  tenderer  sym- 
patlms,  as  long  as  life  shall  remain  to  us, 
stands  in  no  need,  I  am  well  aware,  of  so  poor 
a  voucher  as  an  Epistle  Dedicatory.  True,  it 
is  one  of  Love's  chiefest  charms,  that  it  must 
still  take  special  pains  to  be  superfluous  in 
seeking  out  ways  to  declare  itself,  —  but  for 
these  it  demands  no  publicity,  and  wishes  no 
acknowledgment.  But  the  admiration  which 
one  soul  feels  for  another  loses  half  its  worth, 
if  it  let  slip  any  opportunity  of  making  itself 
heard  and  felt  by  that  strange  Abbot  of  Un 
reason  which  we  call  the  World.  For  the 
humblest  man's  true  admiration  is  no  uncer 


tain  oracle  of  the  verdict  of  Posterity,  —  the 
unerring  tribunal  where  Genius  is  at  last  al 
lowed  the  right  of  trial  by  its  peers,  and  to 
which  none  but  sincere  and  real  Greatness  can 
appeal  with  an  unwavering  heart.  There  the 
false  witnesses  of  to-day  will  be  unable  to  ap 
pear,  being  fled  to  some  hospitable  Texas  in 
the  realms  of  Limbo,  beyond  the  sphere  of  its 
jurisdiction  and  the  summons  of  its  apparitors. 
I  have  never  seen  the  works  of  the  Great 
Masters  of  your  Art,  but  I  have  studied  their 
lives,  and  sure  I  am  that  no  nobler,  gentler,  or 
purer  spirit  than  yours  was  ever  anointed  by 
the  Eternal  Beauty  to  bear  that  part  of  her 
divine  message  which  it  belongs  to  the  Great 
Painter  to  reveal.  The  sympathy  of  sister 
pursuits,  of  an  agreeing  artistic  faith,  and,  yet 
more,  of  a  common  hope  for  the  final  destiny 
of  man,  has  not  been  wanting  to  us,  and  now 
you  will  forgive  the  pride  I  feel  in  having  this 
advantage  over  you,  namely,  of  telling  that  ad 
miration  in  public  which  I  have  never  stinted 
to  utter  in  private.  You  will  believe,  that,  as 


28 


MISCELLANEOUS    POEMS 


your  winning  that  fadeless  laurel,  which  you 
deserve,  and  which  will  one  day  surely  be 
yours,  can  never  heighten  my  judgment  of  you, 
so  nothing  that  is  not  in  your  own  control  will 
ever  lower  it,  and  that  I  shall  think  as  simply 
of  you  when  the  World's  opinion  has  overtaken 
my  own,  as  now. 

As  the  swiftly  diverging  channels  of  Life 
bear  wider  and  wider  apart  from  us  the  friends 
who  hoisted  sail  with  us  as  fellow -mariners, 
when  we  cast  off  for  the  voyage,  and  as  some, 

A   LEGEND    OF   BRITTANY 

Lowell  was  in  high  spirits  when  he  was  at 
work  on  A  Legend  oj  Brittany.  "I  am  now 
at  work,"  he  writes  to  G.  B.  Loring,  under 
date  of  June  15,  1843,  "  on  a  still  longer  poem 
[than  Prometheus]  in  the  ottava  rima,  to  be  the 
first  in  my  forthcoming  volume.  I  feel  more 
and  more  assured  every  day  that  I  shall  yet  do 
something  that  will  keep  my  name  (and  per 
haps  my  body)  alive.  My  wings  were  never  so 
light  and  strong  as  now." 

A  Legend  of  Brittany  and  most  of  the  other 
poems  in  the  volume  which  it  opened  belong 
in  the  category  referred  to  by  him  in  his  Prefa 
tory  Note,  of  pieces  which  he  '*  would  gladly 
suppress  or  put  into  the  Coventry  of  smaller 

r'nt  in  an  appendix."     Their  value  is  chiefly 
the  record  they  contain  of  his  poetic  devel 
opment  and  his  temperament. 

PART  FIRST 


FAIR  as  a  summer  dream  was  Margaret, 
Such  dream  as   in  a  poet's  soul   might 

start, 
Musing  of  old  loves  while  the  moon  doth 

set: 
Her  hair  was  not  more  sunny  than  her 

heart, 

Though  like  a  natural  golden  coronet 
It  circled  her  dear  head  with  careless 

art, 
Mocking   the   sunshine,    that   would    fain 

have  lent 
To  its  frank  grace  a  richer  ornament. 


His  loved  one's  eyes  could  poet  ever  speak, 
So  kind,   so   dewy,   and   so   deep   were 

hers,  — 
But,  while  he  strives,  the  choicest  phrase, 

too  weak, 
Their  glad  reflection  in  his  spirit  blurs; 


even,  who  are  yet  side  by  side  with  us,  no 
longer  send  back  to  us  an  answering  cheer,  we 
are  drawn  the  more  closely  to  those  that  re 
main,  and  I  would  fain  hope  that  this  joining 
of  our  names  will  always  be  one  of  our  not 
least  happy  memories. 

And  so,  with  all  best  wishes, 

I  remain  always  your  friend, 

J.  R.  LOWELL. 

CAMBRIDGE,  December  15,  1843. 


As   one   may   see   a   dream   dissolve    and 

break 

Out  of  his  grasp  when  he  to  tell  it  stirs, 
Like  that  sad.  Dryad  doomed  no  more  to 

bless 
The  mortal  who  revealed  her  loveliness. 

Ill 

She  dwelt  forever  in  a  region  bright, 
Peopled  with  living  fancies  of  her  own, 

Where  naught  could  come  but  visions  of 

delight, 
Far,  far  aloof  from  earth's  eternal  moan : 

A  summer  cloud  thrilled  through  with  rosy 

light, 
Floating  beneath  the  blue  sky  all  alone, 

Her  spirit  wandered  by  itself,  and  won 

A  golden  edge  from  some  unsetting  sun. 

IV 

The  heart  grows  richer  that  its  lot  is  poor, 
God   blesses   want   with   larger    sympa 
thies, 

Love  enters  gladliest  at  the  humble  door, 
And  makes  the  cot  a  palace   with   his 

eyes; 

So  Margaret's  heart  a  softer  beauty  wore, 
And   grew   in   gentleness   and   patience 

wise, 

For  she  was  but  a  simple  herdsman's  child, 
A  lily  chance-sown  in  the  rugged  wild. 


There  was  no  beauty  of  the  wood  or  field 
But  she  its  fragrant  bosom-secret  knew, 
Nor  any  but  to  her  would  freely  yield 
Some  grace  that  in  her   soul   took  root 

and  grew: 

Nature  to  her  shone  as  but  now  revealed, 
All   rosy-fresh    with    innocent    morning 

dew, 
And  looked  into  her  heart  with  dim,  sweet 

eyes 
That  left  it  full  of  sylvan  memories. 


A   LEGEND   OF   BRITTANY 


29 


VI 

Oh,  what  a  face  was  hers  to  brighten  light, 
And  give  back  sunshine  with  an  added 

glow, 

To  wile  each  moment  with  a  fresh  delight, 
And  part  of  memory's  best  contentment 

grow  ! 
Oh,  how   her   voice,  as    with   an   inmate's 

right, 
Into  the  strangest  heart  would  welcome 

go, 

And  make  it  sweet,  and  ready  to  become 
Of  white  and  gracious  thoughts  the  chosen 
home  ! 

VII 

None  looked  upon  her  but  he  straightway 

thought 
Of  all   the   greenest  depths  of   country 

cheer, 
And   into   each   one's   heart   was    freshly 

brought 
What  was  to  him  the  sweetest  time  of 

year, 

So  was  her  every  look  and  motion  fraught 
With   out-of-door   delights    and    forest 

lere; 

Not  the  first  violet  on  a  woodland  lea 
Seemed  a  more  visible  gift  of  Spring  than 
she. 

VIII 

Is  love  learned  only  out  of  poets'  books  ? 
Is  there  not  somewhat  in  the  dropping 

flood, 

And  in  the  nunneries  of  silent  nooks, 
And   in   the   murmured   longing  of  the 

wood, 

That  could  make  Margaret  dream  of  love 
lorn  looks, 

And  stir  a  thrilling  mystery  in  her  blood 
More  trembly  secret  than  Aurora's  tear 
Shed  in  the  bosom  of  an  eglatere  ? 

IX 

Full  many  a  sweet  forewarning  hath  the 

mind, 

Full  many  a  whispering  of  vague  desire, 
Ere  comes  the  nature  destined  to  unbind 
Its   virgin   zone,    and   all  its   deeps  in 
spire,— 

Low  stirrings  in  the  leaves,  before  the  wind 
Wake  all  the  green  strings  of  the  forest 
lyre, 


Faint  heatings  in  the  calyx,  ere  the  rose 
Its  warm  voluptuous   breast  doth  all  un 
close. 

x 

Long  in  its  dim  recesses  pines  the  spirit, 
Wildered  and  dark,  despairingly  alone; 

Though   many  a  shape  of  beauty  wander 

near  it, 

And  many  a  wild  and  half-remembered 
tone 

Tremble  from  the  divine  abyss  to  cheer  it, 
Yet  still  it  knows  that  there  is  only  one 

Before  whom  it  can  kneel  and  tribute  bring, 

At  once  a  happy  vassal  and  a  king. 

XI 

To  feel  a  want,  yet  scarce  know  what  it  is, 

To  seek  one  nature  that  is  always  new, 
Whose   glance   is  warmer  than  another's 

kiss, 

Whom  we  can  bare  our  inmost  beauty  to, 
Nor  feel  deserted  afterwards,  —  for  this 
But  with  our  destined  co-mate  we  can 

do,- 

Such  longing  instinct  fills  the  mighty  scope 
Of  the   young    soul  with  one  mysterious 
hope. 

XII 

So  Margaret's  heart  grew  brimming  with 

the  lore 

Of  love's  enticing  secrets;  and  although 
She  had  found  none  to  cast  it  down  before, 

Yet  oft  to  Fancy's  chapel  she  would  go 
To  pay  her  vows  —  and  count  the  rosary 

o'er 
Of  her  love's  promised  graces:  —  haply 

so 

Miranda's  hope  had  pictured  Ferdinand 
Long  ere  the  gaunt  wave  tossed  him  on  the 
strand. 

XIII 

A  new-made   star  that  swims   the  lonely 

gloom, 

Un wedded  yet  and  longing  for  the  sun, 
Whose  beams,  the  bride-gifts  of  the  lavish 

groom, 

Blithely  to  crown  the  virgin  planet  run, 
Her  being  was,  watching  to  see  the  bloom 
Of  love's   fresh   sunrise  roofing  one  by 

one 

Its  clouds  with  gold,  a  triumph-arch  to  be 
For  him  who  came  to  hold  her  heart  in  fee. 


3° 


MISCELLANEOUS    POEMS 


XIV 

Not  far  from  Margaret's  cottage  dwelt  a 

knight 

Of  the  proud  Templars,  a  sworn  celibate, 
Whose  heart  in  secret  fed  upon  the  light 
And  dew  of  her  ripe  beauty,  through  the 

grate 
Of  his  close  vow  catching  what  gleams  he 

might 

Of  the  free  heaven,  and  cursing  all  too  late 
The  cruel  faith  whose  black  walls  hemmed 

him  in 
And  turned  life's  crowning  bliss  to  deadly 


XV 

For  he  had  met  her  in  the  wood  by  chance, 
And,  having  drunk  her  beauty's  wilder- 
ing  spell, 

His  heart  shook  like  the  pennon  of  a  lance 
That  quivers  in  a  breeze's  sudden  swell, 

And  thenceforth,  in  a  close- infolded  trance, 
From  mistily  golden  deep  to  deep  he  fell ; 

Till  earth  did  waver  and  fade  far  away 

Beneath  the  hope  in  whose  warm  arms  he 
lay. 

XVI 

A  dark,  proud  man  he  was,  whose   half- 
blown  youth 

Had  shed  its  blossoms  even  in  opening, 
Leaving  a  few  that  with  more  winning  ruth 
Trembling  around  grave  manhood's  stem 

might  cling, 
More   sad   than   cheery,  making,  in  good 

sooth, 
Like  the  fringed  gentian,  a  late  autumn 

spring: 

A  twilight  nature,  braided  light  and  gloom, 
A  youth  half-smiling  by  an  open  tomb. 

XVII 

Fair  as  an  angel,  who  yet  inly  wore 

A  wrinkled  heart   foreboding:   his   near 

fall; 
Who  saw  him  alway  wished  to  know  him 

more, 

As  if  he  were  some  fate's  defiant  thrall 
And  nursed  a  dreaded  secret  at  his  core; 

Little  he  loved,  but  power  the  most  of  all, 
And  that  he  seemed  to  scorn,  as  one  who 

knew 

By  what  foul  paths   men  choose  to  crawl 
thereto. 


XVIII 

He  had  been  noble,  but  some  great  deceit 
Had  turned  his  better  instinct  to  a  vice: 
He  strove  to  think   the  world  was  all  a 

cheat, 
That  power  and  fame  were  cheap  at  any 

price, 

That  the  sure  way  of  being  shortly  great 
Was  even  to  play  life's  game  with  loaded 

dice, 
Since   he  had  tried   the  honest  play   and 

found 
That  vice  and  virtue  differed  but  in  sound. 

XIX 

Yet  Margaret's  sight  redeemed  him  for  a 

space 
From    his   own    thraldom;    man    could 

never  be 
A  hypocrite  when  first  such  maiden  grace 

Smiled  in  upon  his  heart;  the  agony 
Of  wearing  all  day  long  a  lying  face 

Fell   lightly  from  him,  and,  a  moment 

free, 

Erect  with  wakened  faith  his  spirit  stood 
And  scorned  the  weakness  of  his  demon- 
mood. 

XX 

Like  a  sweet  wind-harp  to  him  was  her 

thought, 
Which  would  not  let  the   common  air 

come  near, 

Till  from  its  dim  enchantment  it  had  caught 
A  musical  tenderness  that  brimmed  his 

ear 

With  sweetness  more  ethereal  than  aught 
Save  silver-dropping  snatches  that  whil- 

ere 

Rained  down  from  some  sad  angel's  faith 
ful  harp 
To  cool  her  fallen  lover's  anguish  sharp. 

XXI 

Deep  in  the  forest  was  a  little  dell 

High  overarched  with  the  leafy  sweep 

Of   a   broad  oak,   through  whose  gnarled 

roots  there  fell 
A  slender  rill  that  sung  itself  to  sleep, 

Where  its  continuous  toil  had  scooped  a  well 
To  please  the  fairy  folk ;  breathlessly  deep 

The  stillness  was,  save  when  the  dreaming 
brook 

From  its  small  urn  a  drizzly  murmur  shook. 


A   LEGEND   OF   BRITTANY 


XXII 

The  wooded  hills  sloped  upward  all  around 
With  gradual  rise,  and  made  an  even  rim, 
So  that  it   seemed   a   mighty   casque   un 
bound 
From  some  huge  Titan's  brow  to  lighten 

him, 
Ages  <igo,  and  left  upon  the  ground, 

Where  the  slow  soil  had  mossed  it  to  the 

brim, 

Till  after  countless  centuries  it  grew 
Into  this  dell,  the  haunt  of  noontide  dew. 

XXIII 

Dim  vistas,  sprinkled  o'er  with  sun-flecked 

green, 
Wound  through  the  thickset  trunks  on 

every  side, 
And,  toward   the  west,  in  fancy  might  be 

seen 

A  Gothic  window  in  its  blazing  pride, 
When  the  low  sun,  two   arching  elms  be 
tween, 

Lit  up  the  leaves  beyond,  which,  autumn- 
dyed 

With  lavish  hues,  would  into  splendor  start, 
Shaming  the  labored  panes  of  richest  art. 

XXIV 

Here,   leaning  once  against  the  old   oak's 

trunk, 

Mordred,  for  such  was  the  young   Tem 
plar's  name, 
Saw   Margaret  come;  unseen,   the   falcon 

shrunk 
From   the   meek   dove;  sharp  thrills  of 

tingling  flame 
Made  him   forget   that   he   was   vowed  a 

monk, 
And  all  the  outworks  of  his  pride   o'er- 

came : 
Flooded  he   seemed  with  bright   delicious 

pain, 
As  if  a  star  had  burst  within  his  brain. 

XXV 

Such  power  hath  beauty  and   frank  inno 
cence  : 
A  flower  bloomed  forth,   that   sunshine 

glad  to  bless, 
Even  from  his   love's  long  leafless   stem; 

the  sense 

Of  exile  from  Hope's  happy  realm  grew 
less, 


And  thoughts   of  childish  peace,  he  knew 

not  whence, 
Thronged  round  his  heart  with  many  an 

old  caress, 

Melting  the  frost  there  into  pearly  dew 
That  mirrored  back  his  nature's  morning- 
blue. 

XXVI 

She  turned  and  saw   him,  but  she   felt  nc 

dread, 

Her  purity,  like  adamantine  mail, 
Did  so  encircle  her;  and  yet  her  head 
She  drooped,  and  made  her  golden  hair 

her  veil, 
Through  which   a   glow   of  rosiest   lustre 

spread, 

Then  faded,  and  anon  she  stood  all  pale, 
As  snow  o'er  which  a  blush  of  northern-light 
Suddenly    reddens,    and    as    soon    grows 
white. 

XXVII 

She  thought  of  Tristrem  and  of  Lancilot, 
Of  all  her  dreams,  and  of  kind   fairies' 

might, 
And  how  that  dell  was  deemed  a  haunted 

spot, 

Until  there  grew  a  rnist  before  her  sight, 

And  where  the  present  was  she  half  forgot, 

Borne  backward  through  the  realms  of 

old  delight,  — 
Then,  starting  up  awake,  she  would  have 

gone, 
Yet  almost  wished  it  might  not  be  alone. 

XXVIII 

How  they  went  home  together  through  the 

wood, 

And  how  all  life  seemed  focussed  into  one 
Thought-dazzling  spot  that  set  ablaze  the 

blood, 
What  need  to  tell  ?     Fit  language  there 

is  none 
For  the  heart's  deepest  things.     Who  ever 

wooed 

As  in  his  boyish  hope  he  would  have  done  ? 
For,  when  the  soul  is  fullest,  the  hushed 

tongue 
Voicelessly  trembles  like  a  lute  unstrung. 

XXIX 

But  all  things  carry  the  heart's  messages 
And  know  it  not,  nor  doth  the  heart  well 
know. 


32 


MISCELLANEOUS    POEMS 


But   Nature   hath  her   will;  even  as    the 

bees, 

Blithe  go-betweens,  fly  singing  to  and  fro 
With   the  fruit-quickening  pollen;  —  hard 

if  these 
Found  not  some  all  unthought-of  way  to 

show 

Their  secret  each  to  each;  and  so  they  did, 
And  one  heart's  flower-dust  into  the  other 

slid. 

XXX 

Young  hearts  are  free;  the  selfish  world  it 

is 
That  turns   them   miserly   and   cold   as 

stone, 
And  makes  them  clutch  their   fingers   on 

the  bliss 
Which    but    in    giving    truly    is    their 

own ;  — 
She  had  no  dreams  of  barter,  asked  not 

his, 
But  gave  hers  freely  as  she  would  have 

thrown 

A  rose  to  him,  or  as  that  rose  gives  forth 
Its  generous  fragrance,  thoughtless  of  its 

worth. 

XXXI 

Her  summer  nature  felt  a  need  to  bless, 
And  a  like  longing  to  be  blest  again; 

So,  from  her  sky-like  spirit,  gentleness 
Dropt  ever  like  a  sunlit  fall  of  rain, 

And  his  beneath  drank  in  the  bright  caress 
As  thirstily  as  would  a  parched  plain, 

That  long  hath    watched   the    showers    of 
sloping  gray 

For  ever,  ever,  falling  far  away. 

XXXII 

How  should  she  dream  of  ill  ?  the  heart 
filled  quite 

With  sunshine,  like  the  shepherd's-clock 

at  noon, 
Closes  its  leaves  around  its  warm  delight; 

Whate'er  in  life  is  harsh  or  out  of  tune 
Is  all  shut  out,  no  boding  shade  of  blight 

Can  pierce  the  opiate  ether  of  its  swoon: 
Love  is  but  blind  as  thoughtful  justice  is, 
But  naught  can  be  so  wanton-blind  as  bliss. 

XXXIII 

All  beauty  and  all  life  he  was  to  her; 
She  questioned  not  his   love,  she   only 
knew 


That  she  loved  him,  and  not  a  pulse  could 

stir 
In  her  whole  frame  but  quivered  through 

and  through 
With  this  glad  thought,  and  was  a  minister 

To  do  him  fealty  and  service  true, 
Like  golden  ripples  hasting  to  the  land 
To  wreck  their  freight  of  sunshine  on  the 
strand. 

XXXIV 

O  dewy  dawn  of  love  !     O  hopes  that  are 
Hung  high,  like  the  cliff-swallow's  peril 
ous  nest, 
Most  like  to  fall  when  fullest,   and  that 

jar 

With  every  heavier  billow  !     O  unrest 
Than  balmiest  deeps  of  quiet  sweeter  far  I 
How  did  ye  triumph  now  in  Margaret's 

breast, 

Making  it  readier  to  shrink  and  start 
Than  quivering   gold   of   the   pond -lily's 
heart ! 

xxxv 

Here   let   us   pause:   oh,   would    the   soul 

might  ever 

Achieve  its  immortality  in  youth, 
When  nothing  yet   hath  damped  its  high 

endeavor 

After  the  starry  energy  of  truth  ! 
Here  let  us  pause,  and  for  a  moment  sever 
This   gleam   of   sunshine  from   the   sad 

unruth 

That  sometime  comes  to  all,  for  it  is  good 
To  lengthen  to  the  last  a  sunny  mood. 


PART   SECOND 


As  one  who,  from   the  sunshine   and   the 

green, 

Enters  the  solid  darkness  of  a  cave, 
Nor  knows  what  precipice  or  pit  unseen 
May  yawn  before  him  with  its  sudden 

grave, 

And,  with  hushed  breath,  doth  often  for 
ward  lean, 
Dreaming   he  hears   the  plashing  of   a 

wave 

Dimly  below,  or  feels  a  damper  air 
From  out  some  dreary  chasm,  he  knows 
not  where; 


A   LEGEND    OF    BRITTANY 


33 


So,  from  the  sunshine   and  the  green  of 

love, 

We  enter  on  our  story's  darker  part; 
And,  though  the   horror  of   it   well   may 

move 

An  impulse  of  repugnance  in  the  heart, 
Yet  let  us  think,  that,  as  there  's  naught 

above 

The  all-embracing  atmosphere  of  Art, 
So  also  there  is  naught  that  falls  below 
Her  generous  reach,  though  grimed  with 
guilt  and  woe. 

Hi 

Her  fittest  triumph  is  to  show  that  good 

Lurks  in  the  heart  of  evil  evermore, 
That  love,   though   scorned,   and   outcast, 

and  withstood, 
Can  without  end  forgive,  and  yet  have 

store; 
God's  love  and  man's  are  of  the  selfsame 

blood, 

And  He  can  see  that  always  at  the  door 
Of  foulest  hearts  the  angel-nature  yet 
Knocks  to  return  and  cancel  all  its  debt. 

IV 

It  ever  is  weak  falsehood's  destiny 

That  her  thick  mask  turns  crystal  to  let 

through 
The  unsuspicious  eyes  of  honesty; 

But  Margaret's   heart   was  too   sincere 

and  true 
Aught  but  plain  truth  and  faithfulness  to 

see, 

And  Mordred's  for  a  time  a  little  grew 
To  be  like  hers,  won  by  the  mild  reproof 
Of  those  kind  eyes   that   kept   all   doubt 
aloof. 


Full   oft  they  met,  as  dawn  and  twilight 

meet 
In  northern  climes;  she  full  of  growing 

day 

As  he  of  darkness,  which  before  her  feet 
Shrank  gradual,  and  faded  quite  away, 
Soon  to  return;  for  power  had  made  love 

sweet 
To  him,  and,  when  his  will  had  gained 

full  sway, 

The  taste  began  to  pall;  for  never  power 
Can  sate  the  hungry  soul  beyond  an  hour. 


VI 

He  fell  as  doth  the  tempter  ever  fall, 
Even  in   the   gaining  of   his   loathsome 

end; 
God  doth   not   work  as   man  works,   but 

makes  all 
The   crooked   paths   of   ill   to  goodness 

tend; 
Let  him   judge   Margaret!     If  to  be  the 

thrall 

Of  love,  and  faith  too  generous  to  defend 
Its  very  life  from  him  she  loved,  be  sin, 
What  hope  of  grace  may  the  seducer  win  ? 

VII 

Grim-hearted  world,  that  look'st  with  Le- 

vite  eyes 
On  those  poor  fallen  by  too  much  faith  in 

man, 

She  that  upon  thy  freezing  threshold  lies, 
Starved  to  more  sinning  by  thy  savage 

ban, 

Seeking  that  refuge  because  foulest  vice 
More  godlike  than  thy  virtue  is,  whose 

span 

Shuts  out  the  wretched  only,  is  more  free 
To  enter  heaven  than  thou  shalt  ever  be  ! 

VIII 

Thou  wilt  not  let  her  wash  thy  dainty  feet 
With  such  salt  things  as  tears,  or  with 

rude  hair 

Dry  them,  soft  Pharisee,  that  sit'st  at  meat 
With   him    who    made    her    such,   and 

speak'st  him  fair, 
Leaving  God's  wandering  lamb  the  while  to 

bleat 

Unheeded,  shivering  in  the  pitiless  air: 
Thou  hast  made  prisoned  virtue  show  more 

wan 
And  haggard  than  a  vice  to  look  upon. 

IX 

Now   many   months   flew   by,   and   weary 

grew 

To  Margaret  the  sight  of  happy  things ; 
Blight  fell  on  all  her  flowers,  instead  of 

dew; 

Shut  round  her  heart  were  now  the  joy 
ous  wings 

Wherewith   it  wont   to   soar;  yet  not  un 
true, 

Though   tempted    much,   her    woman's 
nature  clings 


34 


MISCELLANEOUS   POEMS 


To  its  first  pure  belief,  and  with  sad  eyes 
Looks  backward  o'er  the  gate  of  Paradise. 


And  so,  though  altered  Mordred  came  less 

oft, 
And  winter  frowned  where  spring  had 

laughed  before 
In  his  strange  eyes,  yet  half  her  sadness 

dotfed, 
And  in   her   silent   patience   loved   him 

more : 
Sorrow  had  made  her  soft  heart  yet  more 

soft, 

And  a  new  life  within  her  own  she  bore 
Which  made   her  tenderer,  as   she  felt  it 

move 
Beneath  her  breast,  a  refuge  for  her  love. 

XI 

This  babe,  she  thought,  would  surely  bring 

him  back, 

And  be  a  bond  forever  them  between; 
Before  its  eyes  the  sullen  tempest-rack 
Would  fade,  and  leave  the  face  of  heaven 

serene ; 
And  love's  return  doth  more  than  fill  the 

lack, 
Which  in  his  absence  withered  the  heart's 

green: 

And  yet  a  dim  foreboding  still  would  flit 
Between  her  and  her  hope  to  darken  it. 

XII 

She  could  not  figure  forth  a  happy  fate, 
Even  for  this  life  from  heaven  so  newly 

come; 

The  earth  must  needs  be  doubly  desolate 
To   him    scarce    parted   from    a   fairer 

home: 

Such  boding  heavier  on  her  bosom  sate 
One  night,  as,  standing  in  the   twilight 

gloam, 
She  strained  her   eyes  beyond  that    dizzy 

verge 

At  whose  foot  faintly  breaks  the  future's 
surge. 

XIII 

Poor  little  spirit !  naught  but  shame  and  woe 
Nurse    the    sick   heart   whose   lifeblood 

nurses  thine: 

Yet  not  those  only  ;  love  hath  triumphed  so, 
As  for    thy   sake    makes   sorrow   more 
divine: 


And  yet,  though  thou  be  pure,  the  world  is 

foe 

To  purity,  if  born  in  such  a  shrine; 
And,   having   trampled   it   for    struggling 

thence, 
Smiles  to  itself,  and  calls  it  Providence. 

XIV 

As  thus  she  mused,  a   shadow  seemed  to 

rise 

From  out  her  thought,  and  turn  to  dreari 
ness 

All  blissful  hopes  and  sunny  memories, 
And   the  quick   blood  would  curdle   up 

and  press 
About  her  heart,  which  seemed  to  shut  its 

eyes 
And  hush  itself,  as  who  with  shuddering 

guess 
Harks  through  the  gloom  and   dreads  e'en 

now  to  feel 
Through  his   hot   breast  the   icy  slide   of 

steel. 

XV 

But,  at  that  heart-beat,  while  in  dread  she 

was, 

In  the  low  wind  the  honeysuckles  gleam, 
A   dewy    thrill    flits    through    the    heavy 

grass, 
And,   looking  forth,   she   saw,   as  in  a 

dream, 
Within  the  wood  the  moonlight's  shadowy 

mass: 
Night's  starry   heart   yearning  to  hers 

doth  seem, 
And  the   deep   sky,  full-hearted  with  the 

moon, 
Folds  round  her  all  the  happiness  of  June. 

XVI 

What  fear  could  face  a  heaven  and  earth 

like  this  ? 
What  silveriest  cloud  could  hang  'neath 

such  a  sky  ? 

A  tide  of  wondrous  and  unwonted  bliss 
Rolls  back  through  all  her   pulses  sud 
denly, 
As   if   some   seraph,  who   had   learned  to 

kiss 
From  the   fair  daughters  of   the  world 

gone  by, 

Had  wedded  so  his  fallen  light  with  hers, 
Such  sweet,  strange  joy  through  soul  and 
body  stirs. 


A  LEGEND   OF    BRITTANY 


35 


XVII 

Now  seek  we  Mordred :  he  who  did  not  fear 
The  crime,  yet  fears   the   latent   conse 
quence: 

If  it  should  reach  a  brother  Templar's  ear, 

It  haply  might  be  made  a  good  pretence 

To  cheat  him  of  the   hope  he   held    most 

dear; 
For  he  had  spared  no  thought's  or  deed's 

expense, 

That  by  and  by  might  help  his  wish  to  clip 
Its  darling  bride,  —  the  high  grandmaster- 
ship. 

XVIII 

The  apathy,  ere  a  crime  resolved  is  done, 
Is  scarce  less  dreadful  than  remorse  for 

crime; 

By  no  allurement  can  the  soul  be  won 
From  brooding  o'er  the  weary  creep  of 

time: 

Morclred  stole  forth  into  the  happy  sun, 
Striving    to    hum    a    scrap    of    Breton 

rhyme, 
But  the  sky  struck  him  speechless,  and  he 

tried 
In  vain  to  summon  up  his  callous  pride. 

XIX 

In  the  courtyard  a  fountain  leaped  alway, 
A   Triton    blowing  jewels    through   his 
shell 

Into  the  sunshine;  Mordred  turned  away, 
Weary  because  the  stone  face  did  not  tell 

Of  weariness,  nor  could  he  bear  to-day, 
Heartsick,  to  hear  the  patient  sink  and 
swell 

Of  winds  among  the  leaves,  or  golden  bees 

Drowsily  humming  in  the  orange-trees. 

XX 

All  happy  sights  and  sounds  now  came  to 

him 
Like  a  reproach:  he  wandered   far  and 

wide, 

Following  the  lead  of  his  unquiet  whim, 
But  still  there  went  a  something  at  his 

side 

That  made  the  cool   breeze  hot,  the    sun 
shine  dim; 

It  would  not  flee,  it  could  not  be  defied, 
He  could  not  see  it,  but  he  felt  it  there, 
By  the  rlflmp  chill   that  crept  among  his 
hair. 


XXI 

Day  wore  at  last;  the  evening-star  arose, 
And  throbbing  in  the  sky  grew  red  and 

set; 

Then  with  a  guilty,  wavering  step  he  goes 
To  the  hid  nook  where  they  so  oft  had 

met 
In  happier  season,  for  his  heart  well  knows 

That  he  is  sure  to  find  poor  Margaret 
Watching  and  waiting  th^re  with  love-lorn 

breast 

Around  her  young  dream's  rudely  scattered 
nest. 

XXII 

Why  follow  here  that  grim  old  chronicle 
Which   counts   the   dagger-strokes    and 

drops  of  blood  ? 
Enough  that   Margaret  by  his   mad   steel 

fell, 
Unmoved  by  murder  from  her  trusting 

mood, 

Smiling  on  him  as  Heaven  smiles  on  Hell, 
With  a  sad  love,  remembering  when  he 

stood 

Not  fallen  yet,  the  unsealer  of  her  heart, 
Of  all  her  holy  dreams  the  holiest  part. 

xxni 

His  crime  complete,  scarce  knowing  what 

he  did, 
(So   goes   the   tale,)  beneath   the   altar 

there 
In  the  high  church  the  stiffening  corpse  he 

hid, 

And  then,  to  'scape  that  suffocating  air, 
Like  a  scared  ghoul  out  of  the  porch  he 

slid; 
But  his  strained   eyes   saw   blood-spots 

everywhere, 

And  ghastly  faces  thrust   themselves   be 
tween 
His  soul  and  hopes  of  peace  with  blasting 

mien. 

XXIV 

His  heart  went  out  within  him  like  a  spark 
Dropt  in   the   sea;    wherever  he   made 

bold 

To  turn  his  eyes,  he  saw,  all  stiff  and  stark, 
Pale  Margaret   lying  dead;    the  lavish 

gold 

Of  her  loose  hair  seemed  in  the  cloudy  dark 
To  spread  a  glory,  and  a  thousand-fold 


MISCELLANEOUS    POEMS 


More    strangely   pale    and    beautiful   she 

grew: 
Her  silence  stabbed  his  conscience  through 

and  through. 

xxv 

Or  visions  of  past  days,  —  a  mother's  eyes 
That  smiled  down  on  the  fair  boy  at  her 

knee, 

Whose   happy  upturned   face  to   hers  re 
plies,  — 

He  saw  sometimes :  or  Margaret  mourn 
fully 
Gazed  on  him  full  of  doubt,  as  one  who 

tries 

To  crush  belief  that  does  love  injury; 
Then  she  would  wring  her  hands,  but  soon 

again 

Love's   patience    glimmered  out    through 
cloudy  pain. 

XXVI 

Meanwhile  he  dared  not  go  and  steal  away 

The  silent,  dead-cold  witness  of  his  sin; 
He  had  not  feared  the  life,  but  that  dull 

clay, 
Those  open  eyes  that  showed  the  death 

within, 
Would  surely  stare  him  mad;  yet  all  the 

day 
A  dreadful  impulse,  whence  his  will  could 

win 

No  refuge,  made  him  linger  in  the  aisle, 
Freezing  with  his  wan  look  each  greeting 
smile. 

XXVII 

Now,  on  the  second  day  there  was  to  be 
A  fsstival  in  church:  from  far  and  near 

Came  flocking  in  the  sunburnt  peasantry, 
And  knights  and  dames  with  stately  an 
tique  cheer, 

Blazing  with  pomp,  as  if  all  faerie 

Had  emptied  her  quaint  halls,  or,  as  it 
were, 

The  illuminated  marge  of  some  old  book, 

While  we  were  gazing,  life  and  motion  took. 

XXVIII 

When  all  were  entered,  and  the  roving  eyes 
Of  all  were   stayed,   some   upon   faces 

bright, 

Some  on  the  priests,  some  on  the  traceries 
That  decked   the  slumber  of  a  marble 
knight, 


And  all  the  rustlings  over  that  arise 

From  recognizing  tokens  of  delight, 
When  friendly  glances  meet,  —  then  silent 

ease 
Spread  o'er  the  multitude  by  slow  degrees. 

XXIX 

Then  swelled  the  organ:  up  through  choir 
and  nave 

The  music  trembled  with  an  inward  thrill 
Of  bliss  at  its  own  grandeur:  wave  on  wave 

Its  flood  of  mellow  thunder  rose,  until 
The  hushed  air  shivered  with  the  throb  it 
gave, 

Then,  poising  for  a  moment,  it  stood  still, 
And  sank  and  rose  again,  to  burst  in  spray 
That  wandered  into  silence  far  away. 

xxx 

Like  to  a  mighty  heart  the  music  seemed, 
That   yearns   with    melodies    it   cannot 

speak, 
Until,  in  grand  despair  of  what  it  dreamed, 

In  the  agony  of  effort  it  doth  break, 
Yet  triumphs  breaking;  on  it  rushed  and 

streamed 
And  wantoned  in  its  might,  as  when  a 

lake, 
Long  pent  among  the  mountains,  bursts  its 

walls 

And  in  one  crowding  gush  leaps  forth  and 
falls. 

XXXI 

Deeper  and  deeper  shudders  shook  the  air, 
As  the  huge  bass  kept  gathering  heavily, 
Like  thunder  when  it  rouses  in  its  lair, 
And  with  its  hoarse  growl  shakes  the  low- 
hung  sky, 
It  grew  up  like  a  darkness  everywhere, 

Filling  the  vast  cathedral ;  —  suddenly, 
From  the  dense  mass  a  boy's  clear  treble 

broke 

Like    lightning,   and  the   full-toned  choir 
awoke. 

XXXII 

Through  gorgeous  windows  shone  the  sun 

aslant, 

Brimming  the  church  with  gold  and  pur 
ple  mist, 

Meet  atmosphere  to  bosom  that  rich  chant, 
Where  fifty  voices  in  one  strand  did  twist 
Their  varicolored  tones,  and  left  no  want 
To  the  delighted  soul,  which  sank  abyssed 


A    LEGEND   OF   BRITTANY 


37 


In  the  warm  music  cloud,  while,  far  be 
low, 
The  organ  heaved  its  surges  to  and  fro. 

XXXIII 

As  if  a  lark  should  suddenly  drop  dead 
While  the  blue  air  yet  trembled  with  its 

song, 
So  snapped   at  once  that  music's   golden 

thread, 

Struck  by  a  nameless  fear  that  leapt  along 
From  heart  to  heart,  and  like  a  shadow 

spread 
With   instantaneous  shiver  through  the 

throng, 

So  that  some  glanced  behind,  as  half  aware 
A  hideous  shape  of  dread  were  standing 
there. 

XXXIV 

As  when  a  crowd  of  pale  men  gather  round, 

Watching  an  eddy  in  the  leaden  deep, 
From  which  they  deem  the  body  of  one 

drowned 
Will  be  cast  forth,  from  face  to  face  doth 

creep 
An  eager  dread  that  holds  all  tongues  fast 

bound 

Until  the  horror,  with  a  ghastly  leap, 
Starts  up,  its  dead  blue  arms  stretched  aim 
lessly, 

Heaved  with  the  swinging  of  the  careless 
sea,— 

xxxv 

So  in  the  faces  of  all  these  there  grew, 

As  by  one  impulse,  a  dark,  freezing  awe, 
Which  with  a  fearful  fascination  drew 
All   eyes   toward   the   altar;  damp   and 

raw 

The  air  grew  suddenly,  and  no  man  knew 
Whether   perchance  his  silent  neighbor 

saw 
The  dreadful  thing  which   all   were   sure 

would  rise 

To  scare  the  strained  lids  wider  from  their 
eyes. 

xxxvi 

The  incense  trembled  as  it  upward  sent 
Its  slow,  uncertain  thread  of  wandering 

blue, 
As  't  were  the  only  living  element 

In  all  the  church,  so  deep  the  stillness 
grew; 


It  seemed  one  might  have  heard  it,  as  it 

went, 
Give    out    an    audible     rustle,    curling 

through 

The  midnight  silence  of  that  awestruck  air, 
More  hushed  than  death,  though  so  much 

life  was  there. 

XXXVII 

Nothing  they  saw,   but   a  low  voice   was 

heard 
Threading  the   ominous  silence   of  that 

fear, 
Gentle  and  terrorless  as  if  a  bird, 

Wakened  by  some  volcano's  glare,  should 

cheer 
The  murk   air   with  his   song;  yet   every 

word 
In  the  cathedral's  farthest  arch  seemed 

near, 

As  if  it  spoke  to  every  one  apart, 
Like  the  clear  voice  of  conscience  in  each 
heart. 

XXXVIII 

"  O  Rest,  to  weary  hearts  thou  art  most 

dear  ! 

O  Silence,  after  life's  bewildering  din, 
Thou  art  most  welcome,  whether  in  the  sear 
Days  of  our  age  thou  comest,  or  we  win 
Thy  poppy-wreath  in  youth  !  then  where 
fore  here 

Linger  I  yet,  once  free  to  enter  in 
At  that  wished   gate  which  gentle  Death 

doth  ope, 

Into  the  boundless  realm  of  strength  and 
hope  ? 

XXXIX 

"Think  not  in  death  my  love  could  ever 

cease ; 
If  thou  wast  false,  more  need  there  is 

for  me 
Still  to  be   true;   that   slumber   were   not 

peace, 

If  't  were  unvisited  with  dreams  of  thee : 
And  thou  hadst  never  heard  such  words  as 

these, 

Save  that  in  heaven  I  must  forever  be 
Most  comfortless  and  wretched,  seeing  this 
Our  unbaptized  babe  shut  out  from  bliss. 

XL 

"  This  little  spirit  with  imploring  eyes 
Wanders  alone  the  dreary  wild  of  space; 


MISCELLANEOUS    POEMS 


The  shadow  of  his  pain  forever  lies 

Upon    my    soul   in    this   new   dwelling- 
place; 
His  loneliness  makes  me  in  Paradise 

More  lonely,  and,  unless  I  see  his  face, 
Even  here  for  grief  could  I  lie  down  and 

die, 
Save  for  my  curse  of  immortality. 

XLI 

"World  after  world  he  sees  around   him 

swim 
Crowded  with  happy  souls,  that  take  no 

heed 
Of  the  sad  eyes  that  from  the  night's  faint 

rim 
Gaze  sick  with  longing  on  them  as  they 

speed 

With  golden  gates,  that  only  shut  on  him ; 
And      shapes     sometimes     from     hell's 

abysses  freed 

Flap  darkly  by  him,  with  enormous  sweep 
Of  wings   that   roughen   wide   the   pitchy 
deep. 

XLII 

"  I  am  a  mother,  —  spirits  do  not  shake 
This  much  of  earth  from  them,  —  and  I 
must  pine 

Till  I  can  feel  his  little  hands,  and  take 
His  weary  head  upon  this  heart  of  mine; 

And,  might  it  be,  full  gladly  for  his  sake 
Would  I  this  solitude  of  bliss  resign 

And  be  shut  out  of  heaven  to  dwell  with 
him 

Forever  in  that  silence  drear  and  dim. 

XLIII 

"  I  strove  to  hush  my  soul,  and  would  not 


At  first,  for  thy  dear  sake ;  a  woman's  love 
Is  mighty,  but  a  mother's  heart  is  weak, 

And  by  its  weakness  overcomes;  I  strove 
To  smother  bitter  thoughts  with  patience 

meek, 

But  still  in  the  abyss  my  soul  would  rove, 
Seeking  my  child,  and  drove  me   here  to 

claim 

The  rite  that  gives  him  peace   in  Christ's 
dear  name. 

XLIV 

"  I  sit  and  weep  while  blessed  spirits  sing; 
I  can  but  long  and  pine  the   while  they 
praise, 


And,  leaning  o'er  the  wall   of    heaven,   I 

fling 
My  voice  to  where   I   deem   my  infant 

strays, 
Like  a  robbed  bird  that   cries   in  vain  to 

bring 
Her  nestlings   back  beneath  her  wings' 

embrace ; 

But  still  he  answers  not,  and  I  but  know 
That  heaven  and  earth  are  both  alike  in 

woe." 

XLV 

Then  the  pale  priests,  with  ceremony  due, 
Baptized  the  child   within   its   dreadful 

tomb 
Beneath  that  mother's  heart,  whose  instinct 

true 
Star-like   had    battled   down  the   triple 

gloom 
Of  sorrow,  love,  and  death:  young  maidens, 

too, 
Strewed   the   pale  corpse  with   many  a 

milkwhite  bloom, 
And  parted  the   bright   hair,  and   on   the 

breast 
Crossed   the  unconscious  hands  in  sign  of 

rest. 

XLVI 

Some    said,   that,    when    the    priest    had 

sprinkled  o'er 
The  consecrated  drops,  they  seemed  to 

hear 

A  sigh,  as  of  some  heart  from  travail  sore 
Released,    and  then  two  voices  singing 

clear, 
Misereatur  Deus,  more  and  more 

Fading  far  upward,   and  their  ghastly 

fear 
Fell  from  them  with  that  sound,  as  bodies 

fall 
From  souls  upspringing  to  celestial  hall. 


PROMETHEUS 

In  a  letter  to  G.  B.  Loring-,  dated  June  15, 
1843,  Lowell  writes :  "  I  have  been  very  happy 
for  the  last  day  or  two  in  writing  a  long  poem 
in  blank  verse  on  Prometheus,  the  Greek  arche 
type  of  St.  Simeon  Stylites,  the  first  reformer 
and  locof oco  of  the  Greek  Mythology.  It  will 
be  quite  worth  your  while  to  read  it  when  it  is 
printed.  I  hope  to  see  it  in  the  July  number 
of  the  Democratic  Review,  but  fear  it  was  too 


PROMETHEUS 


39 


late,  having  only  been  sent  on  this  morning. 
It  is  the  longest  and  best  poem  1  have  ever 
written,  and  overrunning  with  true  radicalism 
and  antislavery.  I  think  that  it  will  open  the 
eyes  of  some  folk  and  make  them  think  that  I 
am  a  poet,  whatever  they  may  say." 

After  the  appearance  of  the  poem,  he  regrets 
the  absence  of  any  public  notice,  and  acknow 
ledges  thus  an  appreciative  letter  from  his  friend 
Charles  F.  Briggs  :  "  Although  such  great 
names  as  Goethe,  Byron,  and  Shelley  have  all 
handled  the  subject  in  modern  times,  you  will 
find  that  I  have  looked  at  it  from  a  somewhat 
new  point  of  view.  I  have  made  it  radical, 
and  I  believe  that  no  poet  in  this  age  can  write 
much  that  is  good  unless  he  give  himself  up 
to  this  tendency.  For  radicalism  has  now  for  the 
first  time  taken  a  distinctive  and  acknowledged 
shape  of  its  own.  So  much  of  its  spirit  as 
poets  in  former  ages  have  attained  (and  from 
their  purer  organization  they  could  not  fail  of 
some)  was  by  instinct  rather  than  by  reason. 
It  has  never  till  now  been  seen  to  be  one  of  the 
two  great  wings  that  upbear  the  universe." 

ONE  after  one  the  stars  have  risen  and 

set, 

Sparkling  upon  the  hoarfrost  on  my  chain: 
The  Bear,  that  prowled  all  night  about  the 

fold 

Of  the  North-star,  hath  shrunk  into  his  den, 
Scared  by  the  blithesome  footsteps  of  the 

Dawn, 

Whose  blushing  smile  floods  all  the  Orient; 
And  now  bright  Lucifer  grows  less  and 

less, 

Into  the  heaven's  blue  quiet   deep -with 
drawn. 

Sunless  and  starless  all,  the  desert  sky 
Arches  above  me,  empty  as  this  heart 
For  ages  hath  been  empty  of  all  joy, 
Except  to  brood  upon  its  silent  hope, 
As  o'er  its  hope  of  day  the  sky  doth  now. 
All  night  have  I  heard  voices:  deeper  yet 
The  deep  low  breathing  of  the  silence  grew, 
While  all  about,  muffled  in  awe,  there  stood 
Shadows,  or  forms,  or  both,  clear-felt  at 

heart, 

But,  when  I  turned  to  front  them,  far  along 
Only  a  shudder  through  the  midnight  ran, 
And  the  dense  stillness  walled  me  closer 

round. 

But  still  I  heard  them  wander  up  and  down 
That  solitude,  and  flappings  of  dusk  wings 
Did  mingle  with  them,  whether  of  those 

hags 
Let  slip  upon  me  once  from  Hades  deep, 


Or  of  yet  direr  torments,  if  such  be, 

I  could  but  guess;  and   then   toward  me 

came 

A  shape  as  of  a  woman:  very  pale 
It  was,  and  calm;  its  cold  eyes   did  not 

move, 
And  mine  moved  not,  but  only  stared  on 

them. 
Their  fixed  awe  went  through  my  brain  like 

ice; 
A  skeleton  hand  seemed  clutching  at  my 

heart, 

And  a  sharp  chill,  as  if  a  dank  night  fog 
Suddenly  closed  me  in,  was  all  I  felt: 
And  then,  methought,  I  heard  a  freezing 

sigh, 
A  long,  deep,  shivering  sigh,  as  from  blue 

lips 
Stiffening  in  death,  close  to  mine  ear.     I 

thought 

Some  doom  was  close  upon  me,  and  I  looked 
And  saw  the  red  moon  through  the  heavy 

mist, 

Just  setting,  and  it  seemed  as  it  were  fall 
ing* 

Or  reeling  to  its  fall,  so  dim  and  dead 
And  palsy-struck  it  looked.   Then  all  sounds 

merged 

Into  the  rising  surges  of  the  pines, 
Which,   leagues    below   me,  clothing    the 

gaunt  loins 

Of  ancient  Caucasus  with  hairy  strength, 
Sent  up  a  murmur  in  the  morning  wind, 
Sad  as  the  wail  that  from  the   populous 

earth 

All  day  and  night  to  high  Olympus  soars, 
Fit  incense  to  thy  wicked  throne,  O  Jove! 

Thy  hated  name  is  tossed  once  more  in 

scorn 

From  off  my  lips,  for  I  will  tell  thy  doom. 
And  are  these  tears?    Nay,  do  not  triumph, 

Jove  ! 

They  are  wrung  from  me  but  by  the  ago 
nies 
Of  prophecy,  like  those  sparse  drops  which 

fall 
From  clouds  in  travail  of  the  lightning, 

when 
The  great  wave  of  the  storm  high-curled 

and  black 
Rolls   steadily   onward  to  its  thunderous 

break. 
Why  art  thou  made  a  god  of,  thou  poor 

type 


MISCELLANEOUS   POEMS 


anger,  and  revenge,  and  cunning  force  ? 

True   Power   was   never   born   of    brutish 
Strength, 

NOT  sweet  Truth  suckled   at  the  shaggy 
dugs 

Of  that  old  she-wolf.     Are  thy  thunder 
bolts, 

That  quell   the  darkness   for  a  space,  so 
strong 

As  the  prevailing  patience  of  meek  Light, 

Who,  with    the   invincible    tenderness 
peace, 

Wins  it  to  be  a  portion  of  herself  ? 

Why  art  thou  made  a  god  of,  thou,  who 
hast 

The  never-sleeping  terror  at  thy  heart, 

That  birthright  of  all  tyrants,  worse  to  bear 
/  Than  this  thy  ravening  bird  on  which  I 
JL  smile  ? 

I  \Thou  swear'st  to  free  me,  if  I  will  unfold 
J    What  kind  of  doom  it  is  whose  omen  flits 
!    Across  thy  heart,  as  o'er  a  troop  of  doves 
(^  The   fearful   shadow   of  the   kite.     What 
need 

To  know  that  truth  whose  knowledge  can 
not  save  ? 

Evil  its  errand  hath,  as  well  as  Good; 

When  thine  is  finished,  thou  art  known  no 
more: 

There  is  a  higher  purity  than  thou, 

And  higher  purity  is  greater  strength; 

Thy  nature  is  thy  doom,  at  which  thy  heart 

Trembles   behind    the   thick    wall   of   thy 
might. 

Let  man  but  hope,  and  thou  art  straight 
way  chilled 

With  thought  of  that  drear  silence  and  deep 
night 

Which,  like  a  dream,  shall  swallow  thee 
and  thine: 

Let  man  but  will,  and   thou  art  god   no 
more, 

More  capable  of  ruin  than  the  gold 

And  ivory  that  image  thee  on  earth. 

He  who  hurled  down  the  monstrous  Titan- 
brood  M 

Blinded  with  lightnings,  with  rough  thun-A 
ders  stunned, 

Is  weaker  than  a  simple  human  thought. 

My  slender  voice  can  shake  thee,  as  t 
breeze, 

That  seems  but  apt  to  stir  a  maiden's  hair, 

Sways  huge  Oceanus  from  pole  to  pole; 

For  I  am  still  Prometheus,  and  foreknow 

In  my  wise  heart  the  end  arid  doom  of  all. 


Yes,  I  am  still  Prometheus,  wiser  grown 
By  years  of  solitude,  —  that  holds  apart 
The  past  and  future,  giving  the  soul  room 
To  search  into  itself,  —  and  long  commune 
With  this  eternal  silence ;  —  more  a  god, 
In  my  long-suffering  and  strength  to  meet 
With  equal  front  the  direst  shafts  of  fate, 
Than  thou  in  thy  faint-hearted  despotism, 
Girt  with  thy  baby-toys  of  force  and  wrath. 
Yes,  I  am  that  Prometheus  who  brought 

down 
The  light  to  man,  which  thou,  in  selfish \_x 

fear, 
Hadst  to   thyself   usurped,  —  his  by   sole 

right, 

For  Man  hath  right  to  all  save  Tyranny,  — 
And  which  shall  free  him  yet  from  thy  frail 

throne. 

Tyrants  are  but  the  spawn  of  Ignorance, 
Begotten  by  the  slaves  they  trample  on, 
Who,  could   they  win   a  glimmer  of   the 

light, 

And  see  that  Tyranny  is  always  weakness, 
Or  Fear  with  its  own  bosom  ill  at  ease, 
Would  laugh  away  in  scorn  the  sand-wove 

chain 

Which  their  own  blindness  feigned  for  ada 
mant. 
Wrong  ever  builds  on  quicksands,  but  the 

Right 

To  the  firm  centre  lays  its  moveless  base. 
The  tyrant  trembles,  if  the  air  but  stir 
The  innocent  ringlets  of  a  child's  free  hair, 
And  crouches,  when  the  thought  of  some 

great  spirit, 
With   world-wide   murmur,  like    a   rising 

gale, 

Over  men's  hearts,  as  over  standing  corn, 
Rushes,  and  bends  them  to  its  own  strong 

will. 
So  shall  some  thought  of  mine  yet  circle 

earth, 
And  puff  away  thy  crumbling  altars,  Jove  ! 

And,  wouldst  thou  know  of  my  supreme 

revenge, 

Poor  tyrant,  even  now  dethroned  in  heart, 
Realmless  in  soul,  as  tyrants  ever  are, 
Listen  !  and  tell  me  if  this  bitter  peak, 
This     never-glutted    vulture,    and    these 

chains 

Shrink  not  before  it;  for  it  shall  befit 
A  sorrow-taught,  unconquered  Titan-heart. 
Men,  when  their  death  is  on  them,  seem  to 

stand 


PROMETHEUS 


On  a  precipitous  crag  that  overhangs 
The  abyss  of  doom,  and  in  that  depth  to  see, 
As  in  a  glass,  the  features  dim  and  vast 
Of   things    to  come,    the   shadows,   as    it 

seems, 
Of  what  have  been.    Death  ever  fronts  the 

wise; 

Not  fearfully,  but  with  clear  promises 
Of  larger  life,  on  whose  broad  vans  up 
borne, 

Their  outlook  widens,  and  they  see  beyond 
The  horizon  of  the  Present  and  the  Past, 
(Even  to  the  very  source  and  end  of  things. 
^Such  am  I  now:  immortal  woe  hath  made 
My  heart  a  seer;  and  my  soul  a  judge 
Between  the  substance  and  the  shadow  of 

Truth. 

The  sure  supremeness  of  the  Beautiful, 
By  all  the  martyrdoms  made  doubly  sure 
Of  such  as  I  am,  this  is  my  revenge, 
Which  of  my  wrongs  builds  a  triumphal 

arch, 
Through   which   I    see   a   sceptre    and   a 

throne. 

The  pipings  of  glad  shepherds  on  the  hills, 
Tending  the  flocks  no  more  to  bleed  for 

thee; 
The  songs  of  maidens  pressing  with  white 

feet 

The  vintage  on  thine  altars  poured  no  more; 
The  murmurous  bliss  of  lovers  underneath 
Dim  grapevine  bowers  whose  rosy  bunches 

press 
Not  half  so  closely  their  warm  cheeks,  un- 

paled 

By  thoughts  of  thy  brute  lust;  the  hive- 
like  hum 

Of  peaceful   commonwealths,   where   sun 
burnt  Toil 

Reaps  for  itself  the  rich  earth  made  its  own 
By  its  own  labor,  lightened  with  glad 

hymns 

To  an  omnipotence  which  thy  mad  bolts 
Would  cope  with  as  a  spark  with  the  vast 

sea,— 

Even  the  spirit  of  free  love  and  peace, 
Duty's  sure  recompense  through  life  and 

death,  — 

These   are   such   harvests    as   all   master 
spirits 

Reap,  haply  not  on  earth,  but  reap  no  less 
Because    the   sheaves  are  bound  by  hands 
x  not  theirs; 

These   are   the   bloodless   daggers   where 
withal 


They  stab  fallen  tyrants,  this  their  high  re 
venge  : 

For  their  best  part  of  life  on  earth  is  when, 
Long  after  death,   prisoned  and  pent  no 

more, 
Their  thoughts,  their  wild  dreams  even, 

have  become 

Part  of  the  necessary  air  men  breathe: 
When,   like   the   inoon,   herself   behind   a 

cloud, 
They  shed  down  light  before  us  on  life's 

sea, 
That  cheers   us   to  steer   onward  still   in 

hope. 

Earth  with  her  twining  memories  ivies  o'er 
Their  holy  sepulchres;  the  chainless  sea, 
In  tempest   or   wide   calm,   repeats   their 

thoughts; 
The  lightning  and   the   thunder,   all  free 

things, 

Have  legends  of  them  for  the  ears  of  men. 
All  other  glories  are  as  falling  stars, 
But  universal  Nature  watches  theirs: 
Such  strength  is  won  by  love  of  human 
kind. 

Not  that  I  feel  that  hunger  after  fame, 
Which  souls  of  a  half-greatness  are  beset 

with ; 

But  that  the  memory  of  noble  deeds 
Cries  shame  upon  the  idle  and  the  vile, 
And  keeps  the  heart  of  Man  forever  up 
To  the  heroic  level  of  old  time. 
To  be  forgot  at  first  is  little  pain 
To  a  heart  conscious  of  such  high  intent 
As  must  be  deathless  on  the  lips  of  men; 
(  But,  having  been  a  name,  to  sink  and  be 
A  something  which  the  world  can  do  with 
out, 
Which,  having  been  or  not,  would   never 

change 

The  lightest  pulse  of  fate,  —  this  is  indeed 
A  cup  of  bitterness  the  worst  to  taste, 
And   this   thy   heart  shall   empty   to   the 

dregs. 

Endless  despair  shall  be  thy  Caucasus, 
And  memory  thy  vulture;  thou  wilt  find 
Oblivion  far  lonelier  than  this  peak. 
Behold  thy  destiny  !    Thou  think' st  it  much 
That  I  should  brave  thee,  miserable  god  ! 
But  I  have  braved  a  mightier  than  thou, 
Even  the  sharp  tempting  of  this  soaring 

heart, 

Which  might  have  made  me,  scarcely  less 
than  thou, 


MISCELLANEOUS    POEMS 


A  god  among  my  brethren  weak  and  blind, 
Scarce  less  than  thou,  a  pitiable  thing 
To  be  down-trodden  into  darkness  soon. 
But  now  I  am  above  thee,  for  thou  art 
The   bungling   workmanship   of  fear,   the 

block 

That  awes  the  swart  Barbarian;  but  I 
Am  what  myself  have  made,  —  a  nature 

wise 

With  finding  in  itself  the  types  of  all, 
With  watching  from  the  dim  verge  of  the 

time 

What  things  to  be  are  visible  in  the  gleams 
Thrown  forward  on  them  from  the  lumi 
nous  past, 
Wise    with   the   history  of    its   own   frail 

heart, 
With  reverence  and  with  sorrow,  and 

love, 
Broad  as  the  world,  for  freedom  and  for 

man. 

Thou  and  all  strength  shall  crumble,  ex 
cept  Love, 
By  whom,  and  for  whose  glory,  ye  shall 

cease : 
And,  when  thou  'rt  but  a  weary  moaning 

heard 

From  out  the  pitiless  gloom  of  Chaos,  I 
Shall  be  a  power  and  a  memory, 
A  name  to  fright  all  tyrants  with,  a  light 
Unsetting  as  the  pole-star,  a  great  voice 
Heard   in    the   breathless    pauses   of    the 

fight 
By  truth  and  freedom  ever    waged  wit] 

wrong, 

Clear  as  a  silver  trumpet,  to  awake 
Far  echoes  that  from  age  to  age  live  on 
In  kindred  spirits,  giving  them  a  sense 
Of  boundless  power  from  boundless  suffer 
ing  wrung: 

And  many  a  glazing  eye  shall  smile  to  see 
The  memory  of  my  triumph  (for  to  meet 
Wrong  with  endurance,  and  to  overcome 
The  present  with  a  heart  that  looks  beyond, 
Are  triumph),  like  a  prophet  eagle,  perch 
Upon  the  sacred  banner  of  the  Right. 
Evil  springs  up,  and  flowers,  and  bears  no 

seed, 
And  feeds  the  green  earth  with  its   swift 

decay, 

Leaving  it  richer  for  the  growth  of  truth; 
But  Good,  once  put  in  action  or  in  thought, 
Like  a  strong  oak,  doth   from  its  boughs 
shed  down 


The  ripe  germs  of  a  forest.     Thou,  weak 

god, 

Shalt  fade  and  be  forgotten  !  but  this  soul, 
Fresh-living  still  in  the  serene  abyss, 
In  every  heaving  shall  partake,  that  grows 
From  heart  to   heart   among  the   sons   of 

men,  — 
As  the  ominous  hum  before  the  earthquake 

runs 
Far  through  the  JEgean  from  roused  isle 

to  isle, — 
Foreboding  wreck  to  palaces  and  shrines, 

nd  mighty   rents   in   many   a   cavernous 
f/  error 

That  darkens  the  free  light  to  man :  —  This 

heart, 

Unscarred  by  thy  grim  vulture,  as  the  truth 
Grows  but  more   lovely  'neath  the   beaks 

and  claws 
Of  Harpies  blind  that  fain  would  soil  it, 

shall 

In  all  the  throbbing  exultations  share 
That  wait  on  freedom's  triumphs,  and  ir» 

all 

The  glorious  agonies  of  martyr-spirits, 
Sharp  lightning-throes  to  split  the  jagged 

clouds 
That  veil   the   future,   showing  them   the 

end, 
Pain's    thorny   crown   for    constancy   and 

truth, 

Girding  the  temples  like  a  wreath  of  stars. 
This   is  a    thought,    that,  like   the    fabled 

laurel, 
Makes   my   faith   thunder-proof;  and   thy 

dread  bolts 
Fall  on  me  like  the  silent  flakes  of  snow 

n  the  hoar  brows  of  aged  Caucasus: 
But,  oh,  thought   far   more  blissful,  they 

can  rend 
This  cloud  of  flesh,  and  make   my  soul   a 

star  ! 

Unleash  thy  crouching  thunders  now,  O 

Jove  ! 
Free  this  high  heart,  which,  a  poor  captive 

long, 
Doth    knock  to   be   let  forth,   this   heart 

which  still, 

In  its  invincible  manhood,  overtops 
Thy  puny  godship,  as  this  mountain  doth 
The  pines  that  moss  its  roots.     Oh,  even 

now, 
While  from  my  peak  of  suffering  I   look 

down, 


PROMETHEUS 


43 


Beholding  with  a  far-spread  gush  of  hope 
The  sunrise  of  that  Beauty,  in  whose  face, 
Shone  all  around  with  love,  no  man  shall 

look 

But  straightway  like  a  god  he  be  uplift 
Unto  the  throne  long  empty  for  his  sake, 
And    clearly   oft    foreshadowed    in  brave 

dreams 

By  his  free  inward  nature,  which  nor  thou, 
Nor  any  anarch  after  thee,  can  bind 
From,  working  its  great  doom,  —  now,  now 

set  free 

This  essence,  not  to  die,  but  to  become 
Part  of  that   awful   Presence  which  doth 

haunt 

The  palaces  of  tyrants,  to  scare  off, 
With  its  grim  eyes  and  fearful  whisperings 
And  hideous  sense  of  utter  loneliness, 
All  hope  of  safety,  all  desire  of  peace, 
All  but  the   loathed  forefeeling  of   blank 

death, — 

Part  of  that  spirit  which  doth  ever  brood 
In  patient  calm  on  the  unpilfered  nest 
Of  man's  deep  heart,  till  mighty  thoughts 

grow  fledged 
To  sail   with   darkening  shadow   o'er  the 

world, 
Filling  with  dread  such  souls  as  dare  not 

trust 

In  the  unfailing  energy  of  Good, 
Until  they   swoop,  and  their  pale   quarry 

make 
Of  some   o'erbloated   wrong,  —  that  spirit 

which 
Scatters  great   hopes   in  the  seed-field   of 

man, 

Like  acorns  among  grain,  to  grow  and  be 
A  roof  for  freedom  in  all  coming  time  ! 

But  no,  this  cannot  be;  for  ages  yet, 
In  solitude  unbroken,  shall  I  hear 
The  angry  Caspian  to  the  Euxine  shout, 
And  Euxine  answer  with  a  muffled  roar, 
On  either  side  storming  the  giant  walls 
Of  Caucasus  with  leagues  of  climbing  foam 
(Less,  from    my   height,    than    flakes    of 

downy  snow), 

That  draw  back  baffled  but  to  hurl  again, 
Snatched  up  in  wrath  and  horrible  turmoil, 
Mountain  on  mountain,  as  the  Titans  erst, 
My  brethren,  scaling  the  high  seat  of  Jove, 
Heaved    Pelion     upon     Ossa's     shoulders 

broad 
In  vain  emprise.     The  moon  will  come  and 

g° 


With  her  monotonous  vicissitude; 
Once  beautiful,  when  I  was  free  to  walk 
Among  my  fellows,  and  to  interchange 
The  influence  benign  of  loving  eyes, 
But  now  by  aged  use  grown  wearisome;  — 
False  thought !  most  false  !  for  how  could 

I  endure 

These  crawling  centuries  of  lonely  woe 
Unshamed  by  weak   complaining,  but  for 

thee, 

Loneliest,  save  me,  of  all  created  things, 
Mild-eyed  Astarte,  my  best  comforter, 
With  thy  pale  smile  of  sad  benignity  ? 

Year  after  year  will  pass  away  and  seem 
To  me,  in  mine  eternal  agony, 
But    as    the    shadows   of    dumb    summer 

clouds, 
Which  I  have  watched  so  often  darkening 

o'er 
The  vast  Sarmatian  plain,  league-wide  at 

first, 
But,  with  still  swiftness,  lessening  on  and 

on 
Till  cloud  and  shadow  meet  and  mingle 

where 

The  gray  horizon  fades  into  the  sky, 
Far,  far  to  northward.     Yes,  for  ages  yet 
Must  I  lie  here  upon  my  altar  huge, 
A  sacrifice  for  man.     Sorrow  will  be, 
As  it  hath  been,  his  portion;  endless  doom, 
While  the  immortal  with  the  mortal  linked 
Dreams  of  its  wings  and  pines  for  what  it 

dreams, 
With     upward   yearn    unceasing.     Better 

so: 

For  wisdom  is  stern  sorrow's  patient  child, 
And  empire  over  self,  and  all  the  deep 
Strong  charities  that  make  men  seem  like 

gods; 
And  love,  that  makes  them  be  gods,  from 

her  breasts 
Sucks  in  the  milk  that  makes  mankind  one 

blood. 

Good  never  comes  unmixed,  or  so  it  seems, 
Having  two  faces,  as  some  images 
Are  carved,  of  foolish  gods ;    one  face  is 

ill; 
But  one  heart  lies   beneath,  and   that  is 

good, 
As  are  all  hearts,  when  we   explore  their 

depths. 
Therefore,  great  heart,  bear  up  !  thou  art 

but  type 
Of  what  all  lofty  spirits  endure,  that  fain 


44 


MISCELLANEOUS    POEMS 


rould  win    men   back    to   strength    and 

peace  through  love: 
Each  hath  his   lonely  peak,   and  on  each 

heart 

Envy,  or  scorn,  or  hatred,  tears   lifelong 
With  vulture  beak;    yet  the  high  soul  is 

left; 
And  faith,  which  is  but  hope  grown  wise, 

and  love 
And  patience  which  at  last  shall  overcome. 


THE    SHEPHERD    OF   KING  AD- 
METUS 

THERE  came  a  youth  upon  the  earth, 

Some  thousand  years  ago, 
Whose  slender  hands  were  nothing  worth, 
Whether  to  plough,  or  reap,  or  sow. 

Upon  an  empty  tortoise-shell 

He  stretched  some  chords,  and  drew 
Music  that  made  men's  bosoms  swell 
Fearless,  or  brimmed  their  eyes  with  dew. 

Then  King  Admetus,  one  who  had 

Pure  taste  by  right  divine, 
Decreed  his  singing  not  too  bad 
To  hear  between  the  cups  of  wine: 

And  so,  well  pleased  with  being  soothed 

Into  a  sweet  half-sleep, 
Three  times  his  kingly  beard  he  smoothed, 
And  made  him  viceroy  o'er  his  sheep. 

His  words  were  simple  words  enough, 

And  yet  he  used  them  so, 
That  what  in  other  mouths  was  rough 
In  his  seemed  musical  and  low. 

Men  called  him  but  a  shiftless  youth, 

In  whom  no  good  they  saw; 
And  yet,  unwittingly,  in  truth, 
They  made  his  careless  words  their  law. 

They  knew  not  how  he  learned  at  all, 

For  idly,  hour  by  hour, 
He  sat  and  watched  the  dead  leaves  fall, 
Or  mused  upon  a  common  flower. 

It  seemed  the  loveliness  of  things 

Did  teach  him  all  their  use, 
For,  in  mere  weeds,  and  stones,  and 

springs, 
He  found  a  healing  power  profuse. 


Men  granted  that  his  speech  was  wise, 

But,  when  a  glance  they  caught 
Of  his  slim  grace  and  woman's  eyes, 
They  laughed,  and  called  him  good-for- 
naught. 

Yet  after  he  was  dead  and  gone, 

And  e'en  his  memory  dim, 
Earth  seemed  more  sweet  to  live  upon, 
More  full  of  love,  because  of  him. 

And  day  by  day  more  holy  grew 
Each  spot  where  he  had  trod, 
Till  after-poets  only  knew 
Their  first-born  brother  as  a  god. 


THE   TOKEN 

IT  is  a  mere  wild  rosebud, 

Quite  sallow  now,  and  dry, 
Yet  there 's  something  wondrous  in  it, 

Some  gleams  of  days  gone  by, 
Dear  sights  and  sounds  that  are  to  me 
The  very  moons  of  memory, 
And  stir  my  heart's  blood  far  below 
Its  short-lived  waves  of  joy  and  woe. 

Lips  must  fade  and  roses  wither, 

All  sweet  times  be  o'er; 
They     only      smile,      and,     murmuring 
"Thither!" 

Stay  with  us  no  more: 
And  yet  ofttimes  a  look  or  smile, 
Forgotten  in  a  kiss's  while, 
Years  after  from  the  dark  will  start, 
And  flash  across  the  trembling  heart. 

Thou  hast  given  me  many  roses, 

But  never  one,  like  this, 
O'erfloods  both  sense  and  spirit 

With  such  a  deep,  wild  bliss; 
We  must  have  instincts  that  glean  up 
Sparse  drops  of  this  life  in  the  cup, 
Whose  taste  shall  give  us  all  that  we 
Can  prove  of  immortality. 

Earth's  stablest  things  are  shadows, 

And,  in  the  life  to  come, 
Haply  some  chance-saved  trifle 

May  tell  of  this  old  home: 
As  now  sometimes  we  seem  to  find, 
In  a  dark  crevice  of  the  mind, 
Some  relic,  which,  long  pondered  o'er, 
Hints  faintly  at  a  life  before. 


AN   INCIDENT   IN   A  RAILROAD   CAR 


45 


AN    INCIDENT    IN   A  RAILROAD 
CAR 

HE  spoke  of  Burns:  men  rude  and  rough 
Pressed  round  to  hear  the  praise  of  one 
Whose  heart  was  made  of  manly,  simple 

stuff, 
As  homespun  as  their  own. 

And,  when  he  read,  they  forward  leaned, 
Drinking,  with  thirsty  hearts  and  ears, 
His   brook-like   songs   whom   glory  never 

weaned 
From  humble  smiles  and  tears. 

Slowly  there  grew  a  tender  awe, 
Sun-like,  o'er  faces  brown  and  hard, 
As  if  in  him  who  read  they  felt  and  saw 
Some  presence  of  the  bard. 

It  was  a  sight  for  sin  and  wrong 
And  slavish  tyranny  to  see, 
A  sight  to  make  our  faith  more  pure  and 

strong 
In  high  humanity. 

I  thought,  these  men  will  carry  hence 
Promptings  their  former  life  above, 
And  something  of  a  finer  reverence 
For  beauty,  truth,  and  love. 

God  scatters  love  on  every  side 
Freely  among  his  children  all, 
And  always  hearts  are  lying  open  wide, 
Wherein  some  grains  may  fall. 

There  is  no  wind  but  soweth  seeds 
Of  a  more  true  and  open  life, 
Which  burst,  unlocked  for,  into  high-souled 

deeds, 
With  wayside  beauty  rife. 

We  find  within  these  souls  of  ours 
Some  wild  germs  of  a  higher  birth, 
Which  in  the  poet's  tropic  heart  bear  flowers 
Whose  fragrance  fills  the  earth. 

Within  the  hearts  of  all  men  lie 
These  promises  <.f  wider  bliss, 
Which  blossom  into  hopes  that  cannot  die, 
In  sunny  hours  like  this. 

All  that  hath  been  majestical 

In  life  or  death,  since  time  began, 


Is  native  in  the  simple  heart  of  all, 
The  angel  heart  of  man. 

And  thus,  among  the  untaught  poor, 
Great  deeds  and  feelings  find  a  home, 
That  cast  in  shadow  all  the  golden  lore 
Of  classic  Greece  and  Home. 

O  mighty  brother-soul  of  man, 
Where'er  thou  art,  in  low  or  high, 
Thy  skyey  arches  with  exulting  span 
O'er-roof  infinity  ! 

All  thoughts  that  mould  the  age  begin 
Deep  down  within  the  primitive  soul, 
And  from  the  many  slowly  upward  win 
To  one  who  grasps  the  whole: 

In  his  wide  brain  the  feeling  deep 
That  struggled  on  the  mauy's  tongue 
Swells  to  a  tide  of  thought,  whose   surges 

leap 
O'er  the  weak  thrones  of  wrong. 

All  thought  begins  in  feeling,  —  wide 
In  the  great  mass  its  base  is  hid, 
And,    narrowing    up    to    thought,   stands 

glorified, 
A  moveless  pyramid. 

Nor  is  he  far  astray,  who  deems 

That  every  hope,  which  rises  and  grows 

broad 
In  the  world's  heart,  by  ordered  impulse 

streams 
From  the  great  heart  of  God. 

God  wills,  man  hopes:  in  common  souls 
Hope  is  but  vague  and  undefined, 
Till  from  the  poet's  tongue  the  message 

rolls 
A  blessing  to  his  kind. 

Never  did  Poesy  appear 
So  full  of  heaven  to  me,  as  when 
I  saw  how  it  would  pierce  through   pride 

and  fear 
To  the  lives  of  coarsest  men. 

It  may  be  glorious  to  write 

Thoughts    that    shall    glad    the  two  or 

three 
High  souls,  like  those  far  stars  that  come  in 

sight 
Once  in  a  century;  — 


MISCELLANEOUS    POEMS 


But  better  far  it  is  to  speak 
One  simple  word,  which  now  and  then 
Shall  waken  their  free  nature  in  the  weak 
And  friendless  sons  of  men; 

To  write  some  earnest  verse  or  line, 
Which,  seeking  not  the  praise  of  art, 
Shall  make  a  clearer   faith  and  manhood 

shine 
In  the  untutored  heart. 

He  who  doth  this,  in  verse  or  prose, 
May  be  forgotten  in  his  day, 
But  surely  shall  be   crowned  at   last  with 

those 
Who  live  and  speak  for  aye. 


RHCECUS 

GOD  sends  his  teachers  unto  every  age, 
To  every  clime,  and  every  race  of  men, 
With  revelations  fitted  to  their  growth 
And  shape  of  mind,  nor  gives  the  realm  of 

Truth 

Into  the  selfish  rule  of  one  sole  race : 
Therefore  each  form  of  worship  that  hath 

swayed 

The  life  of  man,  and  given  it  to  grasp 
The  master-key  of  knowledge,  reverence, 
Infolds   some   germs   of  goodness  and  of 

right; 
Else    never    had    the    eager    soul,    which 

loathes 

The  slothful  down  of  pampered  ignorance, 
Found  in  it  even  a  moment's  fitful  rest. 

There  is  an  instinct  in  the  human  heart 
Which  makes  that  all  the  fables  it  hath 

coined, 

To  justify  the  reign  of  its  belief 
And  strengthen  it  by  beauty's  right  divine, 
Veil  in  their  inner  cells  a  mystic  gift. 
Which,   like   the    hazel  twig,    in    faithful 

hands, 
Points    surely   to   the    hidden   springs   of 

truth. 

For,  as  in  nature  naught  is  made  in  vain, 
But  all  things   have  within  their  hull  of 

use 

A  wisdom  and  a  meaning  which  may  speak 
Of  spiritual  secrets  to  the  ear 
Of  spirit ;  so,  in  whatso'er  the  heart 
Hath  fashioned  for  a  solace  to  itself, 
To  make  its  inspirations  suit  its  creed, 


And  from  the  niggard  hands  of  falsehood 

wring 

Its  needful  food  of  truth,  there  ever  is 
A  sympathy  with  Nature,  which  reveals, 
Not  less  than  her  own  works,  pure  gleams 

of  light 

And  earnest  parables  of  inward  lore. 
Hear  now  this  fairy  legend  of  old  Greece, 
As  full  of  gracious  youth,  and  beauty  still 
As  the  immortal  freshness  of  that  grace 
Carved  for  all  ages  on  some  Attic  frieze. 

A  youth    named  Rhcecus,  wandering  in 

the  wood, 

Saw  an  old  oak  just  trembling  to  its  fall, 
And,  feeling  pity  of  so  fair  a  tree, 
He  propped  its  gray  trunk  with  admiring 

care, 
And  with  a   thoughtless  footstep   loitered 

on. 

But,  as  he  turned,  he  heard  a  voice  behind 
That  murmured  "  Rhrecus  ! "     'T  was  as  if 

the  leaves, 
Stirred  by  a  passing  breath,  had  murmured 

it, 

And,  while  he  paused  bewildered,  yet  again 
It  murmured   "Rho3cus!"  softer   than  a 

breeze. 

He  started  and  beheld  with  dizzy  eyes 
What  seemed   the  substance  of  a  happy 

dream 
Stand  there  before  him,  spreading  a  warm 

glow 
Within  the  green  glooms  of  the  shadowy 

oak. 

It  seemed  a  woman's  shape,  yet  far  too  fair 
To  be  a  woman,  and  with  eyes  too  meek 
For  any  that  were  wont  to  mate  with  gods. 
All  naked  like  a  goddess  stood  she  there, 
And  like  a  goddess  all  too  beautiful 
To  feel  the  guilt-born  earthliness  of  shame. 
"  Rho3cus,  I  am  the  Dryad  of  this  tree," 
Thus  she  began,   dropping  her  low-toned 

words 

Serene,  and  full,  and  clear,  as  drops  of  dew, 
"  And  with  it  I  am  doomed  to  live  and  die; 
The  rain  and  sunshine  are  my  caterers, 
Nor  have  I  other  bliss  than  simple  life; 
Now  ask  me  what  thou  wilt,  that  I   can 

give, 
And  with  a  thankful  joy  it  shall  be  thine." 

Then  Rho3cus,  with  a  flutter  at  the  heart, 
Yet  by  the  prompting  of  such  beauty  bold, 
Answered:  "What  is  there  that  can  satisfy 


RHCECUS 


47 


The  endless  craving  of  the  soul  but  love  ? 
Give  me  thy  love,  or  but  the  hope  of  that 
Which  must  be  evermore  my  nature's 


After  a  little  pause  she  said  again, 
But  with  a  glimpse  of  sadness  in  her  tone, 
•'I  give  it,  Rhcecus,  though  a  perilous  gift; 
An  hour  before  the  sunset  meet  me  here." 
And   straightway  there   was    nothing    he 

could  see 
But  the  green  glooms  beneath  the  shadowy 

oak, 

And  not  a  sound  came  to  his  straining  ears 
But  the  low  trickling  rustle  of  the  leaves, 
And  far  away  upon  an  emerald  slope 
The  falter  of  an  idle  shepherd's  pipe. 

Now,   in  those  days  of  simpleness  and 

faith, 
Men  did  not  think  that  happy  things  were 

dreams 

Because  they  overstepped  the  narrow  bourn 
Of  likelihood,  but  reverently  deemed 
Nothing  too  wondrous  or  too  beautiful 
To  be  the  guerdon  of  a  daring  heart. 
So  Rhcecus  made  no    doubt  that  he  was 

blest, 

And  all  along  unto  the  city's  gate 
Earth  seemed  to  spring  beneath  him  as  he 

walked, 
The  clear,  broad  sky  looked  bluer  than  its 

wont, 
And  he   could  scarce   believe   he  had  not 

wings, 
Such  sunshine   seemed  to  glitter  through 

his  veins 
Instead   of  blood,   so   light    he    felt   and 

strange. 

Young  Rhcecus  had  a  faithful  heart 
enough, 

But  one  that  in  the  present  dwelt  too 
much, 

And,  taking  with  blithe  welcome  whatso 
e'er 

Chance  gave  of  joy,  was  wholly  bound  in 
that, 

Like  the  contented  peasant  of  a  vale, 

Deemed  it  the  world,  and  never  looked 
beyond. 

So,  haply  meeting  in  the  afternoon 

Some  comrades  who  were  playing  at  the 
dice, 

He  joined  them,  and  forgot  all  else  be 
side. 


The  dice  were  rattling  at  the  merriest, 
And  Rhcecus,  who  had  met  but  sorry  luck, 
Just  laughed  in  triumph  at  a  happy  throw, 
When  through  the  room  there  hummed  a 

yellow  bee 

That   buzzed   about   his   ear   with    down- 
dropped  legs 
As  if  to  light.     And  Rhcacus  laughed  and 

said, 
Feeling  how  red  and  flushed  he  was  with 

loss, 

"  By  Venus  !  does  he  take  me  for  a  rose  ?  " 
And  brushed  him  off  with    rough,   impa 
tient  hand. 
But  still  the   bee   came   back,   and  thrice 

again 
Rhcecus  did   beat   him   off   with   growing 

wrath. 
Then  through  the  window  flew  the  wounded 

bee, 
And   Rhcecus,  tracking    him   with    angry 

eyes, 

Saw  a  sharp  mountain-peak  of  Thessaly 
Against  the  red  disk  of  the  setting  sun, — 
And   instantly   the   blood   sank   from    his 

heart, 

As  if  its  very  walls  had  caved  away. 
Without  a   word  he  turned,  and,    rushing 

forth, 

Ran  madly  through  the  city  and  the  gate, 
And  o'er  the  plain,  which  now  the  wood's 

long  shade, 
By  the  low  sun  thrown  forward  broad  and 

dim, 
Darkened  wellnigh  unto  the  city's  wall. 

Quite  spent  and  out  of  breath  he  reached 
the  tree, 

And,  listening  fearfully,  he  heard  once 
more 

The  low  voice  murmur  "  Rhoacus  !  "  close 
at  hand: 

Whereat  he  looked  around  him,  but  could 
see 

Naught  but  the  deepening  glooms  beneath 
the  oak. 

Then  sighed  the  voice,  "  O  Rhcecus  !  never 
more 

Shalt  thou  behold  me  or  by  day  or  night, 

Me,  who  would  fain  have  blessed  thee  with 
a  love 

More  ripe  and  bounteous  than  ever  yet 

Filled  up  with  nectar  any  mortal  heart: 

But  thou  didst  scorn  my  humble  messen 
ger, 


48 


MISCELLANEOUS    POEMS 


And  sent'st  him  back  to  me  with  bruised 

wings. 

We  spirits  only  show  to  gentle  eyes, 
We  ever  ask  an  undivided  love, 
And  he  who  scorns  the  least  of  Nature's 

works 

Is  thenceforth  exiled  and  shut  out  from  all. 
Farewell  !    for   thou   canst   never  see   me 

more." 

Then    Rhoscus     beat    his    breast,    and 

groaned  aloud, 

And  cried,  "  Be  pitiful  !  forgive  me  yet 
This   once,   and   I    shall    never    need    it 

more  ! " 
"Alas!"   the  voice  returned,  " 't  is  thou 

art  blind, 

Not  I  unmerciful;  I  can  forgive, 
But  have  no  skill  to  heal  thy  spirit's  eyes; 
Only  the  soul  hath  power  o'er  itself." 
With  that  again  there  murmured  "Never 
more  !  " 

And  Rhcecus  after  heard  no  other  sound, 
Except    the   rattling    of    the    oak's    crisp 

leaves, 

Like  the  long  surf  upon  a  distant  shore, 
Raking  the  sea-worn  pebbles  up  and  down. 
The  night  had   gathered  round  him:  o'er 

the  plain 

The  city  sparkled  with  its  thousand  lights, 
And  sounds  of  revel  fell  upon  his  ear 
Harshly  and  like  a  curse;  above,  the  sky, 
With  all  its  bright  sublimity  of  stars, 
Deepened,  and  on  his  forehead  smote  the 

breeze: 

Beauty  was  all  around  him  and  delight, 
But  from  that  eve  he  was  alone  on  earth. 


THE  FALCON 

I  KNOW  a  falcon  swift  and  peerless 
As  e'er  was  cradled  in  the  pine; 

No  bird  had  ever  eye  so  fearless, 
Or  wing  so  strong  as  this  of  mine. 

The  winds  not  better  love  to  pilot 
A  cloud  with  molten  gold  o'errun, 

Than  him,  a  little  burning  islet, 
A  star  above  the  coming  sun. 

For  with  a  lark's  heart  he  doth  tower, 
By  a  glorious  upward  instinct  drawn; 

No  bee  nestles  deeper  in  the  flower 
Thau  he  in  the  bursting  rose  of  dawn. 


No  harmless  dove,  no  bird  that  siugeth. 
Shudders  to  see  him  overhead; 

The  rush  of  his  fierce  swooping  bringeth 
To  innocent  hearts  no  thrill  of  dread. 

Let  fraud  and  wrong  and  baseness  shiver, 
For  still  between  them  and  the  sky 

The  falcon  Truth  hangs  poised  forever 
And  marks  them  with  his  vengeful  eye. 


TRIAL 


WHETHER  the  idle  prisoner  through  his 

grate 

Watches  the  waving  of  the  grass-tuft  small, 
Which,  having  colonized  its  rift  i'  th'  wall, 
Accepts  God's  dole  of  good  or  evil  fate, 
And  from  the  sky's  just  helmet  draws  its 

lot 

Daily  of  shower  or  sunshine,  cold  or  hot;  — 
Whether  the  closer  captive  of  a  creed, 
Cooped  up  from  birth  to  grind  out  endless 

chaff, 
Sees  through  his  treadmill-bars  the  noonday 

laugh, 
And  feels    in   vain   his   crumpled  pinions 

breed ; — 
Whether  the  Georgian  slave  look  up  and 

mark, 
With  bellying   sails   puffed  full,   the  tall 

cloud-bark 
Sink  northward  slowly,  —  thou  alone  seem'st 

good, 

Fair  only  thou,  O  Freedom,  whose  desire 
Can  light  in  muddiest  souls  quick  seeds  of 

fire, 
And  strain  life's  chords  to  the  old  heroic 

mood. 


Yet  are  there  other  gifts  more  fair  than 

thine, 

Nor  can  I  count  him  happiest  who  has  never 
Been  forced  with  his  own  hand  his  chains  to 

sever, 

And  for  himself  find  out  the  way  divine; 
He  never  knew  the  aspirer's  glorious  pains, 
He  never  earned  the    struggle's  priceless 

gains. 
Oh,  block  by  block,  with  sore  and  sharp 

endeavor, 

Lifelong  we  build  these  human  natures  up 
Into  a  temple  fit  for  Freedom's  shrine, 


A  GLANCE  BEHIND  THE  CURTAIN 


49 


And  Trial  ever  consecrates  the  cup 
Wherefrom  we  pour  her  sacrificial  wine. 


A   GLANCE    BEHIND   THE    CUR 
TAIN 

This  poem,  printed  in  The  Democratic  He- 
view  for  September,  1843,  is  most  probably  the 
one  to  which  Lowell  refers  in  a  letter  to  C.  F. 
Briggs,  already  quoted  in  the  head-note  to 
Prometheus :  "  I  have  sent  another  poem  to 
O'Sullivan,  still  more  radical  than  Prometheus, 
and  in  some  respects  better,  though,  from  its 
subject,  incapable  of  so  high  a  strain  as  that." 
Elsewhere  in  this  letter  he  appears  to  give  it 
the  title  Cromwell. 

It  is  interesting  to  turn  back  five  years  to  the 
summer  of  Lowell's  graduation  and  listen  to 
what  he  says  to  G.  B.  Loring :  "  A  plan  has 
been  running  in  my  head  for  some  time,  of  writ 
ing  a  sort  of  dramatic  poem  on  the  subject  of 
Cromwell.  Those  old  Koundheads  have  never 
had  justice  done  them.  They  have  only  been 
held  up  as  canting,  psalm-singing,  hypocritical 
rascals  ;  as  a  sort  of  foil  for  the  open-hearted 
Cavalier.  But  it  were  a  strange  thing,  indeed, 
if  there  were  not  somewhat  in  such  men  as  Mil 
ton,  Sidney,  Hampden,  Selden,  and  Pym.  It 
always  struck  me  that  there  was  more  true  po 
etry  in  those  old  fiery-eyed,  buif -belted  warriors, 
with  their  deep,  holy  enthusiasm  for  liberty 
and  democracy,  political  and  religious  ;  with 
their  glorious  trust  in  the  arm  of  the  Lord  in 
battle  —  than  in  the  dashing,  ranting  Cavaliers, 
who  wished  to  restore  their  king  that  they 
might  give  vent  to  their  passions,  and  go  to 
sleep  again  in  the  laps  of  their  mistresses,  deaf 
to  the  cries  of  the  poor  and  the  oppressed." 

WE  see  but  half  the  causes  of  our  deeds, 
Seeking  them  wholly  in  the  outer  life, 
And  heedless  of  the  encircling  spirit-world, 
Which,  though  unseen,  is  felt,  and  sows  in 

us 

All  germs  of  pure  and  world-wide  purposes. 
From  one  stage  of  our  being  to  the  next 
We  pass  unconscious  o'er  a  slender  bridge, 
The  momentary  work  of  unseen  hands, 
Which  crumbles  down  behind  us;  looking 

back, 

We  see  the  other  shore,  the  gulf  between, 
And,  marvelling  how  we  won  to  where  we 

stand, 

Content  ourselves  to  call  the  builder  Chance. 
We  trace  the  wisdom  to  the  apple's  fall, 
Not  to  the  birth-throes  of  a  mighty  Truth 
Which,  for  long  ages  in  blank  Chaos  dumb, 


Yet  yearned  to  be  incarnate,  and  had  found 
At  last  a  spirit  meet  to  be  the  womb 
From  which  it  might  be  born  to  bless  man 
kind,  — 

Not  to  the  soul  of  Newton,  ripe  with  all 
The    hoarded    thoughtfuluess   of    earnest 

years, 

And  waiting  but  one  ray  of  sunlight  more 
To  blossom  fully. 

But  whence  came  that  ray  ? 
We  call  our  sorrows  Destiny,  but  ought 
Rather  to  name  our  high  successes  so. 
Only  the  instincts  of  great  souls  are  Fate, 
And    have    predestined    sway:    all    other 

things, 

Except  by  leave  of  us,  could  never  be. 
For  Destiny  is  but  the  breath  of  God 
Still  moving  in  us,  the  last  fragment  left 
Of  our  unfallen  nature,  waking  oft 
Within  our  thought,  to  beckon  us  beyond 
The  narrow  circle  of  the  seen  and  known, 
And  always  tending  to  a  noble  end, 
As  all  things  must  that  overrule  the  soul, 
And  for  a  space  unseat  the  helmsman,  Will. 
The  fate  of  England  and  of  freedom  once 
Seemed  wavering  in  the  heart  of  one  plain 

man: 

One  step  of  his,  and  the  great  dial-hand, 
That  marks  the  destined  progress  of  the 

world 

In  the  eternal  round  from  wisdom  on 
To  higher  wisdom,  had  been  made  to  pause 
A  hundred  years.     That  step   he  did  not 

take,  — 

He  knew  not  why,  nor  we,  but  only  God,  — 
And  lived  to  make  his  simple  oaken  chair 
More  terrible  and  soberly  august, 
More  full  of  majesty  than  any  throne, 
Before  or  after,  of  a  British  king. 

Upon   the   pier  stood  two  stern-visaged 

men, 

Looking  to  where  a  little  craft  lay  moored, 
Swayed  by  the  lazy  current  of  the  Thames, 
Which  weltered  by  in  muddy  listlessness. 
Grave    men   they   were,    and   battlings  of 

fierce  thought 
Had  trampled  out  all  softness   from  their 

brows, 
And  ploughed  rough  furrows  there  before 

their  time, 
For    other   crop   than   such   as   homebred 

Peace 
Sows  broadcast  in  the  willing  soil  of  Youth. 


MISCELLANEOUS    POEMS 


Care,  not  of  self,  but  for  the  common-weal, 
Had  robbed  their  eyes  of  youth,  and  left 

instead 

A  look  of  patient  power  and  iron  will, 
And    something    fiercer,   too,    that    gave 

broad  hint 

Of  the  plain  weapons  girded  at  their  sides. 
The  younger  had  an  aspect  of  command,  — 
Not  such  as  trickles  down,  a  slender 

stream, 

In  the  shrunk  channel  of  a  great  descent, 
But  such   as  lies   entowered  in  heart  and 

head, 
And  an  arm  prompt  to  do   the  'bests   of 

both. 
His  was  a  brow  where  gold  were  out   of 

place, 

And  yet  it  seemed  right  worthy  of  a  crown 
(Though  he  despised  such),  were  it  only 

made 

Of  iron,  or  some  serviceable  stuff 
That   would   have    matched   his    brownly 

rugged  face. 

The  elder,  although  such  he  hardly  seemed 
(Care  makes  so  little  of  some  five  short 

years), 

Had  a   clear,   honest   face,   whose   rough- 
hewn  strength 

Was  mildeued  by  the  scholar's  wiser  heart 
To  sober  courage,  such  as  best  befits 
The    unsullied   temper  of  a  well  -  taught 

mind, 
Yet  so   remained  that   one   could   plainly 

guess 

The   hushed   volcano   smouldering   under 
neath. 
He   spoke:    the   other,   hearing,   kept   his 

gaze 
Still  fixed,  as  on  some  problem  in  the  sky. 

"O  CROMWELL,  we  are  fallen  on  evil 

times  ! 
There  was  a  day  when  England  had  wide 

room 

For  honest  men  as  well  as  foolish  kings: 
But  now  the  uneasy  stomach  of  the  time 
Turns  squeamish  at  them  both.  Therefore 

let  us 
Seek  out  that  savage  clime,  where  men  as 

yet 

Are  free:  there  sleeps  the  vessel  on  the  tide, 
Her  languid  canvas  drooping  for  the  wind; 
Give  us  but  that,  and  what  need  we  to  fear 
This  Order  of  the  Council?  The  free 

waves 


Will  not  say  No  to  please  a  wayward  king, 
Nor  will  the   winds   turn   traitors   at   his 

beck: 

All  things  are  fitly  cared  for,  and  the  Lord 
Will  watch  as  kindly  o'er  the  exodus 
Of  us  his  servants  now,  as  in  old  time. 
We  have  no  cloud  or  fire,  and  haply  we 
May  not  pass  dry-shod  through  the  ocean- 
stream  ; 
But,  saved  or  lost,  all  things  are    in   His 

hand." 

So  spake  he,  and  meantime  the  other  stood 
With  wide  gray  eyes  still  reading  the  blank 

air, 

As  if  upon  the  sky's  blue  wall  he  saw 
Some  mystic  sentence,  written  by  a  hand, 
Such  as  of   old   made   pale   the   Assyrian 

king. 
Girt  with  his  satraps  in  the  blazing  feast. 

"  HAMPDEN  !  a  moment  since,  my  pur 
pose  was 

To  fly  with  thee,  —  for  I  will  call  it  flight, 
Nor  flatter  it  with  any  smoother  name,  — 
But  something  in  me  bids  me  not  to  go; 
And  I   am    one,   thou    knowest,   who,  un 
moved 
By  what  the  weak  deem  omens,  yet  give 

heed 

And  reverence  due  to  whatsoe'er  my  soul 
Whispers  of  warning  to  the  inner  ear. 
Moreover,   as    I    know   that    God   brings 

round 

His  purposes  in  ways  undreamed  by  us, 
And  makes  the  wicked  but  his  instruments 
To  hasten  their  own  swift  and  sudden  fall, 
I  see  the  beauty  of  his  providence 
In  the  King's  order:  blind,  he  will  not  let 
His  doom  part  from  him,  but  must  bid  it 

stay 
As  't  were    a    cricket,    whose    enlivening 

chirp 

He  loved  to  hear  beneath  his  very  hearth. 
Why  should  we  fly  ?     Nay,  why  not  rather 

stay 

And  rear  again  our  Zion's  crumbled  walls, 
Not,  as  of  old  the  walls  of   Thebes  were 

built, 
By  minstrel  twanging,  but,  if  need  should 

be, 

With  the  more  potent  music  of  our  swords  ? 
Think'st  thou  that  score  of  men  beyond  the 

sea 

Claim  more  God's  care  than  all  of  England 
here? 


A   GLANCE   BEHIND   THE   CURTAIN 


No:  when  He  moves  His  arm,  it  is  to  aid 
Whole     peoples,    heedless    if    a    few    be 

crushed, 

As  some  are  ever,  when  the  destiny 
Of  man  takes   one   stride   onward   nearer 

home. 
Believe   me,  't  is    the  mass  of  men  He 

loves; 
And,  where  there  is  most  sorrow  and  most 

want, 
Where  the  high  heart  of  man  is  trodden 

down 
The  most,  't  is   not  because  He  hides  His 

face 
From  them  in  wrath,  as  purblind  teachers 

prate  : 

Not  so:  there  most  is  He,  for  there  is  He 
Most   needed.     Men    who   seek   for    Fate 

abroad 

Are  not  so  near  His  heart  as  they  who  dare 
Frankly  to  face  her  where  she  faces  them, 
On  their  own  threshold,  where  their  souls 

are  strong 

To  grapple  with  and  throw  her;  as  I  once, 
Being  yet  a  boy,  did  cast  this  puny  king, 
Who  now  has  grown  so  dotard  as  to  deem 
That  he  can  wrestle  with  an  angry  realm, 
And  throw  the  brawned  Antaeus  of  men's 

rights. 

No,   Hampden  !  they  have   half-way  con 
quered  Fate 

Who  go  half-way  to  meet  her,  —  as  will  I. 
Freedom  hath  yet  a  work  for  me  to  do; 
So  speaks  that  inward  voice  which  never  yet 
Spake  falsely,  when  it  urged  the  spirit  on 
To  noble  emprise  for  country  and  mankind. 
And,   for  success,   I   ask    no    more    than 

this,  — 

To  bear  unflinching  witness  to  the  truth. 
All  true  whole  men  succeed;  for  what  is 

worth 

Success's  name,  unless  it  be  the  thought, 
The  inward  surety,  to  have  carried  out 
A  noble  purpose  to  a  noble  end, 
Although  it  be  the  gallows  or  the  block  ? 
'T  is  only  Falsehood  that  doth  ever  need 
These  outward  shows  of  gain  to  bolster  her. 
Be  it  we  prove  the  weaker  with  our  swords; 
Truth  only  needs  to  be  for  once  spoke  out, 
And    there  's    such    music    in    her,    such 

strange  rhythm, 
As    makes    men's    memories    her    joyous 

slaves, 
And  clings  around  the   soul,   as   the   sky 

clings 


Round  the  mute  earth,  forever  beautiful, 
And,  if  o'erclouded,  only  to  burst  forth 
More  all-embracingly  divine  and  clear: 
Get  but  the  truth  once  uttered,  and  't  is 

like 

A  star  new-born,  that  drops  into  its  place, 
And   which,    once    circling   in    its   placid 

round, 
Not  all  the  tumult  of  the  earth  can  shake. 

"  What  should  we  do  in  that  small  colony 
Of   pinched    fanatics,   who   would    rather 

choose 
Freedom  to  clip  an  inch  more  from  their 

hair, 
Than  the  great  chance  of  setting  England 

free? 

Not  there,  amid  the  stormy  wilderness, 
Should   we   learn   wisdom;  or   if   learned, 

what  room 
To    put   it    into    act,  —  else    worse    than 

naught  ? 
We  learn  our  souls  more,  tossing  for  an 

hour 

Upon  this  huge  and  ever-vexed  sea 
Of  human  thought,  where  kingdoms  go  to 

wreck 

Like  fragile  bubbles  yonder  in  the  stream, 
Than  in  a  cycle  of  New  England  sloth, 
Broke  only  by  a  petty  Indian  war, 
Or  quarrel  for  a  letter  more  or  less 
In  some  hard  word,  which,  spelt  in  either 

way, 

Not  their  most  learned  clerks  can  under 
stand. 
New  times  demand  new  measures  and  new 

men; 

The  world  advances,  and  in  time  outgrows 
The  laws  that   in   our   fathers'  day  were 

best; 
And,    doubtless,    after    us,    some    purer 

scheme 

Will  be  shaped  out  by  wiser  men  than  we, 
Made  wiser  by  the  steady  growth  of  truth. 
We  cannot  hale  Utopia  on  by  force; 
But  better,  almost,  be  at  work  in  sin, 
Than  in  a  brute  inaction  browse  and  sleep. 
No  man  is  born  into  the  world  whose  work 
Is  not  born  with  him;  there  is  always  work, 
And  tools  to  work  withal,  for  those  who 

will; 

And  blessed  are  the  horny  hands  of  toil ! 
The  busy  world  shoves  angrily  aside 
The  man  who  stands  with  arms  akimbo  set, 
Until  occasion  tells  him  what  to  do; 


52 


MISCELLANEOUS    POEMS 


And  he  who  waits  to  have  his  task  marked 

out 

Shall  die  and  leave  his  errand  unfulfilled. 
Our  time  is  one  that  calls  for  earnest  deeds: 
Reason  and  Government,  like   two   broad 

seas, 
Yearn   for   each   other   with    outstretched 

arms 

Across  this  narrow  isthmus  of  the  throne, 
And  roll  their  white  surf  higher  every  day. 
One  age  moves  onward,  and  the  next  builds 

up 

Cities  and  gorgeous  palaces,  where  stood 
The  rude  log-huts  of  those  who  tamed  the 

wild, 
Bearing   from   out   the    forests   they   had 

felled 

The  goodly  framework  of  a  fairer  state; 
The  builder's  trowel  and  the  settler's  axe 
Are  seldom  wielded  hy  the  selfsame  hand; 
Ours  is  the  harder  task,  yet  not  the  less 
Shall  we  receive  the  blessing  for  our  toil 
From  the  choice  spirits  of  the  aftertime. 
My  soul  is  not  a  palace  of  the  past, 
Where  outworn  creeds,  like  Rome's  gray 

senate,  quake, 

Hearing  afar  the  Vandal's  trumpet  hoarse, 
That  shakes  old  systems  with  a  thunder-fit. 
The  time  is  ripe,  and  rotten -ripe,  for 

change ; 

Then  let  it  come:  I  have  no  dread  of  what 
Is  called  for  by  the  instinct  of  mankind; 
Nor   think   I   that   God's   world  will   fall 

apart 

Because  we  tear  a  parchment  more  or  less. 
Truth  is  eternal,  but  her  effluence, 
With  endless  change,  is  fitted  to  the  hour; 
Her  mirror  is  turned  forward  to  reflect 
The  promise  of  the  future,  not  the  past. 
He  who  would  win  the  name  of  truly  great 
Must  understand  his  own  age  and  the  next, 
And  make  the  present  ready  to  fulfil 
Its  prophecy,  and  with  the  future  merge 
Gently  and  peacefully,  as  wave  with  wave. 
The   future   works   out   great   men's  pur 
poses; 

The  present  is  enough  for  common  souls, 
Who,  never  looking  forward,  are  indeed 
Mere  clay,  wherein  the  footprints  of  their 

age 

Are  petrified  forever:  better  those 
Who  lead  the  blind  old  giant  by  the  hand 
From   out   the   pathless   desert   where   he 

gropes, 
And  set  him  onward  in  his  darksome  way. 


I  do  not  fear  to  follow  out  the  truth, 

Albeit  along  the  precipice's  edge. 

Let  us  speak  plain:  there  is  more  force  in 

names 
Than  most  men  dream  of;  and  a  lie  may 

keep 

Its  throne  a  whole  age  longer,  if  it  skulk 
Behind   the   shield   of   some   fair-seeming 

name. 

Let  us  call  tyrants  tyrants,  and  maintain 
That  only  freedom  comes  by  grace  of  God, 
And  all  that  comes  not  by  His  grace  must 

fall; 

For  men  in  earnest  have  no  time  to  waste 
In  patching  fig-leaves  for  the  naked  truth. 

"  I  will  have  one  more  grapple  with  the 

man 

Charles  Stuart:  whom  the  boy  o'ercame, 
The  man  stands    not  in  awe  of.     I,  per 
chance, 

Am  one  raised  up  by  the  Almighty  arm 
To  witness  some   great  truth  to   all   the 

world. 

Souls  destined  to  o'erleap  the  vulgar  lot, 
And  mould  the  world  unto  the  scheme  of 

God, 
Have   a  fore-consciousness   of   their  high 

doom, 

As  men  are  known  to  shiver  at  the  heart 
When  the  cold  shadow  of  some  coming  ill 
Creeps  slowly  o'er  their  spirits  unawares. 
Hath  Good  less  power  of  prophecy  than 

111? 
How  else  could  men  whom  God  hath  called 

to  sway 
Earth's  rudder,  and  to  steer  the  bark  of 

Truth, 
Beating   against  the   tempest  tow'rd   her 

port, 

Bear  all  the  mean  and  buzzing  grievances, 
The    petty    martyrdoms,    wherewith    Sin 

strives 

To  weary  out  the  tethered  hope  of  Faith  ? 
The   sneers,    the     unrecognizing    look    of 

friends, 
Who  worship  the  dead  corpse  of  old  king 

Custom, 
Where   it   doth    lie   in    state   within    the 

Church, 

Striving  to  cover  up  the  mighty  ocean 
With  a  man's  palm,  and  making  even  the 

truth 

Lie  for  them,  holding  up  the  glass  reversed, 
To  make  the  hope  of  man  seem  farther  off  ? 


A   CHIPPEWA   LEGEND 


53 


My  God  !  when  I  read  o'er  the  bitter  lives 
Of  men  whose  eager  hearts  were  quite  too 

great 
To  beat  beneath  the  cramped  mode  of  the 

day, 
And  see  them  mocked  at  by  the  world  they 

love, 

Haggling  with  prejudice  for  pennyworths 
Of  that  reform  which  their  hard  toil  will 

make 
The    common   birthright    of    the    age   to 

come,  — 

When  I  see  this,  spite  of  my  faith  in  God, 
I  marvel  how  their  hearts  bear  up  so  long; 
^Nor  could  they  but  for  this  same  prophecy, 
This  inward  feeling  of  the  glorious  end. 

"Deem  me  not  fond;  but  in  my  warmer 

youth, 
Ere  my  heart's  bloom  was  soiled  and  brushed 

away, 
I  had  great  dreams  of  mighty  things  to 

come; 

Of  conquest,  whether  by  the  sword  or  pen 
I  knew  not;  but  some  conquest  I   would 

have, 
Or  else  swift  death:  now  wiser  grown  in 

years, 

I  find  youth's  dreams  are  but  the  flutterings 
Of   those   strong  wings  whereon  the  soul 

shall  soar 

In  after  time  to  win  a  starry  throne; 
And  so  I  cherish  them,  for  they  were  lots, 
Which  I,  a  boy,  cast  in  the  helm  of  Fate. 
iNow  will  I  draw  them,  since  a  man's  right 

hand, 

A  right  hand  guided  by  an  earnest  soul, 
With   a  true    instinct,    takes    the   golden 

prize 
From  out  a  thousand  blanks.     What  men 

call  luck 

Is  the  prerogative  of  valiant  souls, 
The  fealty  life  pays  its  rightful  kings. 
The  helm  is  shaking  now,  and  I  will  stay 
To  pluck  rny  lot  forth;  it  were  sin  to  flee!  " 

So  they  two  turned  together;  one  to  die, 
Fighting  for  freedom  on  the  bloody  field; 
The  other,  far  more  happy,  to  become 
A  name  earth  wears  forever  next  her  heart ; 
One  of  the  few  that  have  a  right  to  rank 
With    the    true    Makers:    for    his    spirit 

wrought 

Order  from  Chaos;  proved  that  right  di 
vine 


Dwelt  only  in  the  excellence  of  truth; 
And  far  within  old  Darkness'  hostile  lines 
Advanced  and  pitched  the  shining  tents  of 

Light. 

Nor  shall  the  grateful  Muse  forget  to  tell, 
That  —  not   the   least    among    his    many 

claims 
To   deathless   honor  —  he   was    MILTON'S 

friend, 

A  man  not  second  among  those  who  lived 
To  show  us  that  the  poet's  lyre  demands 
An  arm  of  tougher  sinew  than  the  sword. 


A  CHIPPEWA  LEGEND 

a\yfiva  fjifv  JJLOI  Kal  \eyeiv  fffrlv  roSe, 
&\yos  5e  ffiyav. 

.ESCHYLUS,  Prom.  Vinct.  197, 198. 

For  the  leading-  incidents  in  this  tale  I  am 
indebted  to  the  very  valuable  Algic  Researches 
of  Henry  R.  Schoolcraft,  Esq.  J.  R.  L. 

THE  old  Chief,  feeling  now  weltnigh  his 

end, 

Called  his  two  eldest  children  to  his  side, 
And  gave  them,  in  few  words,  his  parting 

charge! 

"  My  son  and  daughter,  me  ye  see  no  more; 
The    happy   hunting  -  grounds   await   me, 

green 
With  change  of  spring  and  summer  through 

the  year: 

But,  for  remembrance,  after  I  am  gone, 
Be  kind  to  little  Sheemah  for  my  sake: 
Weakling  he  is  and  young,  and  knows  not 

yet 

To  set  the  trap,  or  draw  the  seasoned  bow; 
Therefore  of  both  your  loves  he  hath  more 

need, 
And  he,  who  needeth  love,  to  love    hath 

right; 

It  is  not  like  our  furs  and  stores  of  corn, 
Whereto  we  claim  sole  title  by  our  toil, 
But  the  Great  Spirit  plants  it  in  our  hearts, 
And  waters  it,  and  gives  it  sun,  to  be 
The  common  stock  and  heritage  of  all: 
Therefore  be  kind  to  Sheemah,  that  your 
selves 
May  not  be  left  deserted  in  your  need." 

Alone,  beside  a  lake,  their  wigwam  stood, 
Far  from  the  other  dwellings  of  their  tribe; 
And,  after  many  moons,  the  loneliness 
Wearied  the  elder  brother,  and  he  said, 


54 


MISCELLANEOUS   POEMS 


"  Why  should  I  dwell  here  far  from  men, 

shut  out 

From  the  free,  natural  joys  that  fit  my  age  ? 
Lo,  I  am  tall  and  strong,  well  skilled  to 

hunt, 

Patient  of  toil  and  hunger,  and  not  yet 
Have  seen  the  danger  which  I  dared  not 

look 

Full  in  the  face;  what  hinders  me  to  be 
A  mighty   Brave   and    Chief    among  my 

kin  ?  " 

So,  taking  up  his  arrows  and  his  bow, 
As  if  to  hunt,  he  journeyed  swiftly  on, 
Until  he  gained  the  wigwams  of  his  tribe, 
Where,  choosing  out  a  bride,  he  soon  for 
got, 

In  all  the  fret  and  bustle  of  new  life, 
The  little  Sheemah  and  his  father's  charge. 

Now  when  the  sister  found  her  brother 

gone, 

And  that,  for  many  days,  he  came  not  back, 
She  wept  for  Sheemah  more  than  for  her 
self; 

For  Love  bides  longest  in  a  woman's  heart, 
And  flutters  many  times  before  he  flies, 
And  then  doth  perch  so  nearly,  that  a  word 
May  lure  him  back  to  his  accustomed  nest; 
And  Duty  lingers  even  when  Love  is  gone, 
Oft  looking  out  in  hope  of  his  return ; 
And,  after  Duty  hath  been  driven  forth, 
Then  Selfishness  creeps  in  the  last  of  all, 
Warming   her  lean   hands   at   the   lonely 

hearth, 

And  crouching  o'er  the  embers,  to  shut  out 
Whatever  paltry  warmth  and  light  are  left, 
With  avaricious  greed,  from  all  beside. 
So,  for  long  months,  the  sister  hunted  wide, 
And  cared  for  little  Sheemah  tenderly; 
But,  daily  more  and  more,  the  loneliness 
Grew  wearisome,  and  to  herself  she  sighed, 
4<  Am  I  not  fair  ?  at  least  the  glassy  pool, 
That  hath  no  cause  to  flatter,  tells  me  so; 
But,  oh,  how  flat  and  meaningless  the  tale, 
Unless  it  tremble  on  a  lover's  tongue  ! 
Beauty  hath  no  true  glass,  except  it  be 
In  the  sweet  privacy  of  loving  eyes." 
Thus  deemed  she  idly,  and  forgot  the  lore 
Which  she  had  learned  of  nature  and  the 

woods, 

That  beauty's  chief  reward  is  to  itself, 
And  that  Love's  mirror  holds   no   image 

long 

Save  of  the  inward  fairness,  blurred  and 
lost 


Unless  kept  clear  and  white  by  Duty's  care. 
So  she  went  forth  and  sought  the  haunts  of 

men, 

And,  being  wedded,  in  her  household  cares, 
Soon,  like  the  elder  brother,  quite  forgot 
The  little  Sheemah  and  her  father's  charge. 

But  Sheemah,  left  alone  within  the  lodge, 
Waited  and  waited,  with  a  shrinking  heart, 
Thinking  each  rustle  was  his  sister's  step, 
Till  hope  grew  less  and  less,  and  then  went 

out, 
And  every  sound  was  changed  from  hope 

to  fear. 
Few  sounds  there  were: — the  dropping  of 

a  nut, 
The  squirrel's  chirrup,  and  the  jay's  harsh 

scream, 
Autumn's  sad  remnants  of  blithe  Summer's 

cheer, 
Heard  at   long  intervals,   seemed   but   to 

make 

The  dreadful  void  of  silence  silenter. 
Soon  what  small  store  his  sister  left  was 

gone, 
And,  through  the  Autumn,  he  made  shift 

to  live 
On  roots  and   berries,   gathered   in  much 

fear 
Of  wolves,  whose   ghastly  howl  he  heard 

ofttimes, 

Hollow  and  hungry,  at  the  dead  of  night. 
But  Winter  came  at  last,  and,  when  the 

snow, 
Thick-heaped   for    gleaming  leagues   o'er 

hill  and  plain, 

Spread  its  unbroken  silence  over  all, 
Made  bold  by  hunger,  he  was  fain  to  glean 
(More  sick  at   heart   than  Ruth,   and    all 

alone) 

After  the  harvest  of  the  merciless  wolf, 
Grim  Boaz,  who,  sharp-ribbed  and  gaunt, 

yet  feared 

A  thing  in  ore  wild  and  starving  than  him 
self; 
Till,  by  degrees,   the   wolf  and   he   grew 

friends, 
And     shared    together    all    the     winter 

through. 

Late  in  the  Spring,  when  all  the  ice  was 

gone, 

The  elder  brother,  fishing  in  the  lake, 
Upon    whose   edge    his    father's   wigwam 

stood, 


COLUMBUS 


55 


Heard  a  low  moaning  noise  upon  the  shore : 
Half  like  a  child  it  seemed,   half  like  a 

wolf, 
And  straightway  there  was  something  in 

his  heart 
That  said,  "It  is   thy  brother  Sheemah's 

voice." 

So,  paddling  swiftly  to  the  bank,  he  saw, 
Within  a  little  thicket  close  at  hand, 
A  child  that  seemed  fast   changing  to   a 

wolf, 
From    the    neck     downward,    gray    with 

shaggy  hair, 
That    still   crept   on  and   upward    as    he 

looked. 
The  face  was   turned  away,  but   well   he 

knew 
That  it  was  Sheemah's,  even  his  brother's 

face. 
Then  with  his  trembling  hands  he  hid  his 

eyes, 
And  bowed  his  head,  so  that  he  might  not 

see 
The  first  look   of  his  brother's   eyes,  and 

cried, 
"  O   Sheemah  !    O   my  brother,  speak   to 

me  ! 
Dost  thou  not  know  me,  that  I   am   thy 

brother  ? 
Come  to  me,   little  Sheemah,   thou   shalt 

dwell 
With  me  henceforth,  and  know  no  care  or 

want !  " 

Sheemah  was  silent  for  a  space,  as  if 
'T   were   hard   to    summon   up   a   human 

voice, 
And,  when  he  spake,   the  voice  was  as  a 

wolf's: 
"  I  know  thee  not,  nor  art  thou  what  thou 

say'st; 
I    have    none    other    brethren    than    the 

wolves, 
And,  till  thy  heart  be  changed  from  what 

it  is, 
Thou  art  not   worthy   to   be   called   their 

kin." 
Then  groaned  the   other,  with   a  choking 

tongue, 

"  Alas  !  my  heart  is  changed  right  bitterly ; 
'T  is  shrunk  and  parched  within  me  even 

now  ! " 

And,  looking  upward  fearfully,  he  saw 
Only  a  wolf  that  shrank  away  and  ran, 
Ugly  and  fierce,  to  hide  among  the  woods. 


STANZAS    ON    FREEDOM 

MEN  !  whose  boast  it  is  that  ye 
Come  of  fathers  brave  and  free, 
If  there  breathe  on  earth  a  slave, 
Are  ye  truly  free  and  brave  ? 
If  ye  do  not  feel  the  chain, 
When  it  works  a  brother's  pain, 
Are  ye  not  base  slaves  indeed, 
Slaves  unworthy  to  be  freed  ? 

Women  !  who  shall  one  day  bear 
Sons  to  breathe  New  England  air, 
If  ye  hear,  without  a  blush, 
Deeds  to  make  the  roused  blood  rush 
Like  red  lava  through  your  veins, 
For  your  sisters  now  in  chains,  — 
Answer  !  are  ye  fit  to  be 
Mothers  of  the  brave  and  free  ? 

Is  true  Freedom  but  to  break 
Fetters  for  our  own  dear  sake, 
And,  with  leathern  hearts,  forget 
That  we  owe  mankind  a  debt  ? 
No  !  true  freedom  is  to  share 
All  the  chains  our  brothers  wear, 
And,  with  heart  and  hand,  to  be 
Earnest  to  make  others  free  ! 

They  are  slaves  who  fear  to  speak 

For  the  fatten  and  the  weak; 

They  are  slaves  who  will  not  choose 

Hatred,  scoffing,  and  abuse, 

Rather  than  in  silence  shrink 

From  the  truth  they  needs  must  think; 

They  are  slaves  who  dare  not  be 

In  the  right  with  two  or  three. 


COLUMBUS 

I  have  partly  written  a  poem  on  Columbus  to 
match  with  Prometheus  and  Cromwell.  I  like 
it  better  than  either  in  point  of  artistic  merit. 
J.  R.  L.  to  C.  F.  Briggs,  September  18,  1844. 

THE   cordage   creaks   and    rattles   in   the 

wind, 
With  whims  of  sudden  hush;  the  reeling 

sea 
Now  thumps  like  solid  rock  beneath  the 

stern, 
Now    leaps    with    clumsy   wrath,    strikes 

short,  and,  falling 


MISCELLANEOUS   POEMS 


Crumbled  to  whispery  foam,  slips  rustling 
down 

The  broad  backs  of  the  waves,  which  jostle 
and  crowd 

To  fling  themselves  upon  that  unknown 
shore, 

Their  used  familiar  since  the  dawn  of 
time. 

Whither  this  foredoomed  life  is  guided  on 

To  sway  on  triumph's  hushed,  aspiring 
poise 

One  glittering  moment,  then  to  break  ful 
filled. 

How  lonely  is  the  sea's  perpetual  swing, 
The  melancholy  wash  of  endless  waves, 
The  sigh  of  some  grim  monster  undescried, 
Fear-painted  on  the  canvas  of  the  dark, 
Shifting  on  his  uneasy  pillow  of  brine  ! 
Yet  night  brings  more  companions  than  the 

day 
To   this    drear   waste;  new   constellations 

burn, 
And  fairer  stars,  with  whose  calm  height 

my  soul 

Finds  nearer  sympathy  than  with  my  herd 
Of  earthen  souls,  whose  vision's  scanty  ring 
Makes  me  its  prisoner  to  beat  my  wings 
Against  the  cold  bars  of  their  unbelief, 
Knowing  in  vain  my  own  free  heaven  be 
yond. 
O  God  !  this  world,  so  crammed  with  eager 

life, 
That  comes  and  goes  and  wanders  back  to 

silence 

Like  the  idle  wind,  which  yet  man's  shap 
ing  mind 
Can  make  his  drudge  to  swell  the  longing 

sails 
Of  highest  endeavor,  —  this  mad,  unthrif  t 

world, 
Which,   every   hour,    throws    life   enough 

away 

To  make  her  deserts  kind  and  hospitable, 
Lets  her  great  destinies  be  waved  aside 
By  smooth,  lip-reverent,  formal  infidels, 
Who  weigh  the  God  they  not  believe  with 

gold, 

And  find  no  spot  in  Judas,  save  that  he, 
Driving  a  duller  bargain  than  he  ought, 
Saddled  his  guild  with  too  cheap  precedent. 
O  Faith  !  if  thou  art  strong,  thine  opposite 
Is  mighty  also,  and  the  dull  fool's  sneer 
Hath  ofttimes  shot  chill  palsy  through  the 
arm 


Just  lifted  to  achieve  its  crowning  deed, 
And  made  the  firm-based  heart,  that  would 

have  quailed 

The  rack  or  fagot,  shudder  like  a  leaf 
Wrinkled  with  frost,   and  loose   upon  its 

stem. 
The  wicked  and  the  weak,  by  some  dark 

law, 
Have  a  strange  power  to  shut  and  rivet 

down 

Their  own  horizon  round  us,  to  unwing 
Our  heaven-aspiring  visions,  and  to  blur 
With  surly  clouds  the  Future's  gleaming 

peaks, 
Far   seen    across   the   brine   of    thankless 

years. 

If  the  chosen  soul  could  never  be  alone 
In  deep  mid-silence,  open-doored  to  God, 
No  greatness  ever  had  been  dreamed  or 

done; 

Among  dull  hearts  a  prophet  never  grew; 
The  nurse  of  full-grown  souls  is  solitude. 

The  old  world  is  effete;  there  man  with 

man 

Jostles,  and,  in  the  brawl  for  means  to  live, 
Life   is   trod   underfoot,  —  Life,    the   one 

block 
Of  marble  that 's  vouchsafed  wherefrom  to 

carve 
Our  great  thoughts,  white  and  godlike,  to 

shine  down 

The  future,  Life,  the  irredeemable  block, 
Which  one  o'er-hasty  chisel-dint  oft  mars, 
Scanting  our  room  to  cut  the  features  out 
Of  our  full  hope,  so  forcing  us  to  crown 
With  a  mean   head   the   perfect  limbs,  or 

leave 

The  god's  face  glowing  o'er  a  satyr's  trunk, 
Failure's  brief  epitaph. 

Yes,  Europe's  world 
Reels  on  to  judgment;  there  the  common 

need, 

Losing  God's  sacred  use,  to  be  a  bond 
'Twixt  Me  and  Thee,  sets  each  one  scowl- 
in  gly 

O'er  his  own  selfish  hoard  at  bay;  no  state, 
Knit  strongly  with  eternal  fibres  up 
Of  all  men's  separate  and  united  weals, 
Self-poised  and  sole  as  stars,  yet  one   as 

light, 

Holds  up  a  shape  of  large  Humanity 
To  which  by  natural  instinct  every  man 
Pays  loyalty  exulting,  by  which  all 


COLUMBUS 


57 


Mould  their  own  lives,  and  feel  their  pulses 

filled 
With  the  red,  fiery  blood  of  the   general 

life, 
Making  them  mighty  in  peace,  as  now  in 

war 
They   are,   even   in   the   flush  of  victory, 

weak, 
Conquering    that    manhood   which   should 

them  subdue. 
And  what    gift   bring    I   to  this    untried 

world  ? 

Shall  the  same  tragedy  be  played  anew, 
And  the  same  lurid  curtain  drop  at  last 
On  one  dread  desolation,  one  fierce  crash 
Of  that  recoil  which  on  its  makers  God 
Lets  Ignorance  and  Sin  and  Hunger  make, 
Early  or  late  ?     Or   shall   that   common 
wealth 

Whose  potent  unity  and  concentric  force 
Can  draw  these  scattered  joints  and  parts 

of  men 

Into  a  whole  ideal  man  once  more, 
Which  sucks  not  from  its  limbs  the  life 

away, 

But  sends  it  flood-tide  and  creates  itself 
Over  again  in  every  citizen, 
Be  there  built  up?     For  me,  I  have  no 

choice; 

I  might  turn  back  to  other  destinies, 
For  one  sincere  key  opes  all  Fortune's  doors; 
But  whoso  answers  not  God's  earliest  call 
Forfeits  or  dulls  that  faculty  supreme 
Of  lying  open  to  his  genius 
Which  makes  the  wise  heart  certain  of  its 

ends. 

Here  am  I;  for  what  end  God  knows,  not  I; 
Westward  still  points  the  inexorable  soul: 
i  Here  am  I,  with  no  friend  but  the  sad  sea, 
The  beating  heart  of  this  great  enterprise, 
Which,  without  me,  would  stiffen  in  swift 

death ; 
This  have  I  mused  on,  since  mine  eye  could 

first 

Among  the  stars  distinguish  and  with  joy 
Rest  on  that  God-fed  Pharos  of  the  north, 
On  some  blue  promontory  of  heaven  lighted 
That  juts  far  out  into  the  upper  sea; 
To  this  one  hope  my  heart  hath  clung  for 

years, 

As  would  a  foundling  to  the  talisman 
Hung  round  his  neck  by  hands  he  knew  not 

whose ; 
A  poor,  vile  thing  and  dross  to  all  beside, 


Yet  he  therein  can  feel  a  virtue  left 

By  the  sad  pressure  of  a  mother's  hand, 

And  unto  him  it  still  is  tremulous 

With  palpitating  haste  and  wet  with  tears, 

The  key  to  him  of  hope  and  humanness, 

The  coarse  shell  of  life's  pearl,  Expectancy. 

This  hope  hath  been  to  me  for  love  and 

fame, 

Hath  made  me  wholly  lonely  on  the  earth, 
Building  me  up  as  in  a  thick-ribbed  tower, 
Wherewith  enwalled  my  watching  spirit 

burned, 

Conquering  its  little  island  from  the  Dark, 
Sole  as  a  scholar's  lamp,  and  heard  men's 

steps, 

In  the  far  hurry  of  the  outward  world, 
Pass  dimly  forth  and  back,  sounds  heard  in 

dream. 
As  Ganymede  by  the  eagle  was  snatched 

up 

From  the  gross  sod  to  be  Jove's  cup-bearer, 
So  was  I  lifted  by  my  great  design: 
And  who  hath  trod  Olympus,  from  his  eye 
Fades  not  that  broader  outlook  of  the  gods; 
His   life's    low   valleys    overbrow    earth's 

clouds, 

And  that  Olympian  spectre  of  the  past 
Looms  towering  up  in  sovereign  memory, 
Beckoning  his  soul  from  meaner  heights  of 

doom. 
Had  but  the   shadow  of  the  Thunderer's 

bird, 

Flashing  athwart  my  spirit,  made  of  me 
A  swift-betraying  vision's  Ganymede, 
Yet  to  have  greatly  dreamed  precludes  low 

ends; 

Great  days  have  ever  such  a  morning-red, 
On  such  a  base  great  futures  are  built  up, 
And  aspiration,  though  not  put  in  act, 
Comes  back  to  ask  its  plighted  troth  again, 
Still  watches   round  its  grave  the  unlaid 

ghost 

Of  a  dead  virtue,  and  makes  other  hopes, 
Save  that  implacable  one,   seem  thin  and 

bleak 

As  shadows  of  bare  trees  upon  the  snow, 
Bound    freezing    there    by  the    unpitying 


While  other  youths  perplexed  their  mando 
lins, 

Praying  that  Thetis  would  her  fingers 
twine 

In  the  loose  glories  of  her  lover's  hair, 

And  wile  another  kiss  to  keep  back  day, 


MISCELLANEOUS    POEMS 


I,  stretched   beneath   the   many-centuried 

shade 

Of  some  writhed  oak,  the  wood's  Laocoon, 
Did  of  my  hope  a  dryad  mistress  make, 
Whom  I  would  woo  to  meet  me  privily, 
Or   underneath    the    stars,   or    when    the 

moon 
Flecked  all  the  forest  floor  with  scattered 

pearls. 

0  days  whose  memory  tames  to  fawning 

down 
The  surly  fell  of  Ocean's  bristled  neck  ! 

1  know  not  when  this  hope  enthralled  me 

first, 

But  from  my  boyhood  up  I  loved  to  hear 
The  tall  pine-forests  of  the  Apennine 
Murmur  their  hoary  legends  of  the  sea, 
Which  hearing,  I  in  vision  clear  beheld 
The  sudden  dark  of  tropic  night  shut  down 
O'er  the   huge   whisper   of    great   watery 

wastes, 

The  while  a  pair  of  herons  trailingly 
Flapped  inland,  where    some   league-wide 

river  hurled 

The  yellow  spoil  of  unconjectured  realms 
Far  through  a  gulf's  green  silence,  never 

scarred 
By  any   but    the    North-wind's    hurrying 

keels. 
And  not  the  pines  alone;  all  sights  and 

sounds 

To  my  world-seeking  heart  paid  fealty, 
And  catered  for  it  as  the  Cretan  bees 
Brought  honey  to  the  baby  Jupiter, 
Who  in  his  soft  hand  crushed  a  violet, 
Godlike   foremusing  the   rough   thunder's 

gripe; 

Then  did  I  entertain  the  poet's  song, 
My  great  Idea's  guest,  and,  passing  o'er 
That  iron  bridge  the  Tuscan  built  to  hell, 
I  heard  Ulysses  tell  of  mountain-chains 
Whose  adamantine  links,  his  manacles, 
The   western   main    shook   growling,    and 

still  gnawed. 

I  brooded  on  the  wise  Athenian's  tale 
Of    happy   Atlantis,    and    heard   Bjorne's 

keel 
Crunch  the   gray  pebbles  of  the   Vinland 

shore: 

I  listened,  musing,  to  the  prophecy 
Of  Nero's  tutor-victim;  lo,  the  birds 
Sing  darkling,  conscious  of   the   climbing 

dawn. 
And  I  believed  the  poets;  it  is  they 


Who  utter  wisdom  from  the  central  deep, 
And,  listening  to  the  inner  flow  of  things, 
Speak  to  the  age  out  of  eternity. 

Ah  me  !  old  hermits  sought  for  solitude 
In  caves  and  desert  places  of  the  earth, 
Where  their  own  heart-beat  was  the  only 

stir 

Of  living  thing  that  comforted  the  year; 
But  the  bald  pillar-top  of  Simeon, 
In  midnight's  blankest  waste,  were  popu 
lous, 

Matched  with  the  isolation  drear  and  deep 
Of  him  who   pines  among   the  swarm   of 

men, 

At  once  a   new  thought's  king  and   pris 
oner, 

Feeling  the  truer  life  within  his  life, 
The  fountain  of  his  spirit's  prophecy, 
Sinking  away  and  wasting,  drop  by  drop, 
In  the  ungrateful  sands  of  sceptic  ears. 
He  in  the  palace-aisles  of  untrod  woods 
Doth  walk   a  king;  for  him  the  pent-up 

cell 

Widens  beyond  the  circles  of  the  stars, 
And  all  the  sceptred  spirits  of  the  past 
Come  thronging  in  to  greet  him  as  their 

peer; 

But  in  the  market-place's  glare  and  throng 
He  sits  apart,  an  exile,  and  his  brow 
Aches   with  the   mocking  memory  of  its 

crown. 

Yet  to  the  spirit  select  there  is  no  choice; 
He  cannot  say,  This  will  I  do,  or  that, 
For    the   cheap   means   putting    Heaven's 

ends  in  pawn, 
And  bartering  his  bleak  rocks,  the  freehold 

stern 

Of  destiny's  first-born,  for  smoother  fields 
That  yield  no  crop  of  self-denying  will; 
A  hand  is  stretched  to  him  from  out  the 

dark, 

Which  grasping  without  question,  he  is  led 
Where  there  is  work  that  he  must  do  for 

God. 

The  trial  still  is  the  strength's  complement, 
And  the  uncertain,  dizzy  path  that  scales 
The  sheer  heights  of  supremest  purposes 
Is  steeper  to  the  angel  than  the  child. 
Chances  have  laws  as  fixed  as  planets  have, 
And  disappointment's  dry  and  bitter  root, 
Envy's    harsh    berries,   and    the    choking 

pool 

Of  the  world's  scorn,  are  the  right  mother- 
milk 


AN   INCIDENT   OF  THE   FIRE   AT   HAMBURG 


59 


To  the  tough  hearts  that  pioneer  their 
kind, 

And  break  a  pathway  to  those  unknown 
realms 

That  in  the  earth's  broad  shadow  lie  en 
thralled  ; 

Endurance  is  the  crowning  quality, 

And  patience  all  the  passion  of  great 
hearts ; 

These  are  their  stay,  and  when  the  leaden 
world 

Sets  its  hard  face  against  their  fateful 
thought, 

And  brute  strength,  like  the  Gaulish  con 
queror, 

Clangs  his  huge  glaive  down  in  the  other 
scale, 

The  inspired  soul  but  flings  his  patience 
in, 

And  slowly  that  outweighs  the  ponderous 
globe,— 

One  faith  against  a  whole  earth's  unbe 
lief, 

One  soul  against  the  flesh  of  all  mankind. 

Thus  ever  seems  it  when  my  soul  can  hear 
The  voice  that  errs  not;  then  my  triumph 

gleams, 
O'er  the  blank  ocean   beckoning,  and  all 

night 

My  heart  flies  on  before  me  as  I  sail; 
Far  on  I  see  my  lifelong  enterprise, 
That  rose  like  Ganges  mid   the  freezing 

snows 
Of  a  world's   solitude,   sweep   broadening 

down, 

And,  gathering  to  itself  a  thousand  streams, 
Grow  sacred  ere  it  mingle  with  the  sea; 
I  see  the  ungated  wall  of  chaos  old, 
With  blocks  Cyclopean  hewn  of  solid  night, 
Fade  like  a  wreath  of  unreturning  mist 
Before  the  irreversible  feet  of  light;  — 
And  lo,  with  what  clear  omen  in  the  east 
On  day's  gray  threshold  stands   the   eager 

dawn, 

Like  young  Leander  rosy  from  the  sea 
Glowing  at  Hero's  lattice  ! 

One  day  more 
These    muttering     shoalbrains    leave    the 

helm  to  me: 
God,    let   me   not   in   their   dull   ooze    be 

stranded ; 
Let  not  this  one  frail  bark,  to  hollow  which 


I  have  dug  out  the  pith  and  sinewy  heart 
Of  my  aspiring  life's  fair  trunk,  be  so 
Cast  up  to  warp  and  blacken  in  the  sun, 
Just  as  the  opposing  wind  'gins  whistle  off 
His  cheek-swollen  pack,  and  from  the  lean 
ing  mast 
Fortune's  full  sail  strains  forward  ! 

One  poor  day  !  — 

Remember  whose  and  not  how  short  it  is  ! 
It  is  God's  day,  it  is  Columbus's. 
A  lavish  day  !     One   day,  with  life  and 

heart, 
Is  more  than  time  enough  to  find  a  world. 


AN    INCIDENT    OF   THE    FIRE 
AT   HAMBURG 

THE  tower  of  old  Saint  Nicholas  soared  up 
ward  to  the  skies, 

Like  some  huge  piece  of  Nature's  make,  the 
growth  of  centuries; 

You  could  not  deem  its  crowding  spires  a 
work  of  human  art, 

They  seemed  to  struggle  lightward  from  a 
sturdy  living  heart. 

Not  Nature's  self  more  freely  speaks  in 

crystal  or  in  oak, 
Than,  through  the  pious  builder's  hand,  in 

that  gray  pile  she  spoke; 
And  as   from   acorn   springs   the   oak,  so, 

freely  and  alone, 
Sprang  from  his  heart  this  hymn  to  God, 

sung  in  obedient  stone. 

It  seemed  a  wondrous  freak  of  chance,  so 

perfect,  yet  so  rough, 
A  whim  of  Nature  crystallized  slowly  in 

granite  tough; 
The  thick  spires  yearned  towards  the  sky 

in  quaint  harmonious  lines, 
And  in  broad  sunlight  basked  and  slept, 

like  a  grove  of  blasted  pines. 

Never  did  rock  or  stream  or  tree  lay  claim 

with  better  right 
To  all  the  adorning  sympathies  of  shadow 

and  of  light; 
And,   in  that  forest  petrified,  as  forester 

there  dwells 
Stout  Herman,  the  old  sacristan,  sole  lord 

of  all  its  bells. 


6o 


MISCELLANEOUS    POEMS 


Surge  leaping  after  surge,  the  fire  roared 

onward  red  as  blood, 
Till  half  of  Hamburg  lay  engulfed  beneath 

the  eddying  flood ; 
For  miles   away   the   fiery   spray  poured 

down  its  deadly  rain, 
And  back  and  forth  the  billows   sucked, 

and  paused,  and  burst  again. 

From  square   to  square   with  tiger   leaps 

panted  the  lustful  fire, 
The   air  to   leeward    shuddered  with   the 

gasps  of  its  desire; 
And  church  and  palace,  which  even  now 

stood  whelmed  but  to  the  knee, 
Lift  their  black  roofs  like  breakers  lone 

amid  the  whirling  sea. 

Up  in  his  tower  old  Herman  sat  and 
watched  with  quiet  look; 

His  soul  had  trusted  God  too  long  to  be  at 
last  forsook; 

He  could  not  fear,  for  surely  God  a  path 
way  would  unfold 

Through  this  red  sea  for  faithful  hearts,  as 
once  He  did  of  old. 

But  scarcely  can  he  cross  himself,  or  on  his 

good  saint  call, 
Before  the  sacrilegious  flood  o'erleaped  the 

church-yard  wall; 
And,  ere  a  pater  half  was  said,  mid  smoke 

and  crackling  glare, 
His  island  tower  scarce  juts  its  head  above 

the  wide  despair. 

Upon  the  peril's  desperate  peak  his  heart 

stood  up  sublime; 
His  first  thought  was  for  God  above,  his 

next  was  for  his  chime; 
"  Sing  now  and  make  your  voices  heard  in 

hymns  of  praise,"  cried  he, 
"  As  did  the  Israelites  of  old,  safe  walking 

through  the  sea  ! 

"  Through  this  red  sea  our  God  hath  made 

the  pathway  safe  to  shore; 
Our   promised  land   stands  full  in  sight; 

shout  now  as  ne'er  before  !  " 
And  as  the  tower  came  crashing  down,  the 

bells,  in  clear  accord, 

Pealed  forth  the  grand  old  German  hymn, 
— "  All    good    souls,     praise    the 

Lord  !  " 


THE    SOWER 

I  SAW  a  Sower  walking  slow 

Across  the  earth,  from  east  to  west; 

His  hair  was  white  as  mountain  snow, 
His  head  drooped  forward  on  his  breasfr. 

With  shrivelled  hands  he  flung  his  seed, 
Nor  ever  turned  to  look  behind; 

Of  sight  or  sound  he  took  no  heed; 
It  seemed  he  was  both  deaf  and  blind. 

His  dim  face  showed  no  soul  beneath, 

Yet  in  my  heart  I  felt  a  stir, 
As  if  I  looked  upon  the  sheath, 

That  once  had  held  Excalibur. 

I  heard,  as  still  the  seed  he  cast, 
How,  crooning  to  himself,  he  sung, 

"  I  sow  again  the  holy  Past, 

The  happy  days  when  I  was  young. 

"  Then  all  was  wheat  without  a  tare, 
Then  all  was  righteous,  fair,  and  true;; 

And  I  am  he  whose  thoughtful  care 
Shall  plant  the  Old  World  in  the  New. 

"  The  fruitful  germs  I  scatter  free, 
With  busy  hand,  while  all  men  sleep; 

In  Europe  now,  from  sea  to  sea, 
The  nations  bless  me  as  they  reap." 

Then  I  looked  back  along  his  path, 
And  heard  the  clash  of  steel  on  steel, 

Where  man  faced  man,  in  deadly  wrath, 
While  clanged  the  tocsin's  hurrying  peaL 

The  sky  with  burning  towns  flared  red, 
Nearer  the  noise  of  fighting  rolled, 

And  brothers'  blood,  by  brothers  shed, 
Crept  curdling  over  pavements  cold. 

Then  marked  I  how  each  germ  of  truth 
Which  through  the  dotard's  fingers  ran 

Was  mated  with  a  dragon's  tooth 

Whence  there  sprang  up  an  armed  man 

I  shouted,  but  he  could  not  hear; 

Made  signs,  but  these  he  could  not  see; 
And  still,  without  a  doubt  or  fear, 

Broadcast  he  scattered  anarchy. 

Long  to  my  straining  ears  the  blast 

Brought  faintly  back  the  words  he  sung: 


THE   LANDLORD 


61 


/  "  1  sow  again  the  holy  Past, 

The  happy  days  when  I  was  young." 

HUNGER   AND   COLD 

SISTERS  two,  all  praise  to  you, 
With  your  faces  pinched  and  blue; 
To  the  poor  man  you  've  been  true 

From  of  old: 

You  can  speak  the  keenest  word, 
You  are  sure  of  being  heard, 
From  the  point  you  're  never  stirred, 

Hunger  and  Cold  ! 

Let  sleek  statesmen  temporize; 
Palsied  are  their  shifts  and  lies 
When  they  meet  your  bloodshot  eyes, 

Grim  and  bold; 
Policy  you  set  at  naught, 
In  their  traps  you  '11  not  be  caught, 
You  're  too  honest  to  be  bought, 

Hunger  and  Cold  ! 

Bolt  and  bar  the  palace  door; 
While  the  mass  of  men  are  poor, 
Naked  truth  grows  more  and  more 

Uncontrolled; 

You  had  never  yet,  I  guess, 
Any  praise  for  bashf  ulness, 
You  can  visit  sans  court-dress, 

Hunger  and  Cold  ! 

While  the  music  fell  and  rose, 
And  the  dance  reeled  to  its  close, 
Where  her  round  of  costly  woes 

Fashion  strolled, 
I  beheld  with  shuddering  fear 
Wolves'  eyes  through  the  windows  peer; 
Little  dream  they  you  are  near, 

Hunger  and  Cold  ! 

When  the  toiler's  heart  you  clutch, 
Conscience  is  not  valued  much, 
He  recks  not  a  bloody  smutch 

On  his  gold: 

Everything  to  you  defers, 
You  are  potent  reasoners, 
At  your  whisper  Treason  stirs, 

Hunger  and  Cold  ! 

Rude  comparisons  you  draw. 
Words  refuse  to  sate  your  maw, 
Your  gaunt  limbs  the  cobweb  law 
Cannot  hold: 


You  're  not  clogged  with  foolish  pride. 
But  can  seize  a  right  denied: 
Somehow  God  is  on  your  side5 
Hunger  and  Cold  ! 

You  respect  no  hoary  wrong 
More  for  having  triumphed  long; 
Its  past  victims,  haggard  throng 

From  the  mould 
You  unbury:  swords  and  spears 
Weaker  are  than  poor  men's  tears, 
Weaker  than  your  silent  years, 

Hunger  and  Cold  ! 

Let  them  guard  both  hall  and  bower; 
Through  the  window  you  will  glower, 
Patient  till  your  reckoning  hour 

Shall  be  tolled; 

Cheeks  are  pale,  but  hands  are  red, 
Guiltless  blood  may  chance  be  shed, 
But  ye  must  and  will  be  fed, 

Hunger  and  Cold  ! 

God  has  plans  man  must  not  spoil, 
Some  were  made  to  starve  and  toil, 
Some  to  share  the  wine  and  oil, 

We  are  told: 
Devil's  theories  are  these, 
Stifling  hope  and  love  and  peace, 
Framed  your  hideous  lusts  to  please, 

Hunger  and  Cold  ! 

Scatter  ashes  on  thy  head, 
Tears  of  burning  sorrow  shed, 
Earth  !  and  be  by  Pity  led 

To  Love's  fold; 
Ere  they  block  the  very  door 
With  lean  corpses  of  fche  poor, 
And  will  hush  for  naught  but  gore, 

Hunger  and  Cold  ! 


THE    LANDLORD 

WHAT  boot  your  houses  and  your  lands  ? 

In  spite  of  close-drawn  deed  and  fence. 
Like  water,  'twixt  your  cheated  hands, 
They  slip  into  the  graveyard's  sands, 

And  mock  your  ownership's  pretence. 

How  shall  you  speak  to  urge  your  right, 

Choked  with  that  soil  for  which  you  lust  ? 
The  bit  of  clay,  for  whose  delight 
You  grasp,  is  mortgaged,  too ;  Death  might 
Foreclose  this  very  day  in  dust. 


62 


MISCELLANEOUS    POEMS 


Fence  as  you  please,  this  plain  poor  man, 

Whose  only  fields  are  in  his  wit, 
Who  shapes  the  world,  as  best  he  can, 
According  to  God's  higher  plan, 
Owns  you,  and  fences  as  is  fit. 

Though  yours  the  rents,  his  incomes  wax 

By  right  of  eminent  domain; 
From  factory  tall  to  woodman's  axe, 
All  things  on  earth  must  pay  their  tax, 
To  feed  his  hungry  heart  and  brain. 

He  takes  you  from  your  easy-chair, 

And  what  he  plans  that  you  must  do; 
You  sleep  in  down,  eat  dainty  fare,  — 
He  mounts  his  crazy  garret-stair 
And  starves,  the  landlord  over  you. 

Feeding  the  clods  your  idlesse  drains, 

You  make  more  green  six  feet  of  soil; 
His  fruitful  word,  like  suns  and  rains, 
Partakes  the  seasons'  bounteous  pains, 
And  toils  to  lighten  human  toil. 

Your  lands,  with  force  or  cunning  got, 
Shrink  to  the  measure  of  the  grave; 
But  Death  himself  abridges  not 
The  tenures  of  almighty  thought, 
The  titles  of  the  wise  and  brave. 


TO   A   PINE-TREE 

Lowell's  friend  0.  F.  Briggs  called  the  poet's 
attention  to  Coleridge's  lines  in  The  Ancient 
Mariner, 

"  And  ice,  mast  high,  came  floating  by 
As  green  as  emerald," 

as  perhaps  the  literary  justification  of  "crags 
of  green  ice  "  in  the  penultimate  stanza  of  this 
poem,  —  but  maintained  nevertheless  that  the 
epithet  green  was  not  true  to  nature.  In  his 
reply  Lowell  wrote  :  "  I  did  not  have  Cole 
ridge's  lines  in  my  mind  when  I  wrote  my 
verses.  Coleridge  had  a  fine,  true  eye,  and  I 
would  gladly  accept  him  (if  I  wanted  any  aid) 
in  confirmation.  I  did  trust  ray  own  eye. 
When  I  was  a  boy,  my  favorite  sport  was  sail 
ing  upon  Fresh  Pond  in  summer,  and  in  winter 
helping  the  hardy  reapers  to  get  in  their  har 
vest  of  ice,  and  never  was  a  field  of  wheat  in 
July  of  a  more  lovely  green.  You  have  doubt 
less  seen  ice-bugs  (as  most  people  entomologi- 
cally  pronounce  it),  and  they  may  not  be  green, 
though  I  think  they  are  described  as  of  all 
colors.  But  my  ice  was  fresh- water  ice,  and  I 
am  right  about  it." 


FAB  up  on  K  at  ah  din  thou  towerest, 

Purple-blue  with  the  distance  and  vast; 
Like  a  cloud  o'er  the  lowlands  thou  lower- 

est, 

That  hangs  poised  on  a  lull  in  the  blast, 
To  its  fall  leaning  awful. 

In  the  storm,  like  a  prophet  o'ermaddened, 

Thou  singest  and  tossest  thy  branches; 
Thy  heart  with  the  terror  is  gladdened, 
Thou  forebodest  the  dread  avalanches, 
When  whole  mountains  swoop  vale- 
ward. 

In  the  calm  thou  o'erstretchest  the  valleys 
With  thine  arms,  as  if  blessings  implor 
ing. 

Like  an  old  king  led  forth  from  his  palace, 
When  his  people  to  battle  are  pouring 
From  the  city  beneath  him. 

To  the  lumberer  asleep  'neath  thy  gloom 
ing 

Thou  dost  sing  of  wild  billows  in  motion, 
Till  he  longs  to  be  swung  mid  their  boom 
ing 

In  the  tents  of  the  Arabs  of  ocean, 
Whose  finned  isles  are  their  cattle. 

For  the  gale  snatches  thee  for  his  lyre, 
With  mad  hand  crashing  melody  frantic, 

While  he  pours  forth  his  mighty  desire 
To  leap  down  on  the  eager  Atlantic, 
Whose  arms  stretch  to  his  playmate. 

The   wild   storm    makes  his    lair  in    thy 

branches, 

Swooping  thence  on  the  continent  under; 
Like  a  lion,  crouched  close  on  his  haunches, 
There  awaiteth  his  leap  the  fierce  thun 
der, 
Growling  low  with  impatience. 

Spite   of  winter,   thou   keep'st   thy   green 

glory, 

Lusty  father  of  Titans  past  number  ! 
The  snow-flakes  alone  make  thee  hoary, 
Nestling  close  to  thy  branches  in  slum 
ber, 
And  thee  mantling  with  silence. 

Thou  alone  know'st  the  splendor  of  winter, 
Mid  thy  snow-silvered,  hushed  precipices, 
Hearing  crags  of  green  ice  groan  and  splin 
ter, 


TO   THE  PAST 


And    then    plunge    down    the    muffled 

abysses 
In  the  quiet  of  midnight. 

Thou  alone  know'st  the  glory  of  summer, 

Gazing  down  on  thy  broad  seas  of  forest, 
On  thy  subjects  that  send  a  proud  mur 
mur 
Up  to  thee,  to  their  sachem,  who  tower- 

est 
From  thy  bleak  throne  to  heaven. 


SI  DESCENDERO  IN  INFERNUM, 
ADES 

O  WANDERING  dim  on  the  extremest  edge 
Of  God's  bright  providence,  whose  spirits 

sigh 

Drearily  in  you,  like  the  winter  sedge 
That  shivers  o'er  the  dead  pool  stiff  and 

dry, 
A  thin,  sad  voice,  when  the  bold  wind 

roars  by 

From  the  clear  North  of  Duty,  — 
Still  by  cracked  arch  and  broken  shaft  I 

trace 
That  here  was  once  a  shrine  and  holy  place 

Of  the  supernal  Beauty, 
A  child's  play-altar  reared  of  stones  and 

moss, 
With  wilted  flowers  for  offering    laid 

across, 
Mute  recognition  of  the  all-ruling  Grace. 

How  far  are  ye  from   the   innocent,  from 

those 

Whose  hearts  are  as  a  little  lane  serene, 
Smooth-heaped  from  wall  to  wall  with  un- 

broke  snows, 

Or  in  the   summer    blithe   with   lamb- 
cropped  green, 
Save  the  one  track,   where  naught  more 

rude  is  seen 

Than  the  plump  wain  at  even 
Bringing    home     four    months'     sunshine 

bound  in  sheaves  ! 

How  far  are  ye  from  those  !  yet  who   be 
lieves 

That  ye  can  shut  out  heaven  ? 
Your  souls  partake  its  influence,  not  in 

vain 

Nor  all  unconscious,  as  that  silent  lane 
Its  drift  of  noiseless  apple-blooms  receives. 


Looking  within  myself,  I  note  how  thin 
A  plank  of  station,  chance,  or  prosperous 

fate, 
Doth  fence  me  from  the  clutching  waves  of 

sin; 
In  my  own  heart  I  find  the  worst  man's 

mate, 
And  see  not  dimly  the  smooth-hinged 

gate 

That  opes  to  those  abysses 
Where  ye  grope  darkly,  —  ye  who  never 

knew 
On  your  young  hearts  love's  consecrating 

dew, 

Or  felt  a  mother's  kisses, 
Or  home's  restraining  tendrils  round  you 

curled ; 
Ah,  side  by  side  with  heart's-ease  in  this 

world 
The  fatal  nightshade  grows  and  bitter  rue  ! 

One  band  ye  cannot  break,  —  the  force  that 

clips 
And  grasps  your  circles  to  the  central 

light; 

Yours  is  the  prodigal  comet's  long  ellipse, 
Self  -  exiled  to    the    farthest    verge   of 

night; 
Yet  strives  with  you  no  less  that  inward 

might 

No  sin  hath  e'er  imbruted; 
The   god   in   you   the    creed-dimmed   eye 

eludes; 
The  Law  brooks  not  to  have  its  solitudes 

By  bigot  feet  polluted; 
Yet  they  who  watch  your  God-compelled 

return 

May  see  your  happy  perihelion  burn 
Where  the  calm  sun  his  unfledged  planets 
broods. 


TO   THE   PAST 

WONDROUS  and  awful  are  thy  silent  halls, 

O  kingdom  of  the  past ! 
There  lie  the  bygone  ages  in  their  palls, 

Guarded  by  shadows  vast; 
There  all  is  hushed  and  breathless, 
Save  when  some  image  of  old  error  falls 
Earth  worshipped  once  as  deathless. 

There  sits  drear  Egypt,  mid  beleaguering 

sands, 
Half  woman  and  half  beast. 


64 


MISCELLANEOUS    POEMS 


The  burnt-out  torch  within  her  mouldering 

hands 

That  once  lit  all  the  East; 
A  dotard  bleared  and  hoary, 
There   Asser  crouches  o'er  the  blackened 

brands 
Of  Asia's  long-quenched  glory. 

Still  as  a  city  buried  'neath  the  sea 
Thy  courts  and  temples  stand; 
Idle  as  forms  on  wind-waved  tapestry 

Of  saints  and  heroes  grand, 
Thy  phantasms  grope  and  shiver, 
Or  watch   the  loose  shores  crumbling  si 
lently 
Into  Time's  gnawing  river. 

Titanic  shapes  with  faces  blank  and  dun, 

Of  their  old  godhead  lorn, 
Gaze  on  the  embers  of  the  sunken  sun, 

Which  they  misdeem  for  morn; 
And  yet  the  eternal  sorrow 
In  their  unmonarched  eyes  says  day  is  done 
Without  the  hope  of  morrow. 

O  realm  of  silence  and  of  swart  eclipse, 

The  shapes  that  haunt  thy  gloom 
Make  signs  to  us  and  move  their  withered 

lips 

Across  the  gulf  of  doom; 
Yet  all  their  sound  and  motion 
Bring  no  more  freight  to  us  than  wraiths 

of  ships 
On  the  mirage's  ocean. 

And  if  sometimes  a  moaning  wandereth 

From  out  thy  desolate  halls, 
If  some  grim  shadow  of  thy  living  death 

Across  our  sunshine  falls 
And  scares  the  world  to  error, 
The   eternal   life   sends    forth    melodious 

breath 
To  chase  the  misty  terror. 

Thy   mighty   clamors,    wars,   and    world- 
noised  deeds 
Are  silent  now  in  dust, 
Gone  like  a  tremble  of  the  huddling  reeds 

Beneath  some  sudden  gust; 
Thy  forms  and  creeds  have  vanished, 
Tossed  out  to  wither  like  unsightly  weeds 
From  the  world's  garden  banished. 

Whatever  of  true  life  there  was  in  thee 
Leaps  in  our  age's  veins; 


Wield   still    thy   bent   and   wrinkled   em- 


And  shake  thine  idle  chains;  — 
To  thee  thy  dross  is  clinging, 
For    us    thy   martyrs    die,    thy   prophets 

see, 
Thy  poets  still  are  singing. 

Here,  mid  the  bleak  waves  of  our  strife 

and  care, 

Float  the  green  Fortunate  Isles 
Where  all  thy  hero-spirits  dwell,  and  share 

Our  martyrdoms  and  toils; 
The  present  moves  attended 
With  all  of  brave  and  excellent  and  fair 
That  made  the  old  time  splendid. 


TO   THE   FUTURE 

O  LAND  of  Promise  !  from  what  Pisgah's 

height 
Can  I   behold   thy   stretch   of  peaceful 

bowers, 

Thy  golden  harvests  flowing  out  of  sight, 
Thy   nestled   homes    and  sun-illumined 

towers  ? 
Gazing  upon  the   sunset's   high-heaped 

gold, 
Its  crags  of  opal  and  of  chrysolite, 

Its  deeps  on  deeps  of  glory,   that   un 
fold 

Still  brightening  abysses, 
And  blazing  precipices, 
Whence   but   a    scanty   leap  it  seems   to 

heaven, 

Sometimes  a  glimpse  is  given 
Of  thy  more  gorgeous  realm,  thy  more  un 
stinted  blisses. 

O  Land  of  Quiet !  to  thy  shore  the  surf 

Of  the  perturbed  Present  rolls  and  sleeps ; 
Our  storms  breathe  soft  as  June  upon  thy 

turf 
And  lure   out  blossoms;  to  thy   bosom 

leaps, 

As  to  a  mother's,  the  o'erwearied  heart, 
Hearing  far  off  and  dim  the  toiling  mart, 
The  hurrying   feet,    the    curses  without 

number, 

And,  circled  with  the  glow  Elysian 
Of  thine  exulting  vision, 
Out  of   its   very   cares  wooes  charms  for 
peace  and  slumber. 


HEBE 


To  thee   the   earth   lifts  up   her   fettered 

hands 
And  cries  for  vengeance ;  with  a  pitying 

smile 
Thou   blessest   her,   and   she    forgets   her 

bands, 

And  her  old  woe- worn  face  a  little  while 
Grows   young   and   noble;   unto   thee   the 

Oppressor 

Looks,  and  is  dumb  with  awe; 
The  eternal  law, 
Which  makes  the  crime  its  own  blindfold 

redresser, 

Shadows  his  heart  with  perilous  foreboding, 
And  he  can  see  the  grim-eyed  Doom 
From  out  the  trembling  gloom 
Its  silent-footed  steeds  towards  his  palace 
goading. 

What  promises  hast  thou  for  Poets'  eyes, 

A-weary  of  the  turmoil  and  the  wrong  ! 
To  all  their  hopes  what  overjoyed  replies  ! 
What  undreamed    ecstasies  for   blissful 

song  ! 
Thy  happy  plains  no  war-trump's  brawling 

clangor 
Disturbs,  and  fools  the  poor  to  hate  the 

poor; 
The  humble  glares  not  on  the  high  with 

anger; 
Love  leaves  no  grudge  at  less,  no  greed 

for  more; 
In  vain  strives  Self  the  godlike  sense  to 

smother; 

From  the  soul's  deeps 
It  throbs  and  leaps; 

The  noble  'neath  foul  rags  beholds  his  long- 
lost  brother. 

To  thee  the  Martyr  looketh,  and  his  fires 
Unlock  their  fangs  and  leave  his  spirit 

free; 

To  thee  the  Poet  mid  his  toil  aspires, 
And  grief  and  hunger  climb  about  his 

knee, 
Welcome  as  children;  thou  upholdest 

The  lone  Inventor  by  his  demon  haunted ; 
The  Prophet  cries  to  thee  when  hearts  are 

coldest, 
And  gazing  o'er  the  midnight's  bleak 

abyss, 
Sees  the  drowsed  soul  awaken  at  thv 

i    .  J 

kiss, 

And  stretch  its  happy  arms  and  leap  up 
disenchanted. 


Thou   bringest   vengeance,  but  so  loving- 
kindly 

The  guilty  thinks  it  pity;  taught  by  thee, 
Fierce   tyrants   drop  the  scourges  where 
with  blindly 

Their  own  souls  they  were  scarring;  con 
querors  see 
With  horror  in   their  hands   the  accursed 

spear 

That  tore  the  meek  One's  side  on  Cal 
vary, 
And    from     their    trophies    shrink     with 

ghastly  fear; 

Thou,  too,  art  the  Forgiver, 
The  beauty  of  man's  soul  to  man  reveal 
ing; 

The  arrows  from  thy  quiver 
Pierce  Error's  guilty  heart,  but  only  pierce 
for  healing. 

Oh,  whither,  whither,  glory-winged  dreams, 
From  out  Life's  sweat  and  turmoil  would 

ye  bear  me  ? 
Shut,  gates   of    Fancy,   on    your    golden 

gleams,— 

This  agony  of  hopeless  contrast  spare  me! 
Fade,  cheating  glow,  and  leave  me  to  my 

night  ! 

He  is  a  coward,  who  would  borrow 
A  charm  against  the  present  sorrow 
From  the  vague  Future's  promise  of  de 
light: 

As  life's  alarums  nearer  roll, 
The  ancestral  buckler  calls, 
Self-clanging  from  the  walls 
In  the  high  temple  of  the  soul; 
Where  are  most  sorrows,  there  the  poet's 

sphere  is, 

To  feed  the  soul  with  patience, 
To  heal  its  desolations 
With  words  of  unshorn   truth,    with  love 
that  never  wearies. 


HEBE 

I  SAW  the  twinkle  of  white  feet, 
I  saw  the  flash  of  robes  descending; 

Before  her  ran  an  influence  fleet, 
That  bowed  my  heart  like  barley  bending 

As,  in  bare  fields,  the  searching  bees 
Pilot  to  blooms  beyond  our  finding, 

It  led  me  on,  by  sweet  degrees 
Joy's  simple  honey-cells  unbinding. 


66 


MISCELLANEOUS    POEMS 


Those   Graces   were   that   seemed  grim 

Fates; 
With  nearer  love  the  sky  leaned  o'er  me; 

The  long-sought  Secret's  golden  gates 
On  musical  hinges  swung  before  me. 

I  saw  the  brimmed  bowl  in  her  grasp 
Thrilling  with  godhood;  like  a  lover 

I  sprang  the  proffered  life  to  clasp ;  — 
The  beaker  fell;  the  luck  was  over. 

The  Earth  has  drunk  the  vintage  up; 
What  boots   it   patch   the   goblet's   splin 
ters  ? 

Can  Summer  fill  the  icy  cup, 
Whose  treacherous  crystal  is  but  Winter's  ? 

O  spendthrift  haste  !  await  the  Gods; 
The  nectar  crowns  tlie  lips  of  Patience; 

Haste  scatters  on  unthankful  sods 
The  immortal  gift  in  vain  libations. 

Coy  Hebe  flies  from  those  that  woo, 
And  shuns  the  hands  would  seize  upon  her; 

Follow  thy  life,  and  she  will  sue 
To  pour  for  thee  the  cup  of  honor. 


THE   SEARCH 

I  WENT  to  seek  for  Christ, 
And  Nature  seemed  so  fair 
That  first  the  woods  and  fields  my  youth 

enticed, 

And  I  was  sure  to  find  him  there: 
The  temple  I  forsook, 
And  to  the  solitude 
Allegiance    paid;    but    winter  came    and 

shook 

The  crown  and  purple  from  my  wood; 
His  snows,  like  desert  sands,  with  scornful 

drift, 

Besieged  the  columned  aisle  and  palace- 
gate; 
My  Thebes,  cut  deep  with  many  a  solemn 

rift, 

But  epitaphed  her  own  sepulchred  state: 
Then  I  remembered  whom  I  went  to  seek, 
And  blessed  blunt  Winter  for  his  counsel 
bleak. 

Back  to  the  world  I  turned, 
For  Christ,  I  said,  is  King; 
So    the    cramped    alley   and    the    hut   I 
spurned, 


As  far  beneath  his  sojourning: 
Mid  power  and  wealth  I  sought, 
But  found  no  trace  of  him, 
And  all  the  costly  offerings  I  had  brought 
With  sudden  rust  and  mould  grew  dim: 
I  found  his  tomb,  indeed,  where,  by  their 

laws, 

All  must  on  stated  days  themselves  im 
prison, 

Mocking  with  bread  $a  dead  creed's  grin 
ning  jaws, 
Witless   how  long  the   life  had  thence 

arisen; 

Due  sacrifice  to  this  they  set  apart, 
Prizing  it  more  than  Christ's  own  living 
heart. 

So  from  my  feet  the  dust 
Of  the  proud  World  I  shook; 
Then  came  dear  Love  and  shared  with  me 

his  crust, 

And  half  my  sorrow's  burden  took. 
After  the  World's  soft  bed, 
Its  rich  and  dainty  fare, 
Like  down  seemed  Love's  coarse  pillow  to 

my  head, 

His  cheap  food  seemed  as  manna  rare ; 
Fresh-trodden  prints  of  bare  and  bleeding 

feet, 
Turned  to   the   heedless   city  whence  I 

came, 
Hard   by   I   saw,  and   springs  of  worship 

sweet 
Gushed  from  my  cleft  heart  smitten  by 

the  same; 
Love  looked  me  in  the  face  and  spake  no 

words, 

But  straight  I  knew  those  footprints  were 
the  Lord's. 

I  followed  where  they  led, 
And  in  a  hovel  rude, 
With  naught  to  fence  the  weather  from 

his  head, 

The  King  I  sought  for  meekly  stood; 
A  naked,  hungry  child 
Clung  round  his  gracious  knee, 
And   a   poor  hunted  slave  looked  up  and 

smiled 

To  bless  the  smile  that  set  him  free; 
New  miracles  I  saw  his  presence  do,  — 

No  more  I  knew  the  hovel  bare  and  poor, 
The  gathered  chips  into  a  wood-pile  grew 
The  broken    morsel    swelled  to   goodly 
store; 


THE  PRESENT  CRISIS 


67 


I  knelt  and  wept :  my  Christ  no  more  I  seek, 
His  throne   is   with   the   outcast  and   the 
weak. 


THE   PRESENT   CRISIS 
Dated  December,  1844. 

WHEN  a  deed  is  done  for  Freedom,  through 

the  broad  earth's  aching  breast 
Runs  a  thrill  of  joy  prophetic,  trembling 

on  from  east  to  west, 
And  the  slave,  where'er  he  cowers,  feels 

the  soul  within  him  climb 
To   the  awful  verge  of   manhood,  as  the 

energy  sublime 

Of  a  century  bursts  full-blossomed  on  the 
[  thorny  stem  of  Time. 

Through  the  walls  of  hut  and  palace  shoots 
the  instantaneous  throe, 

When  the  travail  of  the  Ages  wrings 
earth's  systems  to  and  fro; 

At  the  birth  of  each  new  Era,  with  a  recog 
nizing  start, 

Nation  wildly  looks  at  nation,  standing 
with  mute  lips  apart, 

And  glad  Truth's  yet  mightier  man-child 
leaps  beneath  the  Future's  heart. 

So  the  Evil's  triumph  sendeth,  with  a 
terror  and  a  chill, 

Under  continent  to  continent,  the  sense  of 
coming  ill, 

And  the  slave,  where'er  he  cowers,  feels 
his  sympathies  with  God 

In  hot  tear-drops  ebbing  earthward,  to  be 
drunk  up  by  the  sod, 

Till  a  corpse  crawls  round  unburied,  delv 
ing  in  the  nobler  clod. 

/  For  mankind  are  one  in  spirit,  and  an  in 
stinct  bears  along, 

Round  the  earth's  electric  circle,  the  swift 
flash  of  right  or  wrong; 

Whether  conscious  or  unconscious,  yet 
Humanity's  vast  frame 

Through  its  ocean-sundered  fibres  feels  the 
gush  of  joy  or  shame;  — 

In  the  gain  or  loss  of  one  race  all  the  rest 
have  equal  claim. 

Once  to  every  man  and  nation  comes  the 
moment  to  decide, 


n  the  strife  of  Truth  with  Falsehood,  for 

the  good  or  evil  side; 
Some    great   cause,   God's    new  Messiah, 

offering  each  the  bloom  or  blight, 
'arts  the  goats  upon  the  left  hand,  and  the 

sheep  upon  the  right, 
And  the  choice  goes  by  forever  'twixt  that 
darkness  and  that  light. 

last  thou  chosen,  O  my  people,  on  whose 

party  thou  shalt  stand, 
Sre  the  Doom  from  its  worn  sandals  shakes 

the  dust  against  our  land  ? 
though  the  cause  of  Evil  prosper,  yet  't  is 

Truth  alone  is  strong, 
And,  albeit  she  wander  outcast  now,  I  see 

around  her  throng 
droops  of  beautiful,  tall  angels,  to  enshield 

her  from  all  wrong. 

backward  look  across   the   ages   and  the 

beacon-moments  see, 
?hat,  like  peaks  of  some  sunk  continent, 

jut  through  Oblivion's  sea; 
an  ear  in  court  or  market  for  the  low 

foreboding  cry 
Of  those   Crises,    God's   stern   winnowers, 

from  whose  feet  earth's  chaff  must  fly ; 
tfever  shows  the  choice  momentous  till  the 

judgment  hath  passed  by. 

Careless  seems  the  great  Avenger;  history's 
pages  but  record 

One  death-grapple  in  the  darkness  'twixt 

old  systems  and  the  Word ; 
'ruth  forever  on  the  scaffold,  Wrong  for 
ever  on  the  throne,  — 
ret  that  scaffold  sways  the  future,  and,  be 
hind  the  dim  unknown, 

Standeth  God  within  the   shadow,  keeping 
watch  above  his  own. 

We  see  dimly  in  the  Present  what  is  small 

and  what  is  great, 
Slow  of  faith  how  weak  an  arm  may  turn 

the  iron  helm  of  fate, 
5ut  the   soul   is   still   oracular;  amid   the 

market's  din, 
jist  the  ominous  stern  whisper   from  the 

Delphic  cave  within,  — 
They  enslave  their  children's  children  who 
make  compromise  with  sin." 

Slavery,  the  earth-born  Cyclops,  fellest  of 
the  giant  brood, 


68 


MISCELLANEOUS   POEMS 


Sous  of  brutish  Force  and  Darkness,  who 

have  drenched  the  earth  with  blood, 
Famished  in  his  self-made  desert,  blinded 

by  our  purer  day, 
Gropes   in  yet  unblasted   regions   for  his 

miserable  prey;  — 
Shall  we  guide  his  gory  fingers  where  our 

helpless  children  play  ? 

Then  to  side  with  Truth  is  noble  when  we 

share  her  wretched  crust, 
Ere  her  cause  bring  fame  and  profit,  and 

't  is  prosperous  to  be  just; 
Then  it  is  the  brave  man  chooses,  while  the 

coward  stands  aside, 
Doubting  in  his  abject  spirit,  till  his  Lord 

is  crucified, 
And  the  multitude  make  virtue  of  the  faith 

they  had  denied. 

Count  me   o'er   earth's   chosen  heroes, — 

they  were  souls  that  stood  alone, 
While  the  men  they  agonized  for   hurled 

the  contumelious  stone, 
Stood  serene,  and  down  the  future  saw  the 

golden  beam  incline 
To  the  side  of  perfect  justice,  mastered  by 

their  faith  divine, 
By  one  man's  plain  truth  to  manhood  and 

to  God's  supreme  design. 

By  the  light  of   burning  heretics  Christ's 

bleeding  feet  I  track, 
Toiling  up   new  Calvaries   ever  with   the 

cross  that  turns  not  back, 
And  these  mounts  of  anguish  number  how 

each  generation  learned 
One  new  word  of  that  grand  Credo  which 

in  prophet-hearts  hath  burned 
Since  the  first   man  stood   God-conquered 

with  his  face  to  heaven  upturned. 

For  Humanity  sweeps  onward:  where  to 
day  the  martyr  stands, 

On  the  morrow  crouches  Judas  with  the 
silver  in  his  hands; 

Far  in  front  the  cross  stands  ready  and  the 
crackling  fagots  burn, 

While  the  hooting  mob  of  yesterday  in 
silent  awe  return 

To  glean  up  the  scattered  ashes  into  His 
tory's  golden  urn. 

'•T  is  as  easy  to  be  heroes  as  to  sit  the  idle 
slaves 


Of    a  legendary   virtue   carved   upon  our 

father's  graves, 
Worshippers  of  light   ancestral  make  the 

present  light  a  crime;  — 
Was  the  Mayflower  launched  by  cowards, 

steered  by  men  behind  their  time  ? 
Turn  those  tracks  toward  Past  or  Future, 

that  make  Plymouth  Rock  sublime  ? 

They  were  men  of  present  valor,  stalwart 
old  iconoclasts, 

Unconvinced  by  axe  or  gibbet  that  all  vir 
tue  was  the  Past's; 

But  we  make  their  truth  our  falsehood, 
thinking  that  hath  in  all  e  us  free, 

Hoarding  it  in  mouldy  parchments,  while 
our  tender  spirits  flee 

The  rude  grasp  of  that  great  Impulse  which 
drove  them  across  the  sea. 

They  have  rights  who  dare  maintain  them; 

we  are  traitors  to  our  sires, 
Smothering  in  their  holy  ashes   Freedom's 

new-lit  altar-fires; 
Shall    we   make  .their  creed   our   jailer  ? 

Shall  we,  in  our  haste  to  slay, 
From  the  tombs  of  the  old  prophets  steal 

the  funeral  lamps  away 
To   light  up  the  martyr-fagots   round  the 

prophets  of  to-day  ? 

New   occasions   teach    new   duties;    Time 

makes  ancient  good  uncouth; 
They  must  upward  still,  and  onward,  who 

would  keep  abreast  of  Truth; 
Lo,  before  us   gleam  her  camp-fires  !  we 

ourselves  must  Pilgrims  be, 
Launch  our  Mayflower,  and   steer   boldly 

through  the  desperate  winter  sea, 
Nor  attempt  the  Future's  portal  with  the 

Past's  blood-rusted  key. 


AN    INDIAN-SUMMER    REVERIE 

The  reader  familiar  with  Lowell's  life  "will 
readily  recognize  the  local  references  which 
occur  in  this  poem.  To  others  it  may  be  worth 
while  to  point  out  that  the  village  smithy  is 
the  same  as  that  commemorated  by  Long 
fellow,  that  Allston  lived  in  the  section  of 
Cambridge  known  as  Cambridgeport,  that  some 
of  the  old  willows  at  the  causey's  end  still 
stand,  and  that  the  group  is  the  one  which 
gave  the  name  to  Under  the  Willows. 


AN   INDIAN-SUMMER   REVERIE 


69 


WHAT  visionary  tints  the  year  puts  on, 
When  falling  leaves  falter  through  mo 
tionless  air 

Or  numbly  cling  and  shiver  to  be  gone  ! 
How  shimmer  the  low  flats  and  pastures 

bare, 

As  with  her  nectar  Hebe  Autumn  fills 
The  bowl  between  me  and  those  distant 

hills, 

And  smiles  and  shakes  abroad  her  misty, 
tremulous  hair  ! 

No    more    the    landscape     holds    its 

wealth  apart, 
Making  me  poorer  in  my  poverty, 

But  mingles  with  my  senses  and  my 

heart; 

My  own  projected  spirit  seems  to  me 
In  her  own  reverie  the  world  to  steep; 
'T  is  she   that  waves   to  sympathetic 


Moving,  as  she  is  moved,  each  field  and  hill 
and  tree. 

How  fuse  and  mix,  with  what  unfelt 

degrees, 
Clasped  by  the   faint  horizon's  languid 

arms, 

Each  into  each,  the  hazy  distances  ! 
The   softened  season  all  the   landscape 

charms ; 
Those   hills,   my   native    village    that 

embay, 

In  waves  of  dreamier  purple  roll  away, 
And  floating  in  mirage  seem  all  the  glim 
mering  farms. 

Ear  distant  sounds  the  hidden  chicka 
dee 
Close  at  my  side ;  far  distant  sound  the 

leaves ; 
The  fields  seem  fields  of  dream,  where 

Memory 
Wanders  like  gleaning  Ruth;  and  as  the 

sheaves 
Of  wheat  and  barley  wavered  in  the 

eye 

Of  Boaz  as  the  maiden's  glow  went  by, 
So  tremble  and  seem  remote  all  things  the 
sense  receives. 

The   cock's   shrill   trump  that  tells  of 

scattered  corn, 

Passed  breezily  on  by  all  his  flapping 
mates, 


Faint  and   more   faint,  from   barn  to 

barn  is  borne, 
Southward,   perhaps   to   far  Magellan's 

Straits; 
Dimly  I  catch   the   throb   of  distant 

flails; 

Silently  overhead  the  hen-hawk  sails, 
With  watchful,  measuring  eye,  and  for  his 
quarry  waits. 

The  sobered  robin,  hunger-silent  now, 
Seeks    cedar-berries    blue,   his   autumn 

cheer; 

The    chipmunk,    on  the  shingly  shag- 
bark's  bough, 
Now  saws,  now  lists  with  downward  eye 

and  ear, 
Then   drops   his   nut,   and,    cheeping, 

with  a  bound 

Whisks  to  his  winding  fastness  under 
ground  ; 

The   clouds    like    swans   drift   down    the 
streaming  atmosphere. 

O'er  yon  bare  knoll  the  pointed  cedar 

shadows 
Drowse   on   the   crisp,   gray   moss;  the 

ploughman's  call 
Creeps   faint   as   smoke    from   black, 

fresh-furrowed  meadows; 
The  single  crow  a  single  caw  lets  fall; 
And  all  around   me   every   bush  and 

tree 
Says  Autumn's  here,  and  Winter  soon 

will  be, 

Who  snows  his  soft,  white  sleep  and  silence 
over  all. 

The  birch,  most  shy  and  ladylike  of 

trees, 
Her  poverty,  as  best  she  may,  retrieves, 

And  hints  at  her  foregone  gentilities 
With  some  saved  relics  of  her  wealth  of 

leaves ; 
The  swamp-oak,  with  his  royal  purple 

on, 
Glares  red  as  blood  across  the  sinking 

sun, 

As  one  who  proudlier  to  a  falling  fortune 
cleaves. 

He   looks   a   sachem,  in   red   blanket 

wrapt, 

Who,  mid  some  council  of  the  sad-garbed 
whites, 


7o 


MISCELLANEOUS    POEMS 


Erect  and  stern,  in  his  own  memories 

lapt, 

With   distant   eye    broods    over    other 
sights, 

Sees  the  hushed  wood  the  city's  flare 
replace, 

The  wounded  turf  heal  o'er  the  rail 
way's  trace, 

And  roams   the   savage   Past   of  his   uu- 
dwiudled  rights. 

The  red-oak,  softer-grained,  yields  all 

for  lost, 
And,  with  his  crumpled  foliage  stiff  and 

dry, 

After  the  first  betrayal  of  the  frost, 
Rebuffs  the  kiss  of  the  relenting  sky; 
The  chestnuts,  lavish  of  their  long-hid 

gold, 
To  the  faint  Summer,  beggared  now 

and  old, 

Pour  back  the  sunshine  hoarded  'neath  her 
favoring  eye. 

The  ash  her  purple  drops  forgivingly 
And   sadly,   breaking   not    the    general 

hush; 
The  maple-swamps  glow  like  a  sunset 

sea, 
Each  leaf  a   ripple   with    its    separate 

flush; 
All  round  the  wood's  edge  creeps  the 

skirting  blaze 
Of  bushes    low,   as   when,  on   cloudy 

days, 

Ere  the  rain  fall,  the  cautious  farmer  burns 
his  brush. 

O'er  yon  low  wall,  which  guards  one 

unkempt  zone, 
Where  vines  and  weeds  and  scrub-oaks 

intertwine 
Safe    from   the   plough,  whose  rough, 

discordant  stone 
Is  massed  to  one   soft   gray  by  lichens 

fine, 
The  tangled  blackberry,  crossed  and 

recrossed,  weaves 
A    prickly   network   of    ensanguined 

leaves; 

Hard  by,  with  coral  beads,  the  prim  black- 
alders  shine. 

Pillaring   with   flame   this   crumbling 
boundary, 


ploughboy' 

ho,  with  each  sense  shut  fast  except 


Whose    loose   blocks   topple    'iieath  the 

s  foot, 
W 

the  eye, 
Creeps  close  and  scares  the  jay  he  hoped 

to  shoot, 
The  woodbine  up   the   elm's   straight 

stem  aspires, 
Coiling    it,   harmless,  with   autumnal 

fires  ; 

In  the  ivy's  paler  blaze   the   martyr  oak 
stands  mute. 

Below,  the  Charles,  a  stripe  of  nether 

sky, 

Now  hid  by  rounded  apple-trees  between, 
Whose  gaps  the  misplaced  sail  sweeps 

bellying  by, 
Now  flickering  golden  through  a  wood 

land  screen, 
Then  spreading  out,  at  his   next  turn 

beyond, 

A  silver  circle  like  an  inland  pond  — 
Slips    seaward   silently   through    marshes 
purple  and  green. 

Dear  marshes  !  vain  to  him  the  gift  of 

sight 

Who  cannot  in  their  various  incomes  share, 
From   every  season  drawn,   of   shade 

and  light, 
Who  sees  in  them  but  levels  brown  and 

bare; 
Each    change   of    storm   or   sunshine 

scatters  free 

On  them  its  largess  of  variety, 
For  Nature  with  cheap  means  still  works 
her  wonders  rare. 

In  Spring  they  lie  one  broad  expanse 

of  green, 
O'er    which  the   light   winds   run   with 

glimmering  feet: 
Here,  yellower  stripes  track   out  the 

creek  unseen, 
There,     darker     growths     o'er     hidden 

ditches  meet; 
And   purpler   stains   show   where  the 

blossoms  crowd, 

As  if  the  silent  shadow  of  a  cloud 
Hung  there  becalmed,  with  the  next  breath 
to  fleet. 

All  round,  upon  the   river's    slippery 
edge,  , 


AN   INDIAN-SUMMER   REVERIE 


Witching  to  deeper  calm  the  drowsy  tide, 
Whispers  and  leans  the  breeze-entan 
gling  sedge; 
Through  emerald  glooms  the  lingering 

waters  slide, 
Or,  sometimes  wavering,  throw  back 

the  sun, 
And  the  stiff  banks  in  eddies  melt  and 

run 

Of  dimpling  light,   and  with   the   current 
seem  to  glide. 

In  Summer  't  is  a  blithesome  sight  to 

see, 
As,  step  by  step,  with  measured   swing, 

they  pass, 
The    wide-ranked   mowers   wading  to 

the  knee, 
Their  sharp  scythes  panting  through  the 

wiry  grass; 
Then,  stretched  beneath  a  rick's  shade 

in  a  ring, 
Their  nooning  take,  while  one  begins 

to  sing 

A  stave  that  droops  and   dies   'neath   the 
close  sky  of  brass. 

Meanwhile   that    devil-may-care,    the 

bobolink, 

Remembering  duty,  in  mid-quaver  stops 
Just    ere    he    sweeps    o'er    rapture's 

tremulous  brink, 
And  'twixt  the  winrows  most  demurely 


A  decorous  bird  of  business,  who  pro 
vides 

For  his  brown  mate  and  fledglings  six 

besides, 

And  looks  from  right  to  left,  a  farmer  mid 
his  crops. 

Another  change  subdues  them  in  the 

Fall, 
But  saddens  not;  they  still  show  merrier 

tints, 
Though  sober   russet  seems   to  cover 

all; 
When   the  first  sunshine    through   their 

dew-drops  glints, 
Look     how      the     yellow     clearness, 

streamed  across, 
Redeems  with  rarer  hues  the  season's 

loss, 

As  Dawn's  feet  there  had  touched  and  left 
their  rosy  prints. 


Or  come  when  sunset  gives  its  fresh 
ened  zest, 
Lean  o'er  the  bridge  and  let  the  ruddy 

thrill, 
While  the  shorn  sun  swells  down  the 

hazy  west, 
Glow   opposite  ;  —  the    marshes    drink 

their  fill 
And   swoon   with   purple   veins,   then 

slowly  fade 
Through  pink  to  brown,  as  eastward 

moves  the  shade, 

Lengthening   with   stealthy   creep,   of   Si- 
inond's  darkening  hill. 

Later,   and  yet    ere    Winter    wholly 

shuts, 

Ere  through  the  first  dry  snow  the  run 
ner  grates, 
And  the  loath  cart-wheel  screams  in 

slippery  ruts, 

While  firmer  ice  the  eager  boy  awaits, 
Trving  each  buckle  and  strap  beside 

the  fire, 

And  until  bedtime  plays  with  his  de 
sire, 

Twenty  times  putting  on  and  off  his  new- 
bought  skates;  — 

Then,  every   morn,  the  river's  banks 

shine  bright 
With    smooth  plate  -  armor,  treacherous 

and  frail, 
By  the  frost's  clinking  hammers  forged 

at  night, 

'Gainst  which  the  lances  of  the  sun  pre 
vail, 

Giving  a  pretty  emblem  of  the  day 
When  guiltier  arms  in  light  shall  melt 

away, 

And  states  shall  move  free-limbed,  loosed 
from  war's  cramping  mail. 

And  now  those  waterfalls  the  ebbing 

river 

Twice  every  day  creates  on  either  side 
Tinkle,  as  through  their  fresh- sparred 

grots  they  shiver 

In  grass-arched  channels  to  the  sun  de 
nied; 

High  flaps  in  sparkling  blue  the  far- 
heard  crow, 

The  silvered  flats  gleam  frostily  below, 
Suddenly  drops  the    gull  and   breaks  the 
glassy  tide. 


MISCELLANEOUS   POEMS 


But  crowned  in  turn  by  vying  seasons 

three, 
Their  winter  halo  hath  a  fuller  ring; 

This  glory  seems  to  rest  immovably,  — 
The    others   were  too  fleet  and   vanish 
ing; 
When  the  hid  tide  is  at   its   highest 

flow, 
O'er  marsh  and  stream  one  breathless 

trance  of  snow 

With   brooding   fulness  awes   and  hushes 
everything. 

The  sunshine  seems  blown  off  by  the 

bleak  wind, 

As  pale  as  formal  candles  lit  by  day; 
Gropes  to  the  sea  the  river  dumb  and 

blind; 
The  brown  ricks,  snow-thatched  by  the 

storm  in  play, 
Show   pearly   breakers   combing    o'er 

their  lee, 
White  crests  as  of  some  just  enchanted 

sea, 

Checked  in  their  maddest  leap  and  hanging 
poised  midway. 

But  when  the  eastern  blow,  with  rain 

aslant, 
From  mid-sea's  prairies  green  and  rolling1 

plains 

Drives  in  his  wallowing  herds  of  bil 
lows  gaunt, 
And  the   roused  Charles  remembers   in 

his  veins 
Old     Ocean's    blood    and    snaps   his 

gyves  of  frost, 
That  tyrannous  silence  on  the  shores  is 

tost 

In  dreary  wreck,  and  crumbling  desolation 
reigns. 

Edgewise  or  flat,  in  Druid-like  device, 
With  leaden   pools    between   or   gullies 

bare, 
The  blocks  lie  strewn,  a  bleak  Stone- 

henge  of  ice; 
No   life,   no   sound,  to   break  the   grim 

despair, 
Save   sullen   plunge,    as   through   the 

sedges  stiff 

Down  crackles  riverward  some  thaw- 
sapped  cliff, 

Or   when   the   close-wedged   fields   of  ice 
crunch  here  and  there. 


But  let  me  turn  from  fancy-pictured 

scenes 
To  that  whose  pastoral  calm  before  me 

lies: 

Here  nothing  harsh  or  rugged  inter 
venes; 

The  early  evening  with  her  misty  dyes 
Smooths  off  the  ravelled  edges  of  the 

nigh, 

Relieves  the  distant  with  her  cooler  sky, 
And  tones  the  landscape  down,  and  soothes 
the  wearied  eyes. 

There  gleams  my  native  village,  dear 

to  me, 
Though  higher  change's  waves  each  day 

are  seen, 
Whelming  fields  famed  in  boyhood's 

history, 
Sanding    with    houses    the     diminished 

green; 
There,  in  red  brick,  which  softening 

time  defies, 
Stand   square   and    stiff    the    Muses' 

factories;  — 

How  with  my  life  knit  up  is   every  well- 
known  scene  ! 

Flow  on,  dear  river  !  not  alone  you  flow 
To   outward   sight,    and    through  your 

marshes  wind; 

Fed  from  the  mystic  springs  of  long- 
ago, 
Your  twin  flows  silent  through  my  world 

of  mind: 

Grow  dim,  dear  marshes,  in  the  even 
ing's  gray  ! 

Before  my  inner  sight  ye  stretch  away, 
And  will  forever,  though  these  fleshly  eyes 
grow  blind. 

Beyond  the   hillock's  house-bespotted 

swell, 
Where  Gothic  chapels  house  the  horse 

and  chaise, 
Where  quiet  cits  in  Grecian  temples 

dwell, 
Where  Coptic  tombs  resound  with  prayer 

and  praise, 
Where  dust  and  mud  the  equal  year 

divide, 
There     gentle     Allston     lived,     and 

wrought,  and  died, 
Transfiguring   street   and    shop   with    his 
illumined  gaze. 


AN   INDIAN-SUMMER   REVERIE 


73 


Virgilium  vidi  tantum,  —  I  have  seen 
But  as  a  boy,  who  looks  alike  on  all, 
That  misty  hair,  that  fine  Undine-like 

mien, 
Tremulous  as  down  to  feeling's  faintest 

call;  — 
Ah,  dear  old  homestead  !  count  it  to 

thy  fame 
That  thither  many  times  the  Painter 

came;  — 

One  elm  yet  bears  his  name,  a  feathery  tree 
and  tall. 

Swiftly  the  present  fades  in  memory's 

glow,  — 

Onr  only  sure  possession  is  the  past; 
The  village  blacksmith  died  a  month 

ago, 

And  dim  to  me  the  forge's  roaring  blast; 
Soon    fire  -new    mediae  vals   we    shall 

see 
Oust  the  black  smithy  from  its  chest 

nut-tree, 

And  that  hewn  down,  perhaps,  the  beehive 
green  and  vast. 

How  many  times,  prouder  than  king 

on  throne, 
Loosed  from   the  village  school-dame's 

A's  and  B's, 
Panting   have   I   the   creaky   bellows 

blown, 
And  watched  the  pent  volcano's  red  in 

crease, 
Then   paused    to   see   the   ponderous 

sledge,  brought  down 
By   that   hard    arm   voluminous    and 

brown, 

From  the  white  iron  swarm  its  golden  van 
ishing  bees. 

Dear  native  town  !  whose  choking  elms 

each  year 
With  eddying  dust  before  their  time  turn 


« 

Pining  for  rain,  —  to  me   thy  dust  is 

dear; 

It  glorifies  the  eve  of  summer  day, 
And   when    the   westering    sun    half 

sunken  burns, 
The  mote-thick  air  to  deepest  orange 

turns, 

The    westward    horseman    rides    through 
clouds  of  gold  away, 


So  palpable,  I  've  seen  those   unshorn 

few, 

The  six  old  willows  at  the  causey's  end 
(Such  trees  Paul  Potter  never  dreamed 

nor  drew), 
Through  this  dry  mist  their  checkering 

shadows  send, 
Striped,  here  and  there,  with  many  a 

long-drawn  thread, 
Where  streamed  through  leafy  chinks 

the  trembling  red, 

Past  which,  in  one  bright  trail,  the  hang- 
bird's  flashes  blend. 

Yes,  dearer  far  thy  dust  than  all  that 

e'er, 
Beneath  the  awarded  crown  of  victory, 

Gilded  the  blown  Olympic  charioteer; 
Though    lightly    prized     the     ribboned 

parchments  three, 
Yet  collegisse  juvat,  I  am  glad 
That  here  what  colleging  was  mine  I 

had, — 

It   linked   another  tie,  dear  native   town, 
with  thee  ! 

Nearer   art   thou  than  simply   native 

earth, 
My  dust  with  thine  concedes  a   deeper 

tie; 
A  closer  claim  thy  soil  may  well  put 

forth, 

Something  of  kindred  more  than  sympa 
thy; 
For   in   thy  bounds  I  reverently  laid 

away 
That    blinding    anguish    of    forsaken 

clay, 

That  title  I  seemed  to  have  in  earth  and 
sea  and  sky, 

That  portion  of  my  life  more  choice  to 

me 
(Though  brief,  yet  in  itself  so  round  and 

whole) 
Than   all   the   imperfect  residue   can 

be;  — 

The  Artist  saw  his  statue  of  the  soul 
Was   perfect;  so,  with   one   regretful 

stroke, 
The    earthen     model   into   fragments 

broke, 

And  without  her  the  impoverished  seasons 
roll 


74 


MISCELLANEOUS   POEMS 


THE  GROWTH  OF  THE  LEGEND 

A   FRAGMENT 

A  LEGEND  that  grew  in  the  forest's  hush 
Slowly  as  tear-drops  gather  and  gush, 
When  a  word  some  poet  chanced  to  say 
Ages  ago,  in  his  careless  way, 
Brings  our  youth   back   to   us   out   of   its 

shroud 

Clearly  as  under  yon  thunder-cloud 
I   see   that   white   sea-gull.     It   grew  and 

grew, 
From  the  pine-trees  gathering  a   sombre 

hue, 
Till  it  seems  a  mere  murmur  out   of  the 

vast 

Norwegian  forests  of  the  past; 
And  it  grew  itself  like  a  true   Northern 

pine, 

First  a  little  slender  line, 
Like  a  mermaid's  green  eyelash,  and  then 

anon 

A  stem  that  a  tower  might  rest  upon, 
Standing  spear-straight  in  the  waist-deep 

moss, 

Its  bony  roots  clutching  around  and  across, 
As  if  they  would  tear  up  earth's  heart  in 

their  grasp 
Ere  the  storm  should  uproot  them  or  make 

them  unclasp; 
Its  cloudy  boughs  singing,  as  suiteth  the 

pine, 
To  snow-bearded  sea-kings  old  songs  of  the 

brine, 
Till  they  straightened  and  let  their  staves 

fall  to  the  floor, 
Hearing  waves  moan  again  on  the  perilous 

shore 
Of    Vinland,    perhaps,   while    their   prow 

groped  its  way 
'Twixt  the  frothed  gnashing  tusks  of  some 

ship-crunching  bay. 

So,  pine-like,  the  legend  grew,  strong- 
limbed  and  tall, 

As  the  Gypsy  child  grows  that  eats  crusts 
in  the  hall; 

It  sucked  the  whole  strength  of  the  earth 
and  the  sky, 

Spring,  Summer,  Fall,  Winter,  all  brought 
it  supply; 

T  was  a  natural  growth,  and  stood  fear 
lessly  there, 


True  part  of  the  landscape  as  sea,  land,  and 

air; 
For  it  grew  in  good  times,  ere  the  fashion 

it  was 
To  force  these  wild  births  of  the   woods 

under  glass, 

And  so,  if  't  is  told  as  it  should  be  told, 
Though  't  were  sung  under  Venice's  moon 
light  of  gold, 
You  would  hear  the  old  voice  of  its  mother, 

the  pine, 
Murmur    sealike    and     northern    through 

every  line, 
And  the  verses  should  grow,  self-sustained 

and  free, 

Round  the  vibrating  stem  of  the  melody, 
Like  the  lithe  moonlit  limbs  of  the  parent 

tree. 

Yes,  the  pine  is   the   mother   of  legends; 

what  food 
For  their  grim  roots  is  left  when  the  thou- 

sand-yeared  wood, 
The  dim-aisled  cathedral,  whose  tall  arches 

spring 
Light,   sinewy,    graceful,   firm-set    as   the 

wing 
From  Michael's  white  shoulder,  is  hewn  and 

defaced 

By  iconoclast  axes  in  desperate  waste, 
And  its  wrecks  seek  the  ocean  it  prophesied 

long, 

Cassandra-like,  crooning  its  mystical  song  ? 
Then  the  legends  go  with  them,  —  even  yet 

on  the  sea 

A  wild  virtue  is  left  in  the  touch  of  the  tree, 
And  the  sailor's  night-watches  are  thrilled 

to  the  core 
With  the  lineal  offspring  of  Odin  and  Thor. 

Yes,  wherever  the  pine-wood  has  never  let 
in, 

Since  the  day  of  creation,  the  light  and  the 
din 

Of  manifold  life,  but  has  safely  conveyed 

From  the  midnight  primeval  its  armful  of 
shade, 

And  has  kept  the  weird  Past  with  its  child- 
faith  alive 

Mid  the  hum  and  the  stir  of  To-day's  busy 
hive, 

There  the  legend  takes  root  in  the  age- 
gathered  gloom, 

And  its  murmurous  boughs  for  their  sagas 
find  room. 


EXTREME  UNCTION 


75 


Where  Aroostook,  far-heard,  seems  to  sob 
as  he  goes 

Groping  down  to  the  sea  'neath  his  moun 
tainous  snows; 

Where  the  lake's  frore  Sahara  of  never- 
tracked  white, 

When  the  crack  shoots  across  it,  complains 
to  the  night 

With  a  long,  lonely  moan,  that  leagues 
northward  is  lost, 

As  the  ice  shrinks  away  from  the  tread  of 
the  frost; 

Where  the  lumberers  sit  by  the  log-fires 
that  throw 

Their  own  threatening  shadows  far  round 
o'er  the  snow, 

When  the  wolf  howls  aloof,  and  the  waver 
ing  glare 

Flashes  out  from  the  blackness  the  eyes  of 
the  bear, 

When  the  wood's  huge  recesses,  half- 
lighted,  supply 

A  canvas  where  Fancy  her  mad  brush  may 

.  trv» 
Blotting  in  giant  Horrors  that  venture  not 

down 

Through  the  right-angled  streets  of  the 
brisk,  whitewashed  town, 

But  skulk  in  the  depths  of  the  measureless 
wood 

Mid  the  Dark's  creeping  whispers  that 
curdle  the  blood, 

When  the  eye,  glanced  in  dread  o'er  the 
shoulder,  may  dream, 

Ere  it  shrinks  to  the  camp-fire's  companion 
ing  gleam, 

That  it  saw  the  fierce  ghost  of  the  Red 
Man  crouch  back 

To  the  shroud  of  the  tree-trunk's  invincible 
black; 

There  the  old  shapes  crowd  thick  round 
the  pine-shadowed  camp, 

Which  shun  the  keen  gleam  of  the  scholarly 
lamp, 

And  the  seed  of  the  legend  finds  true  Nor 
land  ground, 

While  the  border-tale's  told  and  the  can 
teen  flits  round. 


A   CONTRAST 

THY  love  thou  sentest  oft  to  me, 

And  still  as  oft  I  thrust  it  back; 
Thy  messengers  I  could  not  see 


In  those  who  everything  did  lack, 
The  poor,  the  outcast  and  the  black. 

Pride  held  his  hand  before  mine  eyes, 
The  world  with  flattery  stuffed  mine  ears  ; 

I  looked  to  see  a  monarch's  guise, 

Nor  dreamed  thy  love  would   knock  for 

years, 
Poor,  naked,  fettered,  full  of  tears. 

Yet,  when  I  sent  my  love  to  thee, 
Thou  with  a  smile  didst  take  it  in, 

And  entertain'dst  it  royally, 

Though  grimed  with  earth,  with  hunger 

thin, 
And  leprous  with  the  taint  of  sin. 

Now  every  day  thy  love  I  meet, 
As  o'er  the  earth  it  wanders  wide, 

With  weary  step  and  bleeding  feet, 
Still  knocking  at  the  heart  of  pride 
And  offering  grace,  though  still  denied. 


EXTREME   UNCTION 

Go  !  leave  me,  Priest;  my  soul  would  be 

Alone  with  the  consoler,  Death; 
Far  sadder  eyes  than  thine  will  see 

This  crumbling  clay  yield  up  its  breath; 
These  shrivelled  hands  have  deeper  stains 

Than  holy  oil  can  cleanse  away, 
Hands  that  have  plucked  the  world's  coarse 
gains 

As  erst  they  plucked  the  flowers  of  May. 

Call,  if  thou  canst,  to  these  gray  eyes 

Some     faith     from     youth's     traditions 

wrung; 
This  fruitless  husk  which  dust  ward  dries 

Hath  been  a  heart  once,  hath  been  young; 
On  this  bowed  head  the  awful  Past 

Once  laid  its  consecrating  hands; 
The  Future  in  its  purpose  vast 

Paused,  waiting  my  supreme  commands. 

But  look  !  whose  shadows  block  the  door  ? 

Who  are  those  two  that  stand  aloof  ? 
See  !  on  my  hands  this  freshening  gore 

Writes  o'er  again  its  crimson  proof  ! 
My  looked-for  death-bed  guests  are  met; 

There  my  dead  Youth  doth  wring  its 

hands, 
And  there,  with  eyes  that  goad  me  yet, 

The  ghost  of  my  Ideal  stands  ! 


76 


MISCELLANEOUS    POEMS 


God  bends  from  out  the  deep  and  says, 

"  I  gave  thee  the  great  gift  of  life ; 
Wast  thou  not  called  in  many  ways  ? 

Are  not  my  earth  and  heaven  at  strife  ? 
I  gave  thee  of  my  seed  to  sow, 

Bringest  thou  me  my  hundred-fold  ?  " 
Can  I  look  up  with  face  aglow, 

And  answer,  "  Father,  here  is  gold  "  ? 

I  have  been  innocent;  God  knows 

When  first  this  wasted  life  began, 
Not  grape  with  grape  more  kindly  grows, 

Than  I  with  every  brother-man  : 
Now  here  I  gasp  ;  what  lose  my  kind, 

When    this    fast    ebbing    breath    shall 

part? 
What  bands  of  love  and  service  bind 

This  being  to  a  brother  heart  ? 

Christ  still  was  wandering  o'er  the  earth 

Without  a  place  to  lay  his  head; 
He  found  free  welcome  at  my  hearth, 

He  shared  my  cup  and  broke  my  bread: 
Now,  when  I  hear  those  steps  sublime, 

That  bring  the  other  world  to  this, 
My  snake-turned  nature,  sunk  in  slime, 

Starts  sideway  with  defiant  hiss. 

Upon  the  hour  when  I  was  born, 

God  said,  "Another  man  shall  be," 
And  the  great  Maker  did  not  scorn 

Out  of  himself  to  fashion  me; 
He  sunned  me  with  his  ripening  looks, 

And  Heaven's  rich  instincts  in  me  grew, 
As  effortless  as  woodland  nooks 

Send  violets  up  and  paint  them  blue. 

Yes,  I  who  now,  with  angry  tears, 

Am  exiled  back  to  brutish  clod, 
Have  borne  unquenched  for  fourscore  years 

A  spark  of  the  eternal  God; 
And  to  what  end  ?     How  yield  I  back 

The  trust  for  such  high  uses  given  ? 
Heaven's  light  hath  but  revealed  a  track 

Whereby  to  crawl  away  from  heaven. 

Men  think  it  is  an  awful  sight 

To  see  a  soul  just  set  adrift 
On  that  drear  voyage  from  whose  night 

The  ominous  shadows  never  lift; 
But  't  is  more  awful  to  behold 

A  helpless  infant  newly  born, 
Whose  little  hands  unconscious  hold 

The  keys  of  darkness  and  of  morn. 


Mine  held  them  once ;  I  flung  away 

Those  keys  that  might  have  open  set 
The  golden  sluices  of  the  day, 

But  clutch  the  keys  of  darkness  yet; 
I  hear  the  reapers  singing  go 

Into  God's  harvest;  I,  that  might 
With  them  have  chosen,  here  below 

Grope  shuddering  at  the  gates  of  night. 

O  glorious  Youth,  that  once  wast  mine  ! 

O  high  Ideal !  all  in  vain 
Ye  enter  at  this  ruined  shrine 

Whence  worship  ne'er  shall  rise  again;, 
The  bat  and  owl  inhabit  here, 

The  snake  nests  in  the  altar-stone, 
The  sacred  vessels  moulder  near, 

The  image  of  the  God  is  gone. 


THE    OAK 

WHAT   gnarled    stretch,   what    depth    of 

shade,  is  his  ! 

There  needs  no  crown  to  mark  the  for 
est's  king; 
How  in  his  leaves  outshines  full  summer's. 

bliss  ! 

Sun,  storm,  rain,  dew,  to  him  their  trib 
ute  bring, 

Which  he  with  such  benignant  royalty 
Accepts,  as  overpayeth  what  is  lent; 
All  nature  seems  his  vassal  proud  to  be, 
And  cunning  only  for  his  ornament. 

How  towers   he,    too,   amid   the   billowed 

snows, 
An  unquelled  exile  from  the  summer's 

throne, 
Whose  plain,  uncinctured  front  more  kingly 

shows, 
Now  that  the  obscuring  courtier  leaves 

are  flown. 

His  boughs  make  music  of  the  winter  air, 
Jewelled  with  sleet,  like  some  cathedral 

front 
Where  clinging  snow-flakes  with  quaint  art 

repair 

The  dints  and  furrows  of  time's  envious 
brunt. 

How   doth  his  patient  strength  the  rude 

March  wind 

Persuade  to  seem  glad  breaths  of  sum 
mer  breeze, 
And  win  the  soil  that  fain  would  be  unkind, 


AMBROSE 


77 


To  swell   his    revenues  with  proud   in 
crease  ! 
He  is  the  gem ;  and  all  the  landscape  wide 

(So  doth  his  grandeur  isolate  the  sense) 
Seems  but  the  setting,  worthless  all  beside, 

An  empty  socket,  were  he  fallen  thence. 

So,   from  oft  converse   with  life's   wintry 

gales, 
Should   man   learn    how   to   clasp   with 

tougher  roots 

The  inspiring  earth;  how  otherwise  avails 
The    leaf  -  creating    sap   that    sunward 

shoots  ? 
So   every  year  that  falls   with    noiseless 

flake 

Should  fill  old  scars  up   on  the  storm- 
ward  side, 

And  make  hoar  age  revered  for  age's  sake, 
Not  for  traditions  of  youth's  leafy  pride. 

So,  from  the  pinched  soil  of  a  churlish  fate, 
True  hearts  compel  the  sap  of  sturdier 

growth, 
So  between  earth  and  heaven  stand  simply 

great, 

That  these  shall  seem  but  their  attend 
ants  both; 
For  nature's  forces  with  obedient  zeal 

Wait  on  the  rooted  faith  and  oaken  will; 
As  quickly  the  pretender's  cheat  they  feel, 
And  turn  mad  Pucks  to  flout  and 


mock 


him  still. 


Lord  !  all  thy  works  are  lessons;  each  con 
tains 
Some   emblem   of  man's   all-containing 

soul; 
Shall  he  make   fruitless   all   thy   glorious 

pains, 
Delving    within    thy   grace   an    eyeless 

mole? 

Make  me  the  least  of  thy  Dodona-grove, 
Cause  me  some  message  of  thy  truth  to 

bring, 
Speak  but  a  word  through  me,  nor  let  thy 

love 

Among  my  boughs  disdain  to  perch  and 
sing. 


AMBROSE 

NEVER,  surely,  was  holier  man 

Than  Ambrose,  since  the  world  began; 


With  diet  spare  and  raiment  thin 

He  shielded  himself  from  the  father  of  sin; 

With  bed  of  iron  and  scourgiugs  oft, 

His  heart  to  God's  hand  as  wax  made  soft. 

Through    earnest    prayer  and    watchings 

long 

He  sought  to  know  'tween  right  and  wrong, 
Much  wrestling  with  the  blessed  Word 
To  make  it  yield  the  sense  of  the  Lord, 
That  he  might  build  a  storm-proof  creed 
To  fold  the  flock  in  at  their  need. 

At  last  he  builded  a  perfect  faith, 
Fenced  round  about  with   The  Lord  thus 

saith; 

To  himself  he  fitted  the  doorway's  size, 
Meted  the  light  to  the  need  of  his  eyes, 
And  knew,  by  a  sure  and  inward  sign, 
That  the  work  of  his  fingers  was  divine. 

Then  Ambrose  said,  "  All  those  shall  die 
The  eternal  death  who  believe  not  as  I; " 
And  some  were  boiled,  some  burned  in  fire, 
Some  sawn  in  twain,  that  his  heart's  desire, 
For  the  good  of  men's  souls  might  be  satis 
fied 
By  the  drawing  of  all  to  the  righteous  side. 

One  day,  as  Ambrose  was  seeking  the  truth 
In  his  lonely  walk,  he  saw  a  youth 
Resting  himself  in  the  shade  of  a  tree; 
It  had  never  been  granted  him  to  see 
So    shining    a    face,   and  the    good    man 

thought 
'T  were  pity  he  should  not  believe  as  he 

ought. 

So  he  set  himself  by  the  young  man's  side, 
And  the  state  of  his  soul  with   questions 

tried; 
But  the  heart  of  the  stranger  was  hardened 

indeed, 
Nor  received  the  stamp  of   the  one  true 

creed; 
And  the  spirit  of  Ambrose  waxed  sore  to 

find 
Such  features   the  porch  of  so   narrow  a 

mind. 

"  As  each  beholds  in  cloud  and  fire 
The  shape  that  answers  his  own  desire, 
So  each,"  said  the  youth,  "in  the  Law  shall 

find 
The  figure  and  fashion  of  his  mind; 


78 


MISCELLANEOUS   POEMS 


And  to  each  in  his  mercy  hath  God  allowed 
His  several  pillar  of  fire  and  cloud." 

The  soul  of  Ambrose  burned  with  zeal 
And  holy  wrath  for  the  young  man's  weal: 
"Believest     thou     then,     most     wretched 

youth," 

Cried  he,  "  a  dividual  essence  in  Truth  ? 
I  fear  me  thy  heart  is  too  cramped  with  sin 
To  take  the  Lord  in  his  glory  in." 

Now  there  bubbled  beside  them  where  they 

stood 

A  fountain  of  waters  sweet  and  good; 
The  youth  to  the   streamlet's  brink  drew 

near 
Saying,  "Ambrose,  thou  maker  of  creeds, 

look  here  ! " 

Six  vases  of  crystal  then  he  took, 
And  set  them  along  the  edge  of  the  brook. 

"  As  into  these  vessels  the  water  I  pour, 
There  shall  one  hold  less,  another  more, 
And  the  water  unchanged,  in  every  case, 
Shall  put  on  the  figure  of  the  vase ; 
O  thou,  who  wouldst  unity  make   through 

strife, 
Canst  thou  fit  this   sign  to  the  Water  of 

Life  ?  " 

When  Ambrose  looked  up,  he  stood  alone, 
The  youth  and  the   stream   and   the  vases 

were  gone; 

But  he  knew,  by  a  sense  of  humbled  grace, 
He  had  talked  with  an  angel  face  to  face, 
And  felt  his  heart  change  inwardly, 
As  he  fell  on  his  knees  beneath  the  tree. 


ABOVE   AND   BELOW 


O  DWELLERS  in  the  valley-land, 

Who  in  deep  twilight  grope  and  cower, 
Till  the  slow  mountain's  dial-hand 

Shorten  to  noon's  triumphal  hour, 
While  ye  sit  idle,  do  ye  think 

The  Lord's  great  work  sits  idle  too  ? 
That  light  dare  not  o'erleap  the  brink 

Of  morn,  because  't  is  dark  with  you  ? 

Though  yet  your  valleys  skulk  in  night, 
In  God's  ripe  fields  the  day  is  cried, 

And  reapers,  with  their  sickles  bright, 
Troop,  singing,  down  the  mountain-side 


Come  up,  and  feel  what  health  there  is 
In  the  frank  Dawn's  delighted  eyes, 

As,  bending  with  a  pitying  kiss, 

The  night-shed  tears  of  Earth  she  dries  ! 

The  Lord  wants  reapers:  oh,  mount  up, 

Before    night    comes,   and    says,    "Too 

late  !  " 
Stay  not  for  taking  scrip  or  cup, 

The  Master  hungers  while  ye  wait; 
'T  is  from  these  heights  alone  your  eyes 

The  advancing  spears  of  day  can  see, 
That  o'er  the  eastern  hill-tops  rise, 

To  break  your  long  captivity. 


Lone  watcher  on  the  mountain-height, 

It  is  right  precious  to  behold 
The  first  long  surf  of  climbing  light 

Flood  all  the  thirsty  east  with  gold; 
But  we,  who  in  the  shadow  sit, 

Know  also  when  the  day  is  nigh, 
Seeing  thy  shining  forehead  lit 

With  his  inspiring  prophecy. 

Thou  hast  thine  office;  we  have  ours; 

God  lacks  not  early  service  here, 
But  what  are  thine  eleventh  hours 

He  counts  with  us  for  morning  cheer; 
Our  day,  for  Him,  is  long  enough, 

And  when  He  giveth  work  to  do, 
The  bruised  reed  is  amply  tough 

To  pierce  the  shield  of  error  through. 

But  not  the  less  do  thou  aspire 

Light's  earlier  messages  to  preach; 
Keep  back  no  syllable  of  fire, 

Plunge  deep  the  rowels  of  thy  speech. 
Yet  God  deems  not  thine  aeried  sight 

More  worthy  than  our  twilight  dim ; 
For  meek  Obedience,  too,  is  Light, 

And  following  that  is  finding  Him. 


THE   CAPTIVE 

IT  was  past  the  hour  of  trysting, 
But  she  lingered  for  him  still ; 

Like  a  child,  the  eager  streamlet 
Leaped  and  laughed  adown  the  hill, 

Happy  to  be  free  at  twilight 
From  its  toiling  at  the  mill. 

Then  the  great  moon  on  a  sudden 
Ominous,  and  red  as  blood, 


THE   BIRCH-TREE 


79 


Startling  as  a  new  creation, 
O'er  the  eastern  hilltop  stood, 

Casting  deep  and  deeper  shadows 
Through  the  mystery  of  the  wood. 

Dread  closed  vast  and  vague  about  her, 
And  her  thoughts  turned  fearfully 

To  her  heart,  if  there  some  shelter 
From  the  silence  there  might  be, 

Like  bare  cedars  leaning  inland 
From  the  blighting  of  the  sea. 

Yet  he  came  not,  and  the  stillness 
Dampened  round  her  like  a  tomb; 

She  could  feel  cold  eyes  of  spirits 
Looking  on  her  through  the  gloom, 

She  could  hear  the  groping  footsteps 
Of  some  blind,  gigantic  doom. 

Suddenly  the  silence  wavered 
Like  a  light  mist  in  the  wind, 

For  a  voice  broke  gently  through  it, 
Felt  like  sunshine  by  the  blind, 

And  the  dread,  like  mist  in  sunshine, 
Furled  serenely  from  her  mind. 

u  Once  my  love,  my  love  forever, 
Flesh  or  spirit,  still  the  same, 

If  I  failed  at  time  of  trysting, 

Deem  thou  not  my  faith  to  blame; 

I,  alas,  was  made  a  captive, 
As  from  Holy  Land  I  came. 

u  On  a  green  spot  in  the  desert, 
Gleaming  like  an  emerald  star, 

Where  a  palm-tree,  in  lone  silence, 
Yearning  for  its  mate  afar, 

Droops  above  a  silver  runnel, 
Slender  as  a  scimitar, 

"  There  thou  'It  find  the  humble  postern 

To  the  castle  of  my  foe; 
If  thy  love  burn  clear  and  faithful, 

Strike  the  gateway,  green  and  low, 
Ask  to  enter,  and  the  warder 

Surely  will  not  say  thee  no." 

Slept  again  the  aspen  silence, 
But  her  loneliness  was  o'er; 

Round  her  soul  a  motherly  patience 
Clasped  its  arms  forevermore; 

From  her  heart  ebbed  back  the  sorrow, 
Leaving  smooth  the  golden  shore. 

Donned  she  now  the  pilgrim  scallop, 
Took  the  Pilgrim  staff  in  hand; 


Like  a  cloud-shade  flitting  eastward, 
Wandered  she  o'er  sea  and  laud; 

And  her  footsteps  in  the  desert 
Fell  like  cool  rain  011  the  sand. 

Soon,  beneath  the  palm-tree's  shadow, 
Knelt  she  at  the  postern  low; 

And  thereat  she  knocked  full  gently, 
Fearing  much  the  warder's  no; 

All  her  heart  stood  still  and  listened, 
As  the  door  swung  backward  slow. 

There  she  saw  no  surly  warder 
With  an  eye  like  bolt  and  bar; 

Through  her  soul  a  sense  of  music 
Throbbed,  and,  like  a  guardian  Lar, 

On  the  threshold  stood  an  angel, 
Bright  and  silent  as  a  star. 

Fairest  seemed  he  of  God's  seraphs, 

And  her  spirit,  lily-wise, 
Opened  when  he  turned  upon  her 

The  deep  welcome  of  his  eyes, 
Sending  upward  to  that  sunlight 

All  its  dew  for  sacrifice. 

Then  she  heard  a  voice  come  onward 
Singing  with  a  rapture  new, 

As  Eve  heard  the  songs  in  Eden, 
Dropping  earthward  with  the  dew; 

Well  she  knew  the  happy  singer, 
Well  the  happy  song  she  knew. 

Forward  leaped  she  o'er  the  threshold,, 

Eager  as  a  glancing  surf; 
Fell  from  her  the  spirit's  languor, 

Fell  from  her  the  body's  scurf; 
'Neath  the  palm  next  day  some  Arabs 

Found  a  corpse  upon  the  turf. 


THE    BIRCH-TREE 

RIPPLING  through  thy  branches  goes  the 
sunshine, 

Among  thy  leaves  that  palpitate  forever; 

Ovid  in  thee  a  pining  Nymph  had  pris 
oned, 

The  soul  once  of  some  tremulous  inland 
river, 

Quivering  to  tell  her  woe,  but,  ah !  dumb, 
dumb  forever  ! 

While  all  the  forest,  witched  with  slum 
berous  moonshine. 


8o 


MISCELLANEOUS   POEMS 


Holds  up  its  leaves  in  happy,  happy  still 
ness, 

Waiting  the  dew,  with  breath  and  pulse 
suspended, 

I  hear  afar  thy  whispering,  gleamy  islands, 

And  track   thee    wakeful   sti] 


still   amid   the 


wide-hung  silence. 


On  the  brink  of  some  wood-nestled  lakelet, 
Thy  foliage,  like  the  tresses  of  a  Dryad, 
Dripping  round  thy  slim  white  stem,  whose 

shadow 
Slopes  quivering  down  the  water's  dusky 

quiet, 
Thou  shrink'st  as  on  her  bath's  edge  would 

some  startled  Naiad. 

Thou  art  the  go-between  of  rustic  lovers; 

Thy  white  bark  has  their  secrets  in  its 
keeping; 

Reuben  writes  here  the  happy  name  of  Pa 
tience, 

And  thy  lithe  boughs  hang  murmuring  and 
weeping 

Above  her,  as  she  steals  the  mystery  from 
thy  keeping. 

Thou  art  to  me  like  my  beloved  maiden, 

So  frankly  coy,  so  full  of  trembly  confi 
dences; 

Thy  shadow  scarce  seems  shade,  thy  pat 
tering  leaflets 

Sprinkle  their  gathered  sunshine  o'er  my 
senses, 

And  Nature  gives  me  all  her  summer  con 
fidences. 

Whether  my  heart  with   hope  or   sorrow 

tremble, 

Thou  sympathizest  still ;  wild  and  unquiet, 
I  fling  me  down;  thy  ripple,  like  a  river, 
Flows  valleyward,  where  calmness  is,  and 

by  it 
My  heart  is  floated  down  into  the  land  of 

quiet. 

AN    INTERVIEW   WITH    MILES 
STANDISH 

I  SAT  one  evening  in  my  room, 
In  that  sweet  hour  of  twilight 

When  blended  thoughts,   half   light,  half 

gloom, 
Throng  through  the  spirit's  skylight; 

The  flames  by  fits  curled  round  the  bars, 


Or  up  the  chimney  crinkled, 
While  embers  dropped  like  falling  stars, 
And  in  the  ashes  tinkled. 

I  sat  and  mused;  the  fire  burned  low, 

And,  o'er  my  senses  stealing, 
Crept  something  of  the  ruddy  glow 

That  bloomed  on  wall  and  ceiling; 
My  pictures  (they  are  very  few, 

The  heads  of  ancient  wise  men) 
Smoothed  down  their  knotted  fronts,  and 
grew 

As  rosy  as  excisemen. 

My  antique  high-backed  Spanish  chair 

Felt  thrills  through  wood  and  leather, 
That  had  been  strangers  since  whilere, 

Mid  Andalusian  heather, 
The  oak  that  built  its  sturdy  frame 

His  happy  arms  stretched  over 
The  ox  whose  fortunate  hide  became 

The  bottom's  polished  cover. 

It  came  out  in  that  famous  bark, 

That  brought  our  sires  intrepid, 
Capacious  as  another  ark 

For  furniture  decrepit; 
For,  as  that  saved  of  bird  and  beast 

A  pair  for  propagation, 
So  has  the  seed  of  these  increased 

And  furnished  half  the  nation. 

Kings  sit,  they  say,  in  slippery  seats; 

But  those  slant  precipices 
Of  ice  the  northern  voyager  meets 

Less  slippery  are  than  this  is; 
To  cling  therein  would  pass  the  wit 

Of  royal  man  or  woman, 
And  whatsoe'er  can  stay  in  it 

Is  more  or  less  than  human. 

I  offer  to  all  bores  this  perch, 

Dear  well-intentioned  people 
With  heads  as  void  as  week-day  church, 

Tongues  longer  than  the  steeple; 
To  folks  with  missions,  whose  gaunt  eyes 

See  golden  ages  rising,  — 
Salt  of  the  earth  !  in  what  queer  Guys 

Thou  'rt  fond  of  crystallizing  ! 

My  wonder,  then,  was  not  unmixed 

With  merciful  suggestion, 
When,  as  my  roving  eyes  grew  fixed 

Upon  the  chair  in  question, 
I  saw  its  trembling  arms  enclose 


AN   INTERVIEW   WITH    MILES    STANDISH 


81 


A  figure  grim  and  rusty, 
Whose  doublet  plain  and  plainer  hose 
Were  something  worn  and  dusty. 

Now  even  such  men  as  Nature  forms 

Merely  to  fill  the  street  with, 
Once  turned  to  ghosts  by  hungry  worms, 

Are  serious  things  to  meet  with; 
Your  penitent  spirits  are  no  jokes, 

And,  though  I  'm  not  averse  to 
A  quiet  shade,  even  they  are  folks 

One  cares  not  to  speak  first  to. 

Who  knows,  thought  I,  but  he  has  come,    . 

By  Charon  kindly  ferried, 
To  tell  me  of  a  mighty  sum 

Behind  my  wainscot  buried  ? 
There  is  a  buccaneerish  air 

About  that  garb  outlandish  — 
Just  then  the  ghost  drew  up  his  chair 

And  said,  "  My  name  is  Standish. 

"  I  come  from  Plymouth,  deadly  bored 

With  toasts,  and  songs,  and  speeches, 
As  long  and  flat  as  my  old  sword, 

As  threadbare  as  my  breeches: 
They  understand  us  Pilgrims  !  they, 

Smooth  men  with  rosy  faces, 
Strength's  knots  and  gnarls  all  pared  away, 

And  varnish  in  their  places  ! 

4*  We  had  some  toughness  in  our  grain, 

The  eye  to  rightly  see  us  is 
Not  just  the  one  that  lights  the  brain 

Of  drawing-room  Tyrtseuses: 
They  talk  about  their  Pilgrim  blood, 

Their  birthright  high  and  holy  ! 
A  mountain-stream  that  ends  in  mud 

Methinks  is  melancholy. 

"  He  had  stiff  knees,  the  Puritan, 

That  were  not  good  at  bending; 
The  homespun  dignity  of  man 

He  thought  was  worth  defending; 
He  did  not,  with  his  pinchbeck  ore, 

His  country's  shame  forgotten, 
Gild  Freedom's  coffin  o'er  and  o'er, 

When  all  within  was  rotten. 

"  These  loud  ancestral  boasts  of  yours, 
How  can  they  else  than  vex  us  ? 

Where  were  your  dinner  orators 
When  slavery  grasped  at  Texas  ? 

Dumb  on  his  knees  was  every  one 
That  now  is  bold  as  Caesar; 


Mere  pegs  to  hang  an  office  on 
Such  stalwart  men  as  these  are." 

"  Good    sir,"    I    said,    "  you    seem   much 
stirred; 

The  sacred  compromises  "  — 
"  Now  God  confound  the  dastard  word  ! 

My  gall  thereat  arises: 
Northward  it  hath  this  sense  alone, 

That  you,  your  conscience  blinding, 
Shall  bow  your  fool's  nose  to  the  stone, 

When  slavery  feels  like  grinding. 

"  'T  is  shame  to  see  such  painted  sticks 

In  Vane's  and  Winthrop's  places, 
To  see  your  spirit  of  Seventy-six 

Drag  humbly  in  the  traces, 
With  slavery's  lash  upon  her  back, 

And  herds  of  office-holders 
To  shout  applause,  as,  with  a  crack, 

It  peels  her  patient  shoulders. 

"  We  forefathers  to  such  a  rout !  — 

No,  by  my  faith  in  God's  word  ! " 
Half  rose  the  ghost,  and  half  drew  out 

The  ghost  of  his  old  broadsword, 
Then  thrust  it  slowly  back  again, 

And  said,  with  reverent  gesture, 
"  No,  Freedom,  no!  blood  should  not  stain 

The  hem  of  thy  white  vesture. 

"  I  feel  the  soul  in  me  draw  near 

The  mount  of  prophesying; 
In  this  bleak  wilderness  I  hear 

A  John  the  Baptist  crying; 
Far  in  the  east  I  see  upleap 

The  streaks  of  first  forewarning, 
And  they  who  sowed  the  light  shall  reap 

The  golden  sheaves  of  morning. 

"  Child  of  our  travail  and  our  woe, 

Light  in  our  day  of  sorrow, 
Through  my  rapt  spirit  I  foreknow 

The  glory  of  thy  morrow; 
I  hear  great  steps,  that  through  the  shade 

Draw  nigher  still  and  nigher, 
And  voices  call  like  that  which  bade 

The  prophet  come  up  higher." 

I  looked,  no  form  mine  eyes  could  find, 

I  heard  the  red  cock  crowing, 
And  through  my  window-chinks  the  wind 

A  dismal  tune  was  blowing; 
Thought  I,  My  neighbor  Buckingham 

Hath  somewhat  in  him  gritty, 


82 


MISCELLANEOUS    POEMS 


Some  Pilgrim-stuff  that  hates  all  sham, 
And  he  will  print  my  ditty. 

ON  THE  CAPTURE  OF  FUGITIVE 
SLAVES  NEAR  WASHINGTON 

In  a  letter  to  Edward  M.  Davis  written  from 
Elm  wood  July  24,  1845,  Lowell  says  :  "  I  blew 
another  '  dolorous  and  jarring  blast '  in  the 
Courier  the  other  day,  which  you  will  proba 
bly  see  in  the  Liberator  of  this  week  or  next. 
I  was  impelled  to  write  by  the  account  of  the 
poor  fugitives  who  were  taken  near  Washing 
ton.  I  think  it  has  done  some  good.  At  any 
rate,  it  has  set  two  gentlemen  together  by  the 
ears  about  Dissolution,  and  they  are  hammer 
ing  away  at  each  other  in  the  Courier."  The 
blast  was  the  following  stanzas. 

LOOK  on  who  will  in  apathy,  and  stifle  they 
who  can, 

The  sympathies,  the  hopes,  the  words,  that 
make  man  truly  man; 

Let  those  whose  hearts  are  dungeoned  up 
with  interest  or  with  ease 

Consent  to  hear  with  quiet  pulse  of  loath 
some  deeds  like  these  ! 

I  first  drew  in  New  England's  air,  and 
from  her  hardy  breast 

Sucked  in  the  tyrant-hating  milk  that  will 
not  let  me  rest; 

And  if  my  words  seem  treason  to  the  dul 
lard  and  the  tame, 

'T  is  but  my  Bay-State  dialect,  —  our 
fathers  spake  the  same  ! 

Shame  on  the  costly  mockery  of  piling 
stone  on  stone 

To  those  who  won  our  liberty,  the  heroes 
dead  and  gone, 

While  we  look  coldly  on  and  see  law- 
shielded  ruffians  slay 

The  men  who  fain  would  win  their  own, 
the  heroes  of  to-day  ! 

Are  we  pledged  to  craven  silence  ?  Oh, 
fling  it  to  the  wind, 

The  parchment  wall  that  bars  us  from  the 
least  of  human  kind, 

That  makes  us  cringe  and  temporize,  and 
dumbly  stand  at  rest, 

While  Pity's  burning  flood  of  words  is  red- 
hot  in  the  breast ! 


Though  we  break  our  fathers'  promise,  we 

have  nobler  duties  first; 
The  traitor  to  Humanity  is  the  traitor  most 

accursed ; 
Man  is  more  than  Constitutions;  better  rot 

beneath  the  sod, 
Than  be  true  to  Church  and  State  while  we 

are  doubly  false  to  God  ! 

We  owe  allegiance  to  the  State ;  but  deeper, 

truer,  more, 
To  the  sympathies  that  God  hath  set  within 

our  spirit's  core; 
Our  country  claims  our  fealty;  we  grant  it 

so,  but  then 
Before  Man  made  us  citizens,  great  Nature 

made  us  men. 

He  's  true   to  God    who 's   true  to  man  ; 

wherever  wrong  is  done, 
To  the  humblest  and  the  weakest,  'neath 

the  all-beholding  sun, 
That  wrong  is  also  done  to  us;  and  they 

are  slaves  most  base, 
Whose  love  of  right  is  for  themselves,  and 

not  for  all  their  race. 

God  works  for  all.  Ye  cannot  hem  the 
hope  of  being  free 

With  parallels  of  latitude,  with  mountain- 
range  or  sea. 

Put  golden  padlocks  on  Truth's  lips,  be 
callous  as  ye  will, 

From  soul  to  soul,  o'er  all  the  world,  leaps 
one  electric  thrill. 

Chain  down  your  slaves  with  ignorance,  ye 

cannot  keep  apart, 
With  all  your  craft  of  tyranny,  the  human 

heart  from  heart: 
When  first  the  Pilgrims  landed  on  the  Bay 

State's  iron  shore, 
The  word  went  forth  that  slavery  should 

one  day  be  no  more. 

Out  from  the  land  of  bondage  't  is  decreed 
our  slaves  shall  go, 

And  signs  to  us  are  offered,  as  erst  to  Pha 
raoh  ; 

If  we  are  blind,  their  exodus,  like  Israel's 
of  yore, 

Through  a  Red  Sea  is  doomed  to  be,  whose 
surges  are  of  gore. 


THE  GHOST-SEER 


'T  is  ours  to  save  our  brethren,  with  peace 

and  love  to  win 
Their  darkened  hearts  from  error,  ere  they 

harden  it  to  sin; 
But  if  before  his   duty  man   with  listless 

spirit  stands, 
Erelong  the  Great  Avenger  takes  the  work 

from  out  his  hands. 


TO   THE    DANDELION 

DEAR  common  flower,  that  grow'st  be 
side  the  way, 
Fringing  the    dusty   road   with    harmless 

gold, 

First  pledge  of  blithesome  May, 
Which  children  pluck,  and,  full  of  pride 

uphold, 
High-hearted  buccaneers,  o'er  joyed  that 

they 
An  Eldorado  in  the  grass  have  found, 

Which    not    the   rich    earth's    ample 

round 
May  match  in  wealth,  thou  art  more  dear 

to  me 

Than    all   the   prouder   summer-blooms 
may  be. 

Gold  such  as  thine  ne'er  drew  the  Span 
ish  prow 
Through  the  primeval  hush  of  Indian  seas, 

Nor  wrinkled  the  lean  brow 
Of  age,  to  rob  the  lover's  heart  of  ease; 
'T  is  the  Spring's  largess,  which  she  scat 
ters  now 
To  rich  and  poor  alike,  with  lavish  hand, 

Though  most  hearts  never  understand 
To  take  it  at  God's  value,  but  pass  by 
The  offered  wealth  with  unrewarded  eye. 

Thou  art  my  tropics  and  mine  Italy; 
To  look  at  thee  unlocks  a  warmer  clime; 

The  eyes  thou  givest  me 
Are  in  the  heart,  and   heed  not  space   or 

time: 
Not  in  mid  June   the   golden-cuirassed 

bee 

Feels  a  more   summer-like    warm   ravish 
ment 

In  the  white  lily's  breezy  tent, 
His  fragrant  Sybaris,  than  I,  when  first 
From  the  dark  green  thy  yellow  circles 
burst. 


Then  think  I  of   deep   shadows  on   the 

grass, 
Of  meadows  where  in  sun  the  cattle  graze, 

Where,  as  the  breezes  pass, 
The  gleaming  rushes  lean  a  thousand  ways, 
Of  leaves  that  slumber  in  a  cloudy  mass, 
Or  whiten  in  the  wind,  of  waters  blue 

That  from  the  distance  sparkle  through 
Some  woodland  gap,  and  of  a  sky  above, 
Where  one  white  cloud  like  a  stray  lamb 
doth  move. 

My    childhood's    earliest    thoughts    are 

linked  with  thee; 
The  sight  of  thee   calls   back  the   robin's 

song, 

Who,  from  the  dark  old  tree 
Beside  the  door,  sang  clearly  all  day  long, 

And  I,  secure  in  childish  piety, 
Listened  as  if  I  heard  an  angel  sing 

With   news   from   heaven,    which    he 

could  bring 

Fresh  every  day  to  my  untainted  ears 
When    birds   and   flowers    and    I    were 
happy  peers. 

How  like  a  prodigal  doth  nature  seem, 
When  thou,  for  all  thy  gold,  so  common  art! 

Thou  teachest  me  to  deem 
More  sacredly  of  every  human  heart, 

Since  each  reflects  in  joy  its  scanty  gleam 
Of  heaven,  and  could  some  wondrous  secret 

show, 

Did  we  but  pay  the  love  we  owe, 
And  with  a  child's  undoubting   wisdom 

look 
On  all  these  living  pages  of  God's  book. 


THE   GHOST-SEER 

This  poem  was  printed  March  8,  1845,  in  the 
Broadway  Journal,  edited  by  C.  F.  Briggs. 
In  a  letter  accompanying1  the  poem  Lowell 
confesses  his  dissatisfaction  with  the  execution 
as  compared  with  the  conception,  and  adds  : 
"  Written  in  the  metre  which  I  have  chosen  it 
is  perhaps  too  long1,  but  the  plot  would  have 
sufficed  for  quite  a  long1  and  elaborate  poem, 
into  which  a  good  deal  of  reflection  and  ex 
perience  might  have  been  compressed." 

YE  who,  passing  graves  by  night, 
Glance  not  to  the  left  or  right, 
Lest  a  spirit  should  arise, 
Cold  and  white,  to  freeze  your  eyes, 


MISCELLANEOUS    POEMS 


Some  weak  phautorn,  which  your  doubt 
Shapes  upon  the  dark  without 
From  the  dark  within,  a  guess 
At  the  spirit's  deathlessuess, 
Which  ye  entertain  with  fear 
In  you/ self-built  dungeon  here, 
Where  ye  sell  your  God-given  lives 
Just  for  gold  to  buy  you  gyves,  — 
Ye  without  a  shudder  meet 
In  the  city's  noonday  street, 
Spirits  sadder  and  more  dread 
Than  from  out  the  clay  have  fled, 
Buried,  beyond  hope  of  light, 
In  the  body's  haunted  night ! 
See  ye  not  that  woman  pale  ? 
There  are  bloodhounds  on  her  trail  ! 
Bloodhounds  two,  all  gaunt  and  lean, 
(For  the  soul  their  scent  is  keen,) 
Want  and  Sin,  and  Sin  is  last, 
They  have  followed  far  and  fast; 
Want  gave  tongue,  and,  at  her  howl, 
Sin  awakened  with  a  growl. 
Ah,  poor  girl  !  she  had  a  right 
To  a  blessing  from  the  light; 
Title-deeds  to  sky  and  earth 
God  gave  to  her  at  her  birth; 
But,  before  they  were  enjoyed, 
Poverty  had  made  them  void, 
And  had  drunk  the  sunshine  up 
From  all  nature's  ample  cup, 
Leaving  her  a  first-born's  share 
In  the  dregs  of  darkness  there. 
Often,  on  the  sidewalk  bleak, 
Hungry,  all  alone,  and  weak, 
She  has  seen,  in  night  and  storm, 
Rooms  o'erflow  with  firelight  warm, 
Which,  outside  the  window-glass, 
Doubled  all  the  cold,  alas  ! 
Till  each  ray  that  on  her  fell 
Stabbed  her  like  an  icicle, 
And  she  almost  loved  the  wail 
Of  the  bloodhounds  on  her  trail. 
Till  the  floor  becomes  her  bier, 
She  shall  feel  their  pantings  near, 
Close  upon  her  very  heels, 
Spite  of  all  the  din  of  wheels; 
Shivering  on  her  pallet  poor, 
She  shall  hear  them  at  the  door 
Whine  and  scratch  to  be  let  in, 
Sister  bloodhounds,  Want  and  Sin  ! 

Hark  !  that  rustle  of  a  dress, 

Stiff  with  lavish  costliness  ! 

Here  comes  one  whose  cheek  would  flush 

But  to  have  her  garment  brush 


'Gainst  the  girl  whose  fingers  thin 

Wove  the  weary  broidery  in, 

Bending  backward  from  her  toil, 

Lest  her  tears  the  silk  might  soil, 

And,  in  midnights  chill  and  murk, 

Stitched  her  life  into  the  work, 

Shaping  from  her  bitter  thought 

Heart's-ease  and  forget-me-not, 

Satirizing  her  despair 

With  the  emblems  woven  there. 

Little  doth  the  wearer  heed 

Of  the  heart-break  in  the  brede; 

A  hyena  by  her  side 

Skulks,  down-looking,  —  it  is  Pride. 

He  digs  for  her  in  the  earth, 

Where  lie  all  her  claims  of  birth, 

With  his  foul  paws  rooting  o'er 

Some  long-buried  ancestor, 

Who  perhaps  a  statue  won 

By  the  ill  deeds  he  had  done, 

By  the  innocent  blood  he  shed, 

By  the  desolation  spread 

Over  happy  villages, 

Blotting  out  the  smile  of  peace. 

There  walks  Judas,  he  who  sold 

Yesterday  his  Lord  for  gold, 

Sold  God's  presence  in  his  heart 

For  a  proud  step  in  the  mart; 

He  hath  dealt  in  flesh  and  blood; 

At  the  bank  his  name  is  good; 

At  the  bank,  and  only  there, 

'T  is  a  marketable  ware. 

In  his  eyes  that  stealthy  gleam 

Was  not  learned  of  sky  or  stream, 

But  it  has  the  cold,  hard  glint 

Of  new  dollars  from  the  mint. 

Open  now  your  spirit's  eyes, 

Look  through  that  poor  clay  disguise 

Which  has  thickened,  day  by  day, 

Till  it  keeps  all  light  at  bay, 

And  his  soul  in  pitchy  gloom 

Gropes  about  its  narrow  tomb, 

From  whose  dank  and  slimy  walls 

Drop  by  drop  the  horror  falls. 

Look  !  a  serpent  lank  and  cold 

Hugs  his  spirit  fold  on  fold; 

From  his  heart,  all  day  and  night, 

It  doth  suck  God's  blessed  light. 

Drink  it  will,  and  drink  it  must, 

Till  the  cup  holds  naught  but  dust; 

All  day  long  he  hears  it  hiss, 

Writhing  in  its  fiendish  bliss; 

All  night  long  he  sees  its  eyes 

Flicker  with  foul  ecstasies, 

As  the  spirit  ebbs  away 


STUDIES   FOR   TWO    HEADS 


Into  the  absorbing  clay. 

Who  is  he  that  skulks,  afraid 

Of  the  trust  he  has  betrayed, 

Shuddering  if  perchance  a  gleam 

Of  old  nobleness  should  stream 

Through  the  pent,  unwholesome  room, 

Where  his  shrunk  soul  cowers  in  gloom, 

Spirit  sad  beyond  the  rest 

By  more  instinct  for  the  best  ? 

'T  is  a  poet  who  was  sent 

For  a  bad  world's  punishment, 

By  compelling  it  to  see 

Golden  glimpses  of  To  Be, 

By  compelling  it  to  hear 

Songs  that  prove  the  angels  near; 

Who  was  sent  to  be  the  tongue 

Of  the  weak  and  spirit-wrung, 

Whence  the  fiery-winged  Despair 

In  men's  shrinking  eyes  might  flare. 

'T  is  our  hope  doth  fashion  us 

To  base  use  or  glorious: 

He  who  might  have  been  a  lark 

Of  Truth's  morning,  from  the  dark 

Raining  down  melodious  hope 

Of  a  freer,  broader  scope, 

Aspirations,  prophecies, 

Of  the  spirit's  full  sunrise, 

Chose  to  be  a  bird  of  night, 

That,  with  eyes  refusing  light, 

Hooted  from  some  hollow  tree 

Of  the  world's  idolatry. 

'T  is  his  punishment  to  hear 

•Sweep  of  eager  pinions  near, 

And  his  own  vain  wings  to  feel 

Drooping  downward  to  his  heel, 

All  their  grace  and  import  lost, 

Burdening  his  weary  ghost: 

Ever  walking  by  his  side 

He  must  see  his  angel  guide, 

Who  at  intervals  doth  turn 

Looks  on  him  so  sadly  stern, 

With  such  ever-new  surprise 

Of  hushed  anguish  in  her  eyes, 

That  it  seems  the  light  of  day 

From  around  him  shrinks  away, 

Or  drops  blunted  from  the  wall 

Built  around  him  by  his  fall. 

Then  the  mountains,  whose  white  peaks 

Catch  the  morning's  earliest  streaks, 

He  must  see,  where  prophets  sit, 

Turning  east  their  faces  lit, 

Whence,  with  footsteps  beautiful, 

To  the  earth,  yet  dim  and  dull, 

They  the  gladsome  tidings  bring 

Of  the  sunlight's  hastening: 


Never  can  these  hills  of  bliss 
Be  o'erclimbed  by  feet  like  his  ! 

But  enough  !     Oh,  do  not  dare 
From  the  next  the  veil  to  tear, 
Woven  of  station,  trade,  or  dress, 
More  obscene  than  nakedness, 
Wherewith  plausible  culture  drapes 
Fallen  Nature's  myriad  shapes  ! 
Let  us  rather  love  to  mark 
How  the  unextinguished  spark 
Still  gleams  through  the  thin  disguise 
Of  our  customs,  pomps,  and  lies, 
And,  not  seldom  blown  to  flame, 
Vindicates  its  ancient  claim. 


STUDIES    FOR   TWO   HEADS 

The  second  of  these  studies  was  from  A. 
Bronson  Alcott.  See  Letters  II.  349,  where 
Lowell  has  something  to  say  of  the  ease  with 
which  he  wrote  at  the  time  of  this  poem,  i.  e. 
before  1850.  He  was  under  an  engagement 
at  this  time  to  write  constantly  for  the  Anti- 
Slavery  Standard,  and  he  threw  off  many 
poems  as  part  of  the  fulfilment  of  his  engage 
ment.  The  spur  to  activity  came  when  his 
own  mind  was  fertile,  and  some  of  his  best 
known  and  most  spontaneous  work  appeared 
at  this  time. 


SOME  sort  of  heart  I  know  is  hers,  — 
I  chanced  to  feel  her  pulse  one  night; 

A  brain  she  has  that  never  errs, 
And  yet  is  never  nobly  right; 

It  does  not  leap  to  great  results, 
But,  in  some  corner  out  of  sight, 
Suspects  a  spot  of  latent  blight, 
And,  o'er  the  impatient  infinite, 

She  bargains,  haggles,  and  consults. 

Her  eye,  —  it  seems  a  chemic  test 

And  drops  upon  you  like  an  acid; 
It  bites  you  with  unconscious  zest, 

So  clear  and  bright,  so  coldly  placid; 
It  holds  you  quietly  aloof, 

It  holds,  —  and  yet  it  does  not  win  you  j 
It  merely  puts  you  to  the  proof 

And  sorts  what  qualities  are  in  you; 
It  smiles,  but  never  brings  you  nearer, 

It  lights,  —  her  nature  draws  not  nigh; 
'T  is  but  that  yours  is  growing  clearer 

To  her  assays;  —  yes,  try  and  try, 

You  '11  get  no  deeper  than  her  eye. 


86 


MISCELLANEOUS    POEMS 


There,  you  are  classified:  she  's  gone 

Far,  far  away  into  herself; 
Each  with  its  Latin  label  on, 
Your  poor  components,  one  by  one, 

Are  laid  upon  their  proper  shelf 
In  her  compact  and  ordered  mind, 
And  what  of  you  is  left  behind 
Is  no  more  to  her  than  the  wind; 
In  that  clear  brain,  which,  day  and  night, 

No  movement  of  the  heart  e'er  jostles, 
Her  friends  are  ranged  on  left  and  right,  — 
Here,  silex,  hornblende,  sienite; 

There,  animal  remains  and  fossils. 

And  yet,  O  subtile  analyst, 

That  canst  each  property  detect 

Of  mood  or  grain,  that  canst  untwist 
Each  tangled  skein  of  intellect, 

And  with  thy  scalpel  eyes  lay  bare 

Each  mental  nerve  more  fine  than  air,  — 
O  brain  exact,  that  in  thy  scales 

Canst  weigh  the  sun  and  never  err, 
For  once  thy  patient  science  fails, 
One  problem  still  defies  thy  art;  — 

Thou  never  canst  compute  for  her 

The  distance  and  diameter 
Of  any  simple  human  heart. 


Hear  him  but  speak,  and  you  will  feel 
The  shadows  of  the  Portico 

Over  your  tranquil  spirit  steal, 
To  modulate  all  joy  and  woe 
To  one  subdued,  subduing  glow; 

Above  our  squabbling  business-hours, 

Like  Phidian  Jove's,  his  beauty  lowers, 

His  nature  satirizes  ours; 

A  form  and  front  of  Attic  grace, 

He  shames  the  higgling  market-place, 

And  dwarfs  our  more  mechanic  powers. 

What  throbbing  verse  can  fitly  render 
That  face  so  pure,  so  trembling-tender  ? 

Sensation  glimmers  through  its  rest, 
It  speaks  unmanacled  by  words, 

As  full  of  motion  as  a  nest 
That  palpitates  with  unfledged  birds; 

'T  is  likest  to  Bethesda's  stream, 
Forewarned  through  all  its  thrilling  springs, 

White  with  the  angel's  coming  gleam, 
And  rippled  with  his  fanning  wings. 

Hear  him  unfold  his  plots  and  plans, 
And  larger  destinies  seem  man's  ; 
You  conjure  from  his  glowing  face 


The  omen  of  a  fairer  race ; 

With  one  grand  trope  he  boldly  spans 

The  gulf  wherein  so  many  fall, 

'Twixt  possible  and  actual; 
His  first  swift  word,  talaria-shod, 
Exuberant  with  conscious  God, 
Out  of  the  choir  of  planets  blots 
The  present  earth  with  all  its  spots. 

Himself  unshaken  as  the  sky, 

His  words,  like  whirlwinds,  spin  on  high 

Systems  and  creeds  pellmell  together; 
'T  is  strange  as  to  a  deaf  man's  eye, 
While  trees  uprooted  splinter  by, 

The  dumb  turmoil  of  stormy  weather; 

Less  of  iconoclast  than  shaper, 
His  spirit,  safe  behind  the  reach 
Of  the  tornado  of  his  speech, 

Burns  calmly  as  a  glowworm's  taper. 

So  great  in  speech,  but,  ah  !  in  act 

So  overrun  with  vermin  troubles, 
The  coarse,  sharp-cornered,  ugly  fact 

Of  life  collapses  all  his  bubbles: 
Had  he  but  lived  in  Plato's  day, 

He  might,  unless  my  fancy  errs, 
Have  shared  that  golden  voice's  sway 

O'er  barefooted  philosophers. 
Our  nipping  climate  hardly  suits 
The  ripening  of  ideal  fruits: 
His  theories  vanquish  us  all  summer, 
But  winter  makes  him  dumb  and  dumber:, 
To  see  him  mid  life's  needful  things 

Is  something  painfully  bewildering; 
He  seems  an  angel  with  dipt  wings 

Tied  to  a  mortal  wife  and  children, 
And  by  a  brother  seraph  taken 
In  the  act  of  eating  eggs  and  bacon. 
Like  a  clear  fountain,  his  desire 

Exults  and  leaps  toward  the  light, 
In  every  drop  it  says  "  Aspire  ! " 

Striving  for  more  ideal  height; 
And  as  the  fountain,  falling  thence, 

Crawls  baffled  through  the  common  gut 
ter, 

So,  from  his  speech's  eminence, 
He  shrinks  into  the  present  tense, 

Unkinged  by  foolish  bread  and  butter. 

Yet  smile  not,  worldling,  for  in  deeds 
Not  all  of  life  that 's  brave  and  wise  is; 

He  strews  an  ampler  future's  seeds, 
'T  is  your  fault  if  no  harvest  rises; 

Smooth  back  the  sneer;    for  is  it  naught 
That  all  he  is  and  has  is  Beauty's  ? 


ON  THE  DEATH   OF  A  FRIEND'S   CHILD 


By  soul  the  soul's  gains  must  be  wrought, 
The  Actual  claims  our  coarser  thought, 
The  Ideal  hath  its  higher  duties. 


ON   A   PORTRAIT   OF   DANTE 
BY   GIOTTO 

CAN  this  be  thou  who,  lean  and  pale, 

With  such  immitigable  eye 
Didst  look   upon  those  writhing  souls   in 
bale, 

And  note  each  vengeance,  and  pass  by 
Unmoved,  save  when  thy  heart  by  chance 
Cast  backward  one  forbidden  glance, 

And  saw  Francesca,  with  child's  glee, 

Subdue  and  mount  thy  wild-horse  knee 
And  with   proud   hands   control   its   fiery 
prance  ? 

With  half-drooped  lids,  and  smooth,  round 
brow, 

And  eye  remote,  that  inly  sees 
Fair  Beatrice's  spirit  wandering  now 

In  some  sea-lulled  Hesperides, 
Thou  movest  through  the  jarring  street, 
Secluded  from  the  noise  of  feet 

By  her  gift-blossom  in  thy  hand, 

Thy  branch  of  palm  from  Holy  Land;  — 
No  trace  is  here  of  ruin's  fiery  sleet. 

Yet  there  is  something  round  thy  lips 
That  prophesies  the  coming  doom, 

The    soft,    gray   herald-shadow    ere    the 

eclipse 
Notches  the  perfect  disk  with  gloom; 

A  something  that  would  banish  thee, 

And  thine  untamed  pursuer  be, 

From  men  and  their  unworthy  fates, 
Though  Florence  had  not  shut  her  gates, 

And  Grief  had  loosed  her  clutch  and  let 
thee  free. 

Ah  !  he  who  follows  fearlessly 

The  beckonings  of  a  poet-heart 
Shall  wander,  and  without  the  world's  de 
cree, 

A  banished  man  in  field  and  mart; 
Harder  than  Florence'  walls  the  bar 
Which  with  deaf  sternness  holds  him  far 
From  home  and  friends,  till  death's  re 
lease, 

And  makes  his  only  prayer  for  peace, 
Like  thine,  scarred  veteran  of  a  lifelong 
war  -! 


ON    THE    DEATH    OF    A 
FRIEND'S   CHILD 

This  poem  was  printed  in  the  Democratic 
Review,  October,  1844,  and  the  friend  was 
doubtless  C.  F.  Briggs.  See  the  letter  of  con 
solation  addressed  to  him  in  August,  Letters  I. 
78-81. 

DEATH  never  came  so  nigh  to  me  before, 
Nor  showed  me  his  mild  face :  oft  had  I 

mused 

Of  calm  and  peace  and  safe  forgetfulness, 
Of  folded  hands,  closed  eyes,  and  heart  at 

rest, 

And  slumber  sound  beneath  a  flowery  turf, 
Of  faults  forgotten,  and  an  inner  place 
Kept  sacred  for  us  in  the  heart  of  friends ; 
But  these  were  idle  fancies,  satisfied 
With  the  mere  husk  of  this  great  mystery, 
And    dwelling   in    the   outward   shows  of 

things. 
Heaven  is   not   mounted   to   on   wings  of 

dreams, 
Nor   doth     the    unthankful    happiness   of 

youth 
Aim  thitherward,  but  floats  from  bloom  to 

bloom, 
With  earth's  warm  patch  of  sunshine  well 

content: 

'T  is  sorrow  builds  the  shining  ladder  up, 
Whose  golden  rounds  are  our  calamities, 
Whereon  our  firm  feet  planting,  nearer 

God 

The  spirit  climbs,  and  hath  its  eyes  un 
sealed. 

True  is  it  that  Death's  face  seems   stern 

and  cold, 

When  he  is  sent  to  summon  those  we  love, 
But  all  God's  angels  come  to  us  disguised; 
Sorrow  and  sickness,  poverty  and  death, 
One  after  other  lift  their  frowning  masks, 
And  we  behold  the  seraph's  face  beneath, 
All  radiant  with  the  glory  and  the  calm 
Of  having  looked  upon  the  front  of  God. 
With  every  anguish  of  our  earthly  part 
The  spirit's  sight  grows  clearer;  this  was 

meant 
When  Jesus  touched  the  blind  man's  lids 

with  clay. 

Life  is  the  jailer,  Death  the  angel  sent 
To  draw  the  unwilling  bolts  and  set  us  free. 
He  flings  not  ope  the  ivory  gate  of  Rest,  — 
Only  the  fallen  spirit  knocks  at  that,  — 


88 


MISCELLANEOUS    POEMS 


But  to  benigner  regions  beckons  us, 

To  destinies  of  more  rewarded  toil. 

In  the  hushed  chamber,  sitting  by  the  dead, 

It  grates  on  us  to  hear  the  flood  of  life 

Whirl   rustling  onward,  senseless   of  our 

loss. 
The  bee  hums  on;  around  the  blossomed 

vine 
Whirs  the  light  humming-bird;  the  cricket 

chirps; 

The  locust's  shrill  alarum  stings  the  ear; 
Hard  by,  the  cock  shouts  lustily;  from 

farm  to  farm, 

His  cheery  brothers,  telling  of  the  sun, 
Answer,  till  far  away  the  joyauce  dies: 
We  never  knew  before  how  God  had  filled 
The  summer  air  with  happy  living  sounds; 
All  round  us  seems  an  overplus  of  life, 
And  yet  the  one  dear  heart  lies  cold  and 

still. 

It  is  most  strange,  when  the  great  miracle 
Hath  for  our  sakes  been  done,  when  we 

have  had 

Our  inwardest  experience  of  God, 
When  with  his  presence  still  the  room  ex 
pands, 
And   is  awed  after    him,  that   naught   is 

changed, 

That  Nature's  face  looks  unacknowledging, 
And  the  mad  world  still  dances  heedless  on 
After  its  butterflies,  and  gives  no  sign. 
'T  is  hard  at  first  to  see  it  all  aright: 
In  vain  Faith  blows  her  trump  to  summon 

back 
Her    scattered    troop:    yet,    through    the 

clouded  glass 

Of  our  own  bitter  tears,  we  learn  to  look 
Undazzled  on  the  kindness  of  God's  face; 
Earth  is  too  dark,  and  Heaven  alone  shines 

through. 

It  is  no  little  thing,  when  a  fresh  soul 
And  a  fresh  heart,  with  their  unmeasured 

scope 

For  good,  not  gravitating  earthward  yet, 
But  circling  in  diviner  periods, 
Are  sent  into  the  world,  —  no  little  thing, 
When  this  unbounded  possibility 
Into  the  outer  silence  is  withdrawn. 
Ah,  in   this    world,    where   every   guiding 

thread 
Ends    suddenly   in   the    one    sure   centre, 

death, 

The  visionary  hand  of  Might-have-been 
Alone  can  fill  Desire's  cup  to  the  brim  ! 


How  changed,  dear  friend,  are  thy  part  and 

thy  child's  ! 

He  bends  above  thy  cradle  now,  or  holds 
His  warning  finger  out  to  be  thy  guide ; 
Thou  art  the   nursling   now;    he   watches 

thee 

Slow  learning,  one  by  one,  the  secret  things 
Which  are  to  him  used  sights  of  everyday; 
He  smiles  to  see  thy  wondering  glances 

con 

The  grass  and  pebbles  of  the  spirit-world, 
To  thee  miraculous;  and  he  will  teach 
Thy  knees  their  due  observances  of  prayer. 
Children  are  God's  apostles,  day  by  day 
Sent  forth  to  preach  of  love,  and  hope,  and 

peace ; 

Nor  hath  thy  babe  his  mission  left  undone. 
To  me,  at  least,  his  going  hence  hath  given 
Serener  thoughts  and  nearer  to  the  skies, 
And  opened  a  new  fountain  in  my  heart 
For  thee,  my  friend,   and  all:  and   oh,  if 

Death 

More  near  approaches  meditates,  and  clasps 
Even  now  some  dearer,  more  reluctant 

hand, 
God,  strengthen  thou  my  faith,  that  I  may 

see 
That  't  is  thine   angel,  who,  with   loving 

haste, 

Unto  the  service  of  the  inner  shrine, 
Doth  waken  thy  beloved  with  a  kiss. 


EURYDICE 

HEAVEN'S  cup  held  down  to  me  I  drain, 
The  sunshine  mounts  and  spurs  my  brain; 
Bathing  in  grass,  with  thirsty  eye 
I  suck  the  last  drop  of  the  sky; 
With  each  hot  sense  I  draw  to  the  lees 
The  quickening  out-door  influences, 
And  empty  to  each  radiant  comer 
A  supernaculum  of  summer: 
Not,  Bacchus,  all  thy  grosser  juice 
Could  bring  enchantment  so  profuse, 
Though  for  its  press  each  grape-bunch  had 
The  white  feet  of  an  Oread. 

Through  our   coarse   art  gleam,  now  and 

then, 

The  features  of  angelic  men: 
'Neath  the  lewd  Satyr's  veiling  paint 
Glows  forth  the  Sibyl,  Muse,  or  Saint; 
The  dauber's  botch  no  more  obscures 
The  mighty  master's  portraitures. 


THE   CHANGELING 


89 


And  who  can  say  what  luckier  beam 
The  hidden  glory  shall  redeem, 
For  what  chance  clod  the  soul  may  wait 
To  stumble  on  its  nobler  fate, 
Or  why,  to  his  unwarned  abode, 
Still  by  surprises  comes  the  God  ? 
Some  moment,  nailed  on  sorrow's  cross, 
May  mediate  a  whole  youth's  loss, 
Some  windfall  joy,  we  know  not  whence, 
Kedeem  a  lifetime's  rash  expense, 
And,  suddenly  wise,  the  soul  may  mark, 
Stripped  of  their  simulated  dark, 
Mountains  of  gold  that  pierce  the  sky, 
Girdling  its  valley ed  poverty. 

I  feel  ye,  childhood's  hopes,  return, 
With  olden  heats  my  pulses  burn,  — 
Mine  be  the  self-forgetting  sweep, 
The  torrent  impulse  swift  and  wild, 
Wherewith  Taghkanic's  rockborn  child 
Dares  gloriously  the  dangerous  leap, 
And,  in  his  sky-descended  mood, 
Transmutes  each  drop  of  sluggish  blood, 
By  touch  of  bravery's  simple  wand, 
To  amethyst  and  diamond, 
Proving  himself  no  bastard  slip, 
But  the  true  granite-cradled  one, 
Nursed  with  the  rock's  primeval  drip, 
The  cloud-embracing  mountain's  son  ! 

Prayer  breathed  in  vain  !  no  wish's  sway 

Rebuilds  the  vanished  yesterday; 

For  plated  wares  of  Sheffield  stamp 

We  gave  the  old  Aladdin's  lamp; 

'T  is  we  are  changed;  ah,  whither  went 

That  undesigned  abandonment, 

That  wise,  unquestioning  content, 

Which  could  erect  its  microcosm 

Out  of  a  weed's  neglected  blossom, 

Could  call  up  Arthur  and  his  peers 

By  a  low  moss's  clump  of  spears, 

Or,  in  its  shingle  trireme  launched, 

Where     Charles     in     some     green     inlet 

branched, 

Could  venture  for  the  golden  fleece 
And  dragon-watched  Hesperides, 
Or,  from  its  ripple-shattered  fate, 
Ulysses'  chances  re-create  ? 
When,  heralding  life's  every  phase, 
There  glowed  a  goddess-veiling  haze, 
A  plenteous,  forewarning  grace, 
Like  that  more  tender  dawn  that  flies 
Before  the  full  moon's  ample  rise  ? 
Methinks  thy  parting  glory  shines 
Through  yonder  grove  of  singing  pines; 


At  that  elm-vista's  end  I  trace 
Dimly  thy  sad  leave-taking  face, 
Eurydice  !  Eurydice  ! 
The  tremulous  leaves  repeat  to  me 
Eurydice  !  Eurydice  ! 
No  gloomier  Orcus  swallows  thee 
Than  the  unclouded  sunset's  glow; 
Thine  is  at  least  Elysian  woe ; 
Thou  hast  Good's  natural  decay, 
And  fadest  like  a  star  away 
Into  an  atmosphere  whose  shine 
With  fuller  day  o'ermasters  thine, 
Entering  defeat  as  't  were  a  shrine; 
For  us,  —  we  turn  life's  diary  o'er 
To  find  but  one  word,  —  Nevermore. 


SHE    CAME   AND   WENT 

As  a  twig  trembles,  which  a  bird 

Lights  on  to  sing,  then  leaves  unbent, 

So  is  my  memory  thrilled  and  stirred;  — 
I  only  know  she  came  and  went. 

As  clasps  some  lake,  by  gusts  unriven, 
The  blue  dome's  measureless  content, 

So  my  soul  held  that  moment's  heaven;  — 
I  only  know  she  came  and  went. 

As,  at  one  bound,  our  swift  spring  heaps 
The  orchards  full  of  bloom  and  scent, 

So  clove  her  May  my  wintry  sleeps ;  — 
I  only  know  she  came  and  went. 

An  angel  stood  and  met  my  gaze, 

Through  the  low  doorway  of  my  tent; 

The  tent  is  struck,  the  vision  stays;  — 
I  only  know  she  came  and  went. 

Oh,  when  the  room  grows  slowly  dim, 
And  life's  last  oil  is  nearly  spent, 

One  gush  of  light  these  eyes  will  brim, 
Only  to  think  she  came  and  went. 


THE   CHANGELING 

I  HAD  a  little  daughter, 

And  she  was  given  to  me 
To  lead  me  gently  backward 

To  the  Heavenly  Father's  knee, 
That  I,  by  the  force  of  nature, 

Might  in  some  dim  wise  divine 
The  depth  of  his  infinite  patience 

To  this  wayward  soul  of  mine. 


9° 


MISCELLANEOUS    POEMS 


I  know  not  how  others  saw  her, 

But  to  me  she  was  wholly  fair, 
And  the  light  of  the  heaven  she  came  from 

Still  lingered  and  gleamed  in  her  hair; 
For  it  was  as  wavy  and  golden, 

And  as  many  changes  took, 
As  the  shadows  of  sun-gilt  ripples 

On  the  yellow  bed  of  a  brook. 

To  what  can  I  liken  her  smiling 

Upon  me,  her  kneeling  lover, 
How  it  leaped  from  her  lips  to  her  eye 
lids, 

And  dimpled  her  wholly  over, 
Till  her  outstretched  hands  smiled  also, 

And  I  almost  seemed  to  see 
The  very  heart  of  her  mother 

Sending  sun  through  her  veins  to  me  ! 

She   had    been  with  us  scarce    a  twelve 
month, 

And  it  hardly  seemed  a  day, 
When  a  troop  of  wandering  angels 

Stole  my  little  daughter  away; 
Or  perhaps  those  heavenly  Zingari 

But  loosed  the  hampering  strings, 
And  when  they  had  opened  her  cage-door, 

My  little  bird  used  her  wings. 

But  they  left  in  her  stead  a  changeling, 

A  little  angel  child, 
That  seems  like  her  bud  in  full  blossom, 

And  smiles  as  she  never  smiled: 
When  I  wake  in  the  morning,  I  see  it 

Where  she  always  used  to  lie, 
And  I  feel  as  weak  as  a  violet 

Alone  'neath  the  awful  sky. 

As  weak,  yet  as  trustful  also; 

For  the  whole  year  long  I  see 
All  the  wonders  of  faithful  Nature 

Still  worked  for  the  love  of  me; 
Winds  wander,  and  dews  drip  earthward, 

Rain  falls,  suns  rise  and  set, 
Earth  whirls,  and  all  but  to  prosper 

A  poor  little  violet. 

This  child  is  not  mine  as  the  first  was, 

I  cannot  sing  it  to  rest, 
I  cannot  lift  it  up  fatherly 

And  bliss  it  upon  my  breast: 
Yet  it  lies  in  my  little  one's  cradle 

And  sits  in  my  little  one's  chair, 

the  light  of  the  heaven  she  's  gone  to 

Transfigures  its  golden  hair. 


THE    PIONEER 

WHAT  man  would    live   coffined    with 

brick  and  stone, 
Imprisoned  from  the  healing  touch  of 

air, 
And  cramped  with  selfish  landmarks 

everywhere, 
When  all  before  him  stretches,  furrowless 

and  lone, 

The  unmapped  prairie  none  can  fence  or 
own  ? 

What  man  would  read  and  read  the  self 
same  faces, 

And,  like  the  marbles  which  the  wind 
mill  grinds, 
Rub   smooth  forever   with   the   same 

smooth  minds, 
This    year    retracing    last    year's,   every 

year's,  dull  traces, 

When  there  are  woods  and  un-penfolded 
spaces  ? 

What  man  o'er  one  old  thought  would 

pore  and  pore, 
Shut  like  a  book  between  its  covers 

thin 
For  every  fool  to  leave  his  dog's-ears 

in, 

When  solitude  is  his,  and  God  forevermore, 
Just  for  the  opening  of  a  paltry  door  ? 

What    man    would    watch    life's     oozy 

element 
Creep    Letheward    forever,    when   he 

might 
Down  some  great  river  drift  beyond 

men's  sight, 
To  where  the   undethroned  forest's   royal 

tent 

Broods  with  its  hush  o'er  half  a  conti 
nent  ? 

What  man  with  men  would  push  and  al 
tercate, 
Piecing  out  crooked  means  to  crooked 

ends, 
When  he  can  have  the  skies  and  woods 

for  friends, 
Snatch  back  the  rudder  of  his  undismantled 

fate, 

And  in  himself  be   ruler,   church,   and 
state  ? 


ODE   TO    FRANCE 


Cast  leaves  and  feathers  rot  in  last  year's 

nest, 
The  winged  brood,  flown  thence,  new 

dwellings  plan; 

The  serf  of  his  own  Past  is  not  a  man; 
To  change  and  change  is  life,  to  move  and 

never  rest;  — 

Not  what  we  are,  but  what  we  hope,  is 
best. 

The  wild,  free  woods  make  no  man  halt 

or  blind; 
Cities  rob  men  of  eyes  and  hands  and 

feet, 

Patching  one  whole  of  many  incom 
plete  ; 
The    general   preys   upon    the    individual 

mind, 
And  each  alone  is  helpless  as  the  wind. 

Each  man  is  some  man's  servant;  every 

soul 

Is  by  some  other's  presence  quite  dis 
crowned; 
Each   owes   the  next  through   all  the 

imperfect  round, 
Yet  not  with  mutual  help;  each  man  is  his 

own  goal, 

And  the  whole  earth  must  stop  to  pay 
him  toll. 

Here,   life   the    undiminished    man   de 
mands  ; 

New  faculties  stretch  out  to  meet  new 
wants ; 

What  Nature  asks,  that  Nature  also 

grants; 

Here  man  is  lord,  not  drudge,  of  eyes  and 
feet  and  hands, 

And  to  his   life   is   knit   with   hourly 
bands. 

Come  out,  then,  from   the  old  thoughts 

and  old  ways, 

Before  you  harden  to  a  crystal  cold 
Which   the  new  life  can  shatter,  but 

not  mould; 
Freedom  for  you  still  waits,  still,  looking 

backward,  stays, 
But  widens  still  the  irretrievable  space. 

LONGING 

OF  all  the  myriad  moods  of  mind 

That  through  the  soul  come  thronging, 


Which  one  was  e'er  so  dear,  so  kind, 

So  beautiful  as  Longing  ? 
The  thing  we  long  for,  that  we  are 

For  one  transcendent  moment, 
Before  the  Present  poor  and  bare 

Can  make  its  sneering  comment. 

Still,  through  our  paltry  stir  and  strife, 

Glows  down  the  wished  Ideal, 
And  Longing  moulds  in  clay  what  Life 

Carves  in  the  marble  Real; 
To  let  the  new  life  in,  we  know, 

Desire  must  ope  the  portal; 
Perhaps  the  longing  to  be  so 

Helps  make  the  soul  immortal. 

Longing  is  God's  fresh  heavenward  will 

With  our  poor  earthward  striving; 
We  quench  it  that  we  may  be  still 

Content  with  merely  living; 
But,  would  we  learn  that  heart's  full  scope 

Which  we  are  hourly  wronging, 
Our  lives  must  climb  from  hope  to  hope 

And  realize  our  longing. 

Ah  !  let  us  hope  that  to  our  praise 

Good  God  not  only  reckons 
The  moments  when  we  tread  his  ways, 

But  when  the  spirit  beckons,  — 
That  some  slight  good  is  also  wrought 

Beyond  self-satisfaction, 
When  we  are  simply  good  in  thought, 

Howe'er  we  fail  in  action. 


ODE   TO   FRANCE 

FEBRUARY,    1848 

I 

As,  flake  by  flake,  the  beetling  avalanches 
Build  up  their  imminent  crags  of  noise 
less  snow, 
Till  some  chance  thrill  the  loosened  ruin 

launches 

In  unwarned  havoc  on  the  roofs  below, 
So  grew  and  gathered  through  the   silent 

years 
The   madness   of    a   People,   wrong  by 

wrong. 
There  seemed   no   strength   in   the   dumb 

toiler's  tears, 
No  strength  in  suffering;  but  the    Past 

was  strong: 
The  brute  despair  of  trampled  centuries 


MISCELLANEOUS    POEMS 


Leaped    up   with   one   hoarse    yell   and 

snapped  its  bands, 
Groped  for  its  right  with  horny,  callous 

hands, 
And  stared  around  for  God  with  bloodshot 

eyes. 
What  wonder  if  those  palms  were  all  too 

hard 
For    nice    distinctions,  —  if    that    maenad 

throng  — 

They  whose  thick  atmosphere  no  bard 
Had   shivered    with   the   lightning   of   his 

song, 
Brutes  with  the  memories  and  desires  of 

men, 
Whose   chronicles   were   writ  with  iron 

pen, 

In  the  crooked  shoulder  and  the  fore 
head  low, 

Set  wrong  to  balance  wrong, 
And  physicked  woe  with  woe  ? 


They  did  as  they  were  taught;  not  theirs 

the  blame, 
If  men  who  scattered  firebrands  reaped  the 

flame: 

They  trampled  Peace  beneath  their  sav 
age  feet, 

And  by  her  golden  tresses  drew 
Mercy  along  the  pavement  of  the  street. 
O  Freedom  !    Freedom  !   is  thy  morning- 
dew 
So   gory   red  ?     Alas,  thy   light   had 

ne'er 

Shone  in  upon  the  chaos  of  their  lair  ! 
They  reared  to  thee  such  symbol  as  they 

knew, 
And   worshipped   it   with    flame    and 

blood, 

A  Vengeance,  axe  in  hand,  that  stood 
Holding  a  tyrant's  head  up  by  the  clotted 
hair. 

in 

What  wrongs  the  Oppressor  suffered,  these 

we  know; 
These  have  found  piteous  voice  in  song 

and  prose; 
But  for  the  Oppressed,  their  darkness  and 

their  woe, 
Their   grinding  centuries,  —  what  Muse 

had  those  ? 
Though  hall  and  palace  had  nor  eyes  nor 

ears, 


Hardening  a  people's  heart  to  senseless 

stone, 
Thou  knewest  them,  O  Earth,  that  drank 

their  tears, 
O  Heaven,  that  heard  their  inarticulate 

moan  ! 
They   noted   down   their   fetters,   link   by 

link; 
Coarse    was   the  hand  that  scrawled,  and 

red  the  ink; 
Rude  was  their  score,  as  suits  unlettered 

men, 
Notched   with   a  headsman's   axe  upon  a 

block: 
What  marvel  if,  when  came  the  avenging 

shock, 
'T  was  Ate,  not  Urania,  held  the  pen  ? 

IV 

With  eye  averted,  and  an  anguished  frown, 
Loathingly   glides    the     Muse    through 

scenes  of  strife, 
Where,   like  the  heart  of    Vengeance  up 

and  down, 

Throbs   in    its    framework    the   blood- 
muffled  knife; 

Slow  are  the  steps  of  Freedom,  but  her  feet 
Turn   never  backward:  hers   no  bloody 

glare  ; 

Her  light  is  calm,  and  innocent,  and  sweet, 

And  where  it  enters  there  is  no  despair : 

Not  first  on  palace  and  cathedral  spire 

Quivers  and  gleams  that  unconsuming  fire ; 

While  these    stand    black    against   her 

morning  skies, 

The  peasant  sees  it  leap  from  peak  to  peak 
Along  his  hills;  the  craftsman's  burning 

eyes 

Own  with  cool  tears  its  influence  mother- 
meek; 

It  lights  the  poet's  heart  up  like  a  star; 
Ah  !  while    the   tyrant   deemed   it   still 

afar, 
And  twined  with  golden  threads  his  futile 

snare, 
That  swift,    convicting  glow   all   round 

him  ran; 

'T  was  close  beside  him  there, 
Sunrise  whose  Memnon  is  the  soul  of  man. 


0  Broker-King,  is  this  thy  wisdom's  fruit  ? 
A  dynasty  plucked  out  as  't  were  a  weed 
Grown  rankly  in  a  night,  that  leaves  no 
seed  ! 


ODE   TO    FRANCE 


93 


Could  eighteen  years  strike  down  no  deeper 

root? 
But  now  thy  vulture  eye  was  turned  on 

Spain; 
A  shout  from  Paris,  and  thy  crown  falls  off, 

Thy  race  has  ceased  to  reign, 
And  thou  become  a  fugitive  and  scoff: 
Slippery  the  feet  that  mount  by  stairs  of 

gold, 

And  weakest  of  all  fences  one  of  steel ; 
Go  and  keep  school  again  like  him  of 

old, 

The  Syracusan  tyrant;  —  thou  mayst  feel 
Royal  amid  a  birch-swayed  commonweal ! 

VI 

Not  long  can  he  be  ruler  who  allows 

His  time  to  run  before  him;  thou  wast 

naught 

Soon  as  the  strip  of  gold  about  thy  brows 
Was   no  more  emblem  of  the  People's 

thought: 

Vain  were  thy  bayonets  against  the  foe 
Thou  hadst   to   cope    with;    thou   didst 

wage 
War  not  with  Frenchmen  merely;  —  no, 

Thy  strife  was  with  the  Spirit  of  the  Age, 
The  invisible  Spirit  whose  first  breath  di 
vine 

Scattered  thy  frail  endeavor, 
And,  like  poor  last  year's  leaves,  whirled 
thee  and  thine 

Into  the  Dark  forever  ! 

VII 

Is  here  no  triumph  ?     Nay,  what  though 
The    yellow    blood    of    Trade    meanwhile 

should  pour 

Along  its  arteries  a  shrunken  flow, 
And    the   idle   canvas    droop    around    the 
shore  ? 

These  do  not  make  a  state, 
Nor  keep  it  great; 
I  think  God  made 
The  earth  for  man,  not  trade; 
And  where  each  humblest  human  creature 
Can  stand,  no  more  suspicious  or  afraid, 
Erect  and  kingly  in  his  right  of  nature, 
To  heaven  and  earth  knit  with  harmonious 

ties,  — 

Where  I  behold  the  exultation 
Of  manhood  glowing  in  those  eyes 
That  had  been  dark  for  ages, 
Or    only  lit  with    bestial    loves   and 
rages, 


There  I  behold  a  Nation: 

The  France  which  lies 
Between  the  Pyrenees  and  Rhine 

Is  the  least  part  of  France; 
I  see  her  rather  in  the  soul  whose  shine 
Burns    through    the     craftsman's     grimy 

countenance, 
In  the  new  energy  divine 

Of  Toil's  enfranchised  glance. 

VIII 

And  if  it  be  a  dream, 
If  the  great  Future  be  the  little  Past 
'Neath  a  new   mask,    which   drops    and 

shows  at  last 
The  same  weird,  mocking  face  to  balk 

and  blast, 

Yet,  Muse,  a  gladder   measure   suits   the 
theme, 

And  the  Tyrtsean  harp 
Loves  notes  more  resolute  and  sharp, 
Throbbing,  as  throbs  the  bosom,  hot  and 
fast: 

Such  visions  are  of  morning, 
Theirs  is  no  vague  forewarning, 
The  dreams  which  nations  dream  come  true, 
And  shape  the  world  anew; 
If  this  be  a  sleep, 
Make  it  long,  make  it  deep, 
0  Father, who  sendest  the  harvests  men  reap! 
While  Labor  so  sleepeth, 
His  sorrow  is  gone, 
No  longer  he  weepeth, 
But  smileth  and  steepeth 

His  thoughts  in  the  dawn; 
He  heareth  Hope  yonder 

Rain,  lark-like,  her  fancies, 
His  dreaming  hands  wander 

Mid  heart's-ease  and  pansies; 
"  'T  is  a  dream  !     'T  is  a  vision  !  " 

Shrieks  Mammon  aghast; 
"  The  day's  broad  derision 

Will  chase  it  at  last; 
Ye  are  mad,  ye  have  taken 
A  slumbering  kraken 

For  firm  land  of  the  Past !  " 
Ah  !  if  he  awaken, 

God  shield  us  all  then, 

If  this  dream  rudely  shaken 

Shall  cheat  him  again  ! 

IX 

Since  first  I  heard  our  North-wind  blow, 

Since  first  I  saw  Atlantic  throw 

On  our  grim  rocks  his  thunderous  snow, 


94 


MISCELLANEOUS    POEMS 


I  loved  thee,  Freedom;  as  a  boy 
The  rattle  of  thy  shield  at  Marathon 
Did  with  a  Grecian  joy 
Through  all  my  pulses  run; 
But  I  have  learned  to  love  thee  now 
Without  the  helm  upon  thy  gleaming  brow, 

A  maiden  mild  and  undenled 
Like  her  who  bore  the  world's   redeeming 

child; 

And  surely  never  did  thine  altars  glance 
With  purer  fires  than  now  in  France; 
While,  in  their  clear  white  flashes, 
Wrong's  shadow,  backward  cast, 
Waves  cowering  o'er  the  ashes 

Of  the  dead,  blaspheming  Past, 
O'er  the  shapes  of  fallen  giants, 

His  own  unburied  brood, 
Whose  dead  hands  clench  defiance 

At  the  overpowering  Good: 
And  down  the  happy  future  runs  a  flood 

Of  prophesying  light; 
It  shows  an  Earth  no  longer  stained  with 

blood, 

Blossom  and  fruit  where  now  we  see  the  bud 
Of  Brotherhood  and  Right. 

ANTI-APIS 

PRAISEST  Law,  friend  ?     We,  too,  love  it 

much  as  they  that  love  it  best; 
'T  is  the  deep,  august  foundation,  whereon 

Peace  and  Justice  rest; 
On  the  rock  primeval,  hidden  in  the  Past 

its  bases  be, 
Block  by  block  the  endeavoring  Ages  built 

it  up  to  what  we  see. 

But  dig  down:  the  Old  unbury;  thou  shalt 

find  on  every  stone 
That  each  Age  hath  carved  the  symbol  of 

what  god  to  them  was  known, 
Ugly  shapes  and   brutish    sometimes,   but 

the  fairest  that  they  knew; 
If  their  sight  were  dim  and  earthward,  yet 

their  hope  and  aim  were  true. 

Surely  as  the  unconscious  needle  feels  the 

far-off  loadstar  draw, 
So  strives  every  gracious  nature  to  at-one 

itself  with  law; 
And  the  elder  Saints  and  Sages  laid  their 

pious  framework  right 
By  a  theocratic  instinct  covered  from  the 

people's  sight. 


As  their  gods  were,   so   their   laws  were; 

Thor   the    strong   could   reave   and 

steal, 
So  through  many  a  peaceful  inlet  tore  the 

Norseman's  eager  keel; 
But  a  new  law  came   when  Christ   came, 

and  not  blameless,  as  before, 
Can  we,  paying  him  our  lip-tithes,  give  our 

lives  and  faiths  to  Thor. 

Law  is  holy:  ay,  but  what  law  ?     Is  there 

/  nothing  more  divine 

Than  the  patched-up   broils   of   Congress, 

venal,  full  of  meat  and  wine  ? 
Is  there,  say  you,  nothing  higher  ?    Naught, 

God  save  us  !  that  transcends 
Laws   of  cotton  texture,  wove    by  vulgar 

men  for  vulgar  ends  ? 

Did  Jehovah  ask  their  counsel,  or  submit 

to  them  a  plan, 
Ere  he  filled  with  loves,  hopes,  longings, 

this  aspiring  heart  of  man  ? 
For  their  edict  does  the  soul  wait,  ere  it 

swing  round  to  the  pole 
Of  the  true,  the  free,  the   God-willed,  all 

that  makes  it  be  a  soul  ? 

Law  is  holy;  but   not   your  law,   ye    who 

keep  the  tablets  whole 
While  ye  dash  the  Law  to  pieces,  shatter  it 

in  life  and  soul; 
Bearing  up  the  Ark   is  lightsome,  golden 

Apis  hid  within, 
While  we  Levites  share  the  offerings,  richer 

by  the  people's  sin. 

Give  to  Caesar  what  is   Caesar's  ?  yes,  but 

tell  me,  if  you  can, 
Is   this  superscription   Caesar's  here   upon 

our  brother  man  ? 
Is  not  here  some  other's  image,  dark  and 

sullied  though  it  be, 
In  this  fellow-soul  that  worships,  struggles 

Godward  even  as  we  ? 

It  was  not  to  such  a  future  that  the  May 
flower's  prow  was  turned, 

Not  to  such  a  faith  the  martyrs  clung,  ex 
ulting  as  they  burned; 

Not  by  such  laws  are  men  fashioned,  ear 
nest,  simple,  valiant,  great 

In  the  household  virtues  whereon  rests  the 
unconquerable  state. 


A   PARABLE 


95 


Ah  !  there  is  a  higher  gospel,  overhead  the 

God-roof  springs, 
And    each   glad,    obedient    planet    like    a 

golden  shuttle  sings 
Through  the  web  which    Time  is  weaving 

in  his  never-resting  loom, 
Weaving  seasons  many  -  colored,  bringing 

prophecy  to  doom. 

Think  you  Truth  a  farthing  rushlight,  to 

be  pinched  out  when  you  will 
With  your  deft  official  fingers,  and   your 

politicians'  skill  ? 
Is  your  God  a  wooden  fetish,  to  be  hidden 

out  of  sight 
That  his  block  eyes  may  not  see  you  do  the 

thing  that  is  not  right  ? 

But  the    Destinies   think  not   so;  to  their 

judgment-chamber  lone 
Comes  no  noise  of   popular   clamor,  there 

Fame's  trumpet  is  not  blown; 
Your  majorities   they   reck   not;  that  you 

grant,  but  then  you  say 
That  you   differ  with   them  somewhat,  — 

which  is  stronger,  you  or  they  ? 

Patient  are  they  as  the  insects  that  build 

islands  in  the  deep; 
They  hurl  not  the  bolted  thunder,  but  their 

silent  way  they  keep; 
Where    they   have   been    that   we    know; 

where  empires   towered    that   were 

not  just; 
Lo  !  the  skulking  wild  fox  scratches   in  a 

little  heap  of  dust. 

A  PARABLE 

SAID  Christ  our  Lord,  "  I  will  go  and  see 
How  the  men,  my  brethren,  believe  in  me." 
He  passed  not  again  through  the  gate  of 

birth, 
But  made  himself  known  to  the  children  of 

earth. 

Then  said  the  chief  priests,  and  rulers,  and 

kings, 

"Behold,  now,  the  Giver  of  all  good  things; 
Go  to,  let  us  welcome  with  pomp  and  state 
Him  who  alone  is  mighty  and  great." 

With    carpets   of   gold    the   ground   they 

spread 
Wherever  the  Son  of  Man  should  tread, 


And  in  palace-chambers  lofty  and  rare 
They   lodged   him,   and   served   him  with 
kingly  fare. 

Great  organs  surged  through  arches  dim 
Their  jubilant  floods  in  praise  of  him; 
And  in  church,  and  palace,  and  judgment- 
hall, 
He  saw  his  own  image  high  over  all. 

But  still,  wherever  his  steps  they  led, 
The  Lord  in  sorrow  bent  down  his  head, 
And   from   under   the    heavy   foundation' 

stones, 
The  son  of  Mary  heard  bitter  groans. 

And  in  church,  and  palace,  and  judgment- 
hall, 

He  marked  great  fissures  that  rent  the  wall, 
And  opened  wider  and  yet  more  wide 
As  the  living  foundation  heaved  and  sighed. 

"  Have  ye  founded  your  thrones  and  altars, 

then, 

On  the  bodies  and  souls  of  living  men  ? 
And  think  ye  that  building  shall  endure, 
Which  shelters  the  noble  and  crushes  the 

poor  ? 

"  With  gates  of  silver  and  bars  of  gold 
Ye    have    fenced    my   sheep    from    their 

Father's  fold; 

I  have  heard  the  dropping  of  their  tears 
In  heaven  these  eighteen  hundred  years." 

"  O  Lord  and  Master,  not  ours  the  guilt, 
We  build  but  as  our  fathers  built; 
Behold  thine  images,  how  they  stand, 
Sovereign  and  sole,  through  all  our  land. 

"  Our  task  is  hard,  —  with  sword  and  flame 
To  hold  thine  earth  forever  the  same, 
And  with  sharp  crooks  of  steel  to  keep 
Still,  as  thou  leftest  them,  thy  sheep." 

Then  Christ  sought  out  an  artisan, 
A  low-browed,  stunted,  haggard  man, 
And  a  motherless  girl,  whose  fingers  thin 
Pushed  from  her  faintly  want  and  sin. 

These  set  he  in  the  midst  of  them, 
And  as  they  drew   back    their    garment- 
hem, 

For  fear  of  defilement,  "  Lo,  here,"  said  he, 
"  The  images  ye  have  made  of  me  !  " 


96 


MISCELLANEOUS    POEMS 


ODE 

WRITTEN  FOR  THE  CELEBRATION  OF  THE 
INTRODUCTION  OF  THE  COCHITUATE 
WATER  INTO  THE  CITY  OF  BOSTON 

The  public  system  of  water  works  in  Boston 
dates  from   October  25,  1S48,  when  with  much 
ceremony  the  water  of  Lake  Cochituate,  for 
merly  called  Long1  Pond,  was  turned  into  the    I 
reservoir  which  then  occupied  the  site  of  the   I 
present  extension  of  the    State  House,  and  a   I 
stream  was  conducted  into  the  Frog  Pond  on   | 
Boston  Common,  where  the  pressure  gave  head 
to  a  fine  jet.     Besides  the  Ode,  a  selection  was 
sung  from  the  oratorio  of  Elijah,  and  addresses 
were  made  by  the  mayor  and  the  chairman  of 
the  water  commissioners. 

MY  name  is  Water:  I  have  sped 

Through    strange,    dark  ways,   untried 
before, 

By  pure  desire  of  friendship  led, 
Cochituate's  ambassador; 

He  sends  four  royal  gifts  by  me: 

Long  life,  health,  peace,  and  purity. 

I'm  Ceres'  cup-bearer;  I  pour, 

For  flowers  and  fruits  and  all  their  kin, 

Her  crystal  vintage,  from  of  yore 
Stored  in  old  Earth's  selectest  bin, 

Flora's  Falernian  ripe,  since  God 

The  wine-press  of  the  deluge  trod. 

In  that  far  isle  whence,  iron-willed, 

The  New  World's  sires  their  bark  un 
moored, 
The  fairies'  acorn-cups  I  filled 

Upon  the  toadstool's  silver  board, 
And,  'neath  Herne's  oak,  for  Shakespeare's 

sight, 

Strewed   moss   and   grass   with   diamonds 
bright. 

No  fairies  in  the  Mayflower  came, 
And,  lightsome  as  I  sparkle  here, 

For  Mother  Bay  State,  busy  dame, 

I  've   toiled   and  drudged   this   many  a 
year, 

Throbbed  in  her  engines'  iron  veins, 

Twirled  myriad  spindles  for  her  gains. 

I,  too,  can  weave:  the  warp  I  set 

Through    which    the    sun    his     shuttle 
throws, 


And,  bright  as  Noah  saw  it,  yet 

For  you  the  arching  rainbow  glows, 
A  sight  in  Paradise  denied 
To  unfallen  Adam  and  his  bride. 

When  Winter  held  me  in  his  grip, 

You  seized  and  sent  me  o'er  the  wave, 

Ungrateful !  in  a  prison-ship; 
But  I  forgive,  not  long  a  slave, 

For,  soon  as  summer  south-winds  blew5 

Homeward  I  fled,  disguised  as  dew. 

For  countless  services  I  'm  fit, 
Of  use,  of  pleasure,  and  of  gain, 

But  lightly  from  all  bonds  I  flit, 

Nor  lose  my  mirth,  nor  feel  a  stain; 

From  mill  and  wash-tub  I  escape, 

And  take  in  heaven  my  proper  shape. 

So,  free  myself,  to-day,  elate 

I  come  from  far  o'er  hill  and  mead, 

And  here,  Cochituate's  envoy,  wait 
To  be  your  blithesome  Ganymede, 

And  brim  your  cups  with  nectar  true 

That  never  will  make  slaves  of  you. 


LINES 

SUGGESTED  BY  THE  GRAVES  OF  TWO 
ENGLISH  SOLDIERS  ON  CONCORD  BAT 
TLE-GROUND 

THE  same  good  blood  that  now  refills 
The  dotard  Orient's  shrunken  veins, 
The  same  whose  vigor  westward  thrills, 
Bursting  Nevada's  silver  chains, 
Poured  here  upon  the  April  grass, 
Freckled  with  red  the  herbage  new; 
On  reeled  the  battle's  trampling  mass, 
Back  to  the  ash  the  bluebird  flew. 

Poured  here  in  vain ;  —  that  sturdy  blood 
Was  meant  to  make  the  earth  more  green, 
But  in  a  higher,  gentler  mood 
Than  broke  this  April  noon  serene ; 
Two  graves  are  here :  to  mark  the  placef 
At  head  and  foot,  an  unhewn  stone, 
O'er  which  the  herald  lichens  trace 
The  blazon  of  Oblivion. 

These  men  were  brave  enough,  and  true 
To  the  hired  soldier's  bull-dog  creed ; 
What  brought  them  here  they  never  knew, 
They  fought  as  suits  the  English  breed: 


FREEDOM 


97 


They  came  three  thousand  miles,  and  died, 
To  keep  the  Past  upon  its  throne; 
Unheard,  beyond  the  ocean  tide, 
Their  English  mother  made  her  moan. 

The  turf  that  covers  them  no  thrill 
Sends  up  to  fire  the  heart  and  brain; 
No  stronger  purpose  nerves  the  will, 
No  hope  renews  its  youth  again: 
From  farm  to  farm  the  Concord  glides, 
And  trails  my  fancy  with  its  flow; 
O'erhead  the  balanced  hen-hawk  slides, 
Twinned  in  the  river's  heaven  below. 

But  go,  whose  Bay  State  bosom  stirs, 
Proud  of  thy  birth  and  neighbor's  right, 
Where  sleep  the  heroic  villagers 
Borne  red  and  stiff  from  Concord  fight; 
Thought  Reuben,  snatching  down  his  gun, 
Or  Seth,  as  ebbed  the  life  away, 
What  earthquake  rifts  would  shoot  and  run 
World-wide  from  that  short  April  fray  ? 

What  then?     With  heart  and  hand  they 

wrought, 

According  to  their  village  light; 
'T  was  for  the  Future  that  they  fought, 
Their  rustic  faith  in  what  was  right. 
Upon  earth's  tragic  stage  they  burst 
Unsummoned,  in  the  humble  sock; 
Theirs  the  fifth  act;  the  curtain  first 
Rose  long  ago  on  Charles's  block. 

Their  graves  have  voices;  if  they  threw 
Dice  charged  with  fates  beyond  their  ken, 
Yet  to  their  instincts  they  were  true, 
And  had  the  genius  to  be  men. 
Fine  privilege  of  Freedom's  host, 
Of  humblest  soldiers  for  the  Right  !  — 
Age  after  age  ye  hold  your  post, 
Your    graves    send    courage     forth,    and 
might. 


TO 


WE,  too,  have  autumns,  when  our  leaves 
Drop  loosely  through  the  dampened  air, 

When  all  our  good  seems  bound  in  sheaves, 
And  we  stand  reaped  and  bare. 

Our  seasons  have  no  fixed  returns, 
Without  our  will  they  come  and  go; 

At  noon  our  sudden  summer  burns, 
Ere  sunset  all  is  snow. 


But  each  day  brings  less  summer  cheer, 
Crimps  more  our  ineffectual  spring, 

And  something  earlier  every  year 
Our  singing  birds  take  wing. 

As  less  the  olden  glow  abides, 

And  less  the  chillier  heart  aspires, 

With  drift-wood  beached  in   past  spring 
tides 
We  light  our  sullen  fires. 

By  the  pinched  rushlight's  starving  beam 
We  cower  and  strain  our  wasted  sight, 

To  stitch  youth's  shroud  up,  seam  by  seam, 
In  the  long  arctic  night. 

It  was  not  so  —  we  once  were  young  — 
When  Spring,  to  womanly  Summer  turn 
ing* 

Her  dew-drops  on  each  grass-blade  strung, 
In  the  red  sunrise  burning. 

We  trusted  then,  aspired,  believed 

That  earth  could  be  remade  to-morrow; 

Ah,  why  be  ever  undeceived  ? 
Why  give  up  faith  for  sorrow  ? 

0  thou,  whose  days  are  yet  all  spring, 
Faith,  blighted  one,  is  past  retrieving; 

Experience  is  a  dumb,  dead  thing; 
The  victory  's  in  believing. 

FREEDOM 

In  a  letter  to  Mr.  Norton,  written  June  29, 
1859,  Mr.  Lowell  refers  to  English  comments 
on  the  Austro-Italian  war,  then  in  its  early 
stages,  and  alludes  to  a  quotation  which  Mr. 
Bright  had  made  from  his  writings.  "  But," 
he  says,  "  I  fear  he  thinks  me  too  much  of  a 
Quaker.  In  my  Poems  there  are  some  verses 
on  'Freedom'  written  in  '48  or  '49.  They 
ended  thus  as  originally  written.  I  left  the 
verses  out  only  becaxise  I  did  not  think  them 
good, — not  because  I  did  not  like  the  sentiment. 

1  have  strength  of  mind  enough  not  to  change 
a  word  —  though   I   see   how   much   better  I 
might  make  it."     He   then   copies   the   lines 
which  below  are  separated  from  the  poem  by 
a  long  dash,  and  adds  :  "  I  think  it  must  have 
been  written  in  1848,  for  I  remember  that,  as  I 
first  composed  it,  it  had  '  Fair  Italy '  instead 
of '  Humanity.'  " 

ARE  we,  then,  wholly  fallen  ?     Can  it  be 
That    thou,    North    wind,   that    from   thy 
mountains  bringest 


98 


MISCELLANEOUS    POEMS 


Their  spirit  to  our  plains,  and  thou,  blue 

sea, 
Who  on  our  rocks  thy  wreaths  of  freedom 

flingest, 

As  on  an  altar,  —  can  it  be  that  ye 
Have  wasted  inspiration  on  dead  ears, 
Dulled   with    the   too    familiar    clank   of 

chains  ? 

The  people's  heart  is  like  a  harp  for  years 
Hung  where  some  petrifying  torrent  rains 
Its  slow  -  incrusting  spray:  the  stiffened 

chords 
Faint  and  more  faint  make  answer  to  the 

tears 

That  drip  upon  them:  idle  are  all  words: 
Only  a  golden  plectrum  wakes  the  tone 
Deep  buried   'neath  that   ever-thickening 

stone. 

We  are  not  free:  doth  Freedom,  then,  con 
sist 

In  musing  with  our  faces  toward  the  Past, 
While  petty  cares  and  crawling  interests 

twist 

Their  spider-threads  about  us,  which  at  last 
Grow  strong  as  iron  chains,  to  cramp  and 

bind 
In    formal    narrowness    heart,    soul,    and 

mind  ? 

Freedom  is  recreated  year  by  year, 
In  hearts  wide  open  on  the  Godward  side, 
In    souls   calm-cadenced   as    the   whirling 

sphere, 

In  minds  that  sway  the  future  like  a  tide. 
No  broadest  creeds  can  hold  her,  and  no 

codes; 

She  chooses  men  for  her  august  abodes, 
Building  them   fair   and   fronting  to   the 

dawn; 

Yet,  when  we  seek  her,  we  but  find  a  few 
Light  footprints,  leading  morn  -  ward 

through  the  dew: 
Before  the  day  had  risen,  she  was  gone. 

And  we  must  follow:  swiftly  runs  she  on, 
And,  if  our  steps  should  slacken  in  despair, 
Half  turns  her  face,   half   smiles  through 

golden  hair, 

Forever  yielding,  never  wholly  won: 
That  is  not  love  which  pauses  in  the  race 
Two  close-linked  names  on  fleeting  sand 

to  trace; 

Freedom  gained  yesterday  is  no  more  ours ; 
Men  gather  but  dry  seeds  of  last   year's 

flowers; 


Still   there 's  a   charm   ungranted,  still  a 

grace, 

Still  rosy  Hope,  the  free,  the  unattained, 
Makes   us   Possession's   languid   hand   let 

fall; 

'T  is  but  a  fragment  of  ourselves  is  gained, 
The  Future  brings  us  more,  but  never  all. 

And,  as  the  finder  of  some  unknown  realm, 
Mounting  a  summit  whence   he  thinks  to 

see 

On  either  side  of  him  the  imprisoning  sea, 
Beholds,  above  the  clouds  that  overwhelm 
The  valley-land,  peak  after  snowy  peak 
Stretch  out  of   sight,   each   like   a  silver 

helm 
Beneath  its  plume  of  smoke,  sublime  and 

bleak, 

And  what  he  thought  an  island  finds  to  be 
A  continent  to  him  first  oped,  —  so  we 
Can  from  our  height  of  Freedom  look  along 
A  boundless  future,  ours  if  we  be  strong; 
Or  if  we  shrink,  better  remount  our  ships 
And,  fleeing  God's   express   design,  trace 

back 

The  hero-freighted   Mayflower's  prophet- 
track 
To  Europe  entering  her  blood-red  eclipse. 


Therefore  of  Europe  now  I  will  not  doubt, 
For  the  broad   foreheads  surely  win   the 

day, 
And  brains,  not  crowns  or  soul-gelt  armies, 

weigh 
In  Fortune's  scales:  such  dust  she  brushes 

out. 
Most  gracious   are   the   conquests   of   the 

Word, 

Gradual  and  silent  as  a  flower's  increase, 
And    the   best  guide  from  old  to   new  is 

Peace  — 
Yet,    Freedom,    thou    canst    sanctify  the 

sword  ! 

Bravely  to  do  whate'er  the  time  demands, 

Whether  with  pen  or  sword,  and  not  to 
flinch, 

This  is  the  task  that  fits  heroic  hands; 

So  are  Truth's  boundaries  widened  inch  by 
inch. 

I  do  not  love  the  Peace  which  tyrants 
make; 

The  calm  she  breeds  let  the  sword's  light 
ning  break ! 


BEAVER   BROOK 


99 


It  is  the  tyrants  who  have  beaten  out 
Ploughshares  and  pruuing-hooks  to  spears 

and  swords, 

And  shall  I  pause  and  moralize  and  doubt  ? 
Whose  veins  run  water  let  him  mete  his 

words ! 
Each  fetter  sundered  is  the  whole  world's 

gain  ! 

And  rather  than  humanity  remain 
A  pearl  beneath  the  feet  of  Austrian  swine, 
Welcome  to  me  whatever  breaks  a  chain. 
That  surely  is  of  God,  and  all  divine  ! 


BIBLIOLATRES 

BOWING  thyself  in  dust  before  a  Book, 
And  thinking  the  great  God  is  thine  alone, 
O  rash  iconoclast,  thou  wilt  not  brook 
What  gods  the  heathen  carves  in  wood  and 

stone, 
As  if  the  Shepherd  who  from    the    outer 

cold 
Leads  all  his  shivering  lambs  to  one  sure 

fold 
Were  careful  for  the  fashion  of  his  crook. 

There  is  no  broken  reed  so  poor  and  base, 
No   rush,   the   bending  tilt   of   swamp-fly 

blue, 
But  He  therewith  the  ravening  wolf  can 

chase, 
And  guide  his  flock  to  springs  and  pastures 

new; 
Through  ways  unlocked  for,  and  through 

many  lands, 
Far  from  the  rich  folds  built  with  human 

hands, 
The  gracious  footprints  of  his  love  I  trace. 

And  what  art  thou,  own  brother  of  the  clod, 
That   from   his   hand    the    crook    wouldst 

snatch  away 

And  shake  instead  thy  dry  and  sapless  rod, 
To  scare  the  sheep  out  of  the  wholesome 

day? 
Yea,    what   art   thou,    blind,    unconverted 

Jew, 

That  with  thy  idol-volume's  covers  two 
Wouldst  make  a  -jail  to  coop   the   living 

God? 

Thou  hear'st  not  well  the  mountain  organ- 
tones 
By  prophet  ears  from  Hor  and  Sinai  caught, 


Thinking  the   cisterns   of    those    Hebrew 

brains 
Drew  dry  the  springs  of  the  All-knower's 

thought, 
Nor  shall  thy  lips  be  touched  with  living 

fire, 
Who    blow'st    old    altar-coals   with    sole 

desire 
To  weld  anew  the  spirit's  broken  chains. 

God  is  not  dumb,  that  He  should  speak  no 

more; 
If   thou   hast   wanderings   in   the    wilder- 


And  find'st  not  Sinai,  't  is  thy  soul  is  poor; 
There  towers  the  Mountain  of  the  Voice  no 


Which  whoso  seeks  shall  find,  but  he  wha 

bends, 

Intent  on  manna  still  and  mortal  ends, 
Sees   it   not,  neither  hears   its  thundered 

lore. 

Slowly  the  Bible  of  the  race  is  writ, 
And  not  on  paper  leaves  nor  leaves  of  stone  • 
Each  age,  each  kindred,  adds  a  verse  to  it, 
Texts  of  despair  or  hope,  of  joy  or  moan. 
While    swings    the    sea,  while    mists  the 

mountains  shroud, 
While  thunder's  surges  burst  on  cliffs  of 

cloud, 
Still  at  the  prophets'  feet  the  nations  sit. 


BEAVER   BROOK 

..."  Don't  you  like  the  poem  [Beaver 
Brook']  I  sent  you  last  week  ?  I  was  inclined 
to  think  pretty  well  of  it,  but  I  have  not  seen 
it  in  print  yet.  The  little  mill  stands  in  a  val 
ley  between  one  of  the  spurs  of  Wellington 
Hill  and  the  main  summit,  just  on  the  edge  of 
Waltham.  It  is  surely  one  of  the  loveliest 
spots  in  the  world.  It  is  one  of  my  lions,  and 
if  you  will  make  me  a  visit  this  spring  I  will 
take  you  up  to  hear  it  roar,  and  I  will  show  you 
'  the  oaks  '  —  the  largest,  I  fancy,  left  in  the 
country."  Letters  I.  149.  The  poem  was  sent 
to  Mr.  Gay  for  the  Standard.  These  oaks  are 
now  known  as  the  Waverley  Oaks,  and  are  to 
be  preserved. 

HUSHED  with  broad  sunlight  lies  the  hill, 
And,  minuting  the  long  day's  loss, 

The  cedar's  shadow,  slow  and  still, 
Creeps  o'er  its  dial  of  gray  moss. 


100 


MEMORIAL   VERSES 


Warm  noon  brims  full  the  valley's  cup, 
The  aspen's  leaves  are  scarce  astir; 

Only  the  little  mill  sends  up 
Its  busy,  never-ceasing  burr. 

Climbing  the  loose-piled  wall  that  hems 
The  road  along  the  mill-pond's  brink, 

From  'neath  the  arching  barberry-stems, 
My  footstep  scares  the  shy  chewiuk. 

Beneath  a  bony  buttonwood 

The  mill's  red  door  lets  forth  the  din; 
The  whitened  miller,  dust-imbued, 

Flits  past  the  square  of  dark  within. 

No  mountain  torrent's  strength  is  here; 

Sweet  Beaver,  child  of  forest  still, 
Heaps  its  small  pitcher  to  the  ear, 

And  gently  waits  the  miller's  will. 

Swift  slips  Undine  along  the  race 

Unheard,  and  then,  with  flashing  bound, 

Floods  the  dull  wheel  with  light  and  grace, 
And,  laughing,  hunts  the  loath  drudge 
round. 

The  miller  dreams  not  at  what  cost 

The  quivering  millstones  hum  and  whirl, 


Nor  how  for  every  turn  are  tost 
Armfuls  of  diamond  and  of  pearl. 

But  Summer  cleared  my  happier  eyes 
With  drops  of  some  celestial  juice, 

To  see  how  Beauty  underlies 
Forevermore  each  form  of  use. 

And  more;  methought  I  saw  that  flood, 
Which  now  so  dull  and  darkling  steals, 

Thick,  here  and  there,  with  human  blood, 
To  turn  the  world's  laborious  wheels. 

No  more  than  doth  the  miller  there, 
Shut  in  our  several  cells,  do  we 

Know  with  what  waste  of  beauty  rare 
Moves  every  day's  machinery. 

Surely  the  wiser  time  shall  come 
When  this  fine  overplus  of  might, 

No  longer  sullen,  slow,  and  dumb, 
Shall  leap  to  music  and  to  light. 

In  that  new  childhood  of  the  Earth 
Life  of  itself  shall  dance  and  play, 

Fresh  blood  in  Time's  shrunk  veins  make 

mirth, 
And  labor  meet  delight  half-way. 


MEMORIAL    VERSES 


KOSSUTH 

A  RACE  of  nobles  may  die  out, 
A  royal  line  may  leave  no  heir; 

Wise  Nature  sets  no  guards  about 
Her  pewter  plate  and  wooden  ware. 

But  they  fail  not,  the  kinglier  breed, 

Who  starry  diadems  attain; 
To  dungeon,  axe,  and  stake  succeed 

Heirs  of  the  old  heroic  strain. 

The  zeal  of  Nature  never  cools, 
Nor  is  she  thwarted  of  her  ends; 

When  gapped  and  dulled  her  cheaper  tools, 
Then  she  a  saint  and  prophet  spends. 

Land  of  the  Magyars  !  though  it  be 
The  tyrant  may  relink  his  chain, 

Already  thine  the  victory, 

As  the  just  Future  measures  gain. 


Thou  hast  succeeded,  thou  hast  won 
The  deathly  travail's  amplest  worth; 

A  nation's  duty  thou  hast  done, 
Giving  a  hero  to  our  earth. 

And  he,  let  come  what  will  of  woe, 
Hath  saved  the  land  he  strove  to  save; 

No  Cossack  hordes,  no  traitor's  blow, 

Can   quench   the  voice   shall   haunt   his 
grave. 

"  I  Kossuth  am:  O  Future,  thou 

That  clear'st  the  just  and  blott'st  the  vile, 

O'er  this  small  dust  in  reverence  bow, 
Remembering  what  I  was  erewhile. 

"  I  was  the  chosen  trump  wherethrough 
Our  God  sent  forth  awakening  breath; 

Came  chains  ?    Came  death  ?    The   strain 

He  blew 
Sounds  on,  outliving  chains  and  death." 


TO   JOHN    GORHAM    PALFREY 


101 


TO    LAMARTINE 

1848 

I  DID  not  praise  thee  when  the  crowd, 

'Witched   with  the  moment's  inspira 
tion, 

Vexed  thy  still  ether  with  hosannas  loud, 
And  stamped  their  dusty  adoration; 
I  but  looked  upward  with  the  rest, 
And,  when   they  shouted   Greatest,  whis 
pered  Best. 

They  raised  thee  not,  but  rose  to  thee, 

Their  fickle  wreaths  about  thee  fling 
ing; 

So  on  some  marble  Phcebus  the  swol'n  sea 
Might    leave   his   worthless    seaweed 

clinging, 

But  pious  hands,  with  reverent  care, 
Make  the  pure  limbs  once  more  sublimely 
bare. 

Now  thou  'rt  thy  plain,  grand  self  again, 

Thou  art  secure  from  panegyric, 
Thou  who  gav'st  politics  an  epic  strain, 

And  actedst  Freedom's  noblest  lyric; 
This  side  the  Blessed  Isles,  no  tree 
Grows  green  enough  to  make  a  wreath  for 
thee. 

Nor  can  blame  cling  to  thee ;  the  snow 

From  swinish  footprints  takes  no  stain- 

iug» 

But,  leaving  the  gross  soils  of  earth  below, 
Its  spirit  mounts,  the  skies  regaining, 
And  unresentful  falls  again, 
To  beautify  the  world  with  dews  and  rain. 

The  highest  duty  to  mere  man  vouchsafed 
Was  laid  on  thee,  —  out  of  wild  chaos, 
When  the   roused   popular   ocean   foamed 

and  chafed 

And  vulture  War  from  his  Imaus 
Snuffed  blood,  to  summon  homely  Peace, 
And  show  that  only  order  is  release. 

To  carve  thy  fullest  thought,  what  though 
Time  was  not  granted  ?     Aye  in  his 
tory, 

Like  that  Dawn's  face  which  baffled  Angelo 
Left  shapeless,  grander  for  its  mystery, 
Thy  great  Design  shall  stand,  and  day 
Flood    its   blind   front   from    Orients  far 
away. 


Who  says  thy  day  is  o'er  ?     Control, 

My  heart,  that  bitter  first  emotion; 
While  men  shall   reverence  the   steadfast 

soul, 

The  heart  in  silent  self-devotion 
Breaking,  the  mild,  heroic  mien, 
Thou  'It  need  no  prop  of  marble,  Lamar- 
tine. 

If  France  reject  thee,  't  is  not  thine, 

But  her  own,  exile  that  she  utters; 
Ideal  France,  the  deathless,  the  divine, 

Will  be  where  thy  white  pennon  flut 
ters, 

As  once  the  nobler  Athens  went 
With  Aristides  into  banishment. 

No  fitting  metewand  hath  To-day 

For  measuring  spirits  of  thy  stature; 
Only  the  Future  can  reach  up  to  lay 
The  laurel  on  that  lofty  nature, 
Bard,  who  with  some  diviner  art 
Hast  touched  the  bard's  true  lyre,  a  nation's 
heart. 

Swept  by  thy  hand,  the  gladdened  chords, 
Crashed    now   in    discords    fierce   by 

others, 
Gave  forth  one  note   beyond   all  skill  of 

words, 

And  chimed  together,  We  are  brothers. 
O  poem  unsurpassed  !  it  ran 
All  round   the   world,   unlocking   man   to 
man. 

France  is  too  poor  to  pay  alone 

The  service  of  that  ample  spirit; 
Paltry  seem  low  dictatorship  and  throne, 
Weighed    with    thy   self  -  renouncing 

merit; 

They  had  to  thee  been  rust  and  loss ; 
Thy  aim  was  higher,  —  thou  hast  climbed 
a  Cross  ! 


TO  JOHN   GORHAM   PALFREY 

Dr.  Palfrey,  whose  name  is  for  students  as 
sociated  mainly  with  his  History  of  New  Eng 
land,  was  one  of  the  most  consistent  and  firm 
anti-slavery  men  of  his  day.  Chosen  to  Con 
gress  as  a  Whig-  member,  he  refused  to  support 
the  Whig*  candidate  for  the  Speakersbip  of  the 
House,  because  he  was  assured  that  the  candi 
date,  Mr.  Winthrop,  would  not  use  his  position 
to  obstruct  the  extension  of  the  slave  power. 


102 


MEMORIAL   VERSES 


This  incident  called  out  the  fourth  of  the  first 
series  of  Biglow  Papers. 

THERE   are   who   triumph    in    a  losing 

cause, 

Who  can  put  on  defeat,  as  't  were  a  wreath 
Unwithering  in  the  adverse  popular  breath, 
Safe  from  the  blasting  demagogue's  ap 
plause; 

'T  is  they  who   stand  for  Freedom  and 
God's  laws. 

And  so  stands   Palfrey   now,   as   Marvell 

stood, 
Loyal   to  Truth  dethroned,  nor   could   be 

wooed 

To  trust  the  playful  tiger's  velvet  paws: 
And  if  the  second  Charles  brought  in  decay 
Of  ancient  virtue,  if  it  well  might  wring 
Souls  that  had  broadened   'neath  a  nobler 

day, 

To  see  a  losel,  marketable  king 
Fearfully  watering   with  his  realm's   best 

blood 
Cromwell's  quenched  bolts,  that  erst  had 

cracked  and  flamed, 
Scaring,  through  all  their  depths  of  courtier 

mud, 
Europe's   crowned    bloodsuckers,  —  how 

more  ashamed 

Ought  we  to  be,  who  see  Corruption's  flood 
Still  rise  o'er  last  year's  mark,  to  mine 

away 

Our    brazen   idol's   feet   of   treacherous 
clay  ! 

O  utter  degradation  !     Freedom  turned 
Slavery's  vile  bawd,  to  cozen  and  betray 
To  the  old  lecher's  clutch  a  maiden  prey, 
If  so  a  loathsome  pander's  fee  be  earned  ! 

And  we  are  silent,  —  we  who  daily  tread 
A    soil    sublime,    at    least,    with    heroes' 

graves  !  — 
Beckon   no  more,    shades    of   the   noble 

dead  ! 
Be  dumb,  ye  heaven-touched  lips  of  winds 

and  waves  ! 
Or  hope  to  rouse  some  Coptic   dullard, 

hid 

Ages  ago,  wrapt  stiffly,  fold  on  fold, 
With  cerements  close,  to  wither  in  the  cold, 
Forever  hushed,  and  sunless  pyramid  ! 

Beauty   and  Truth,   and   all   that  these 
contain, 


Drop  not  like  ripened  fruit  about  our  feet; 
We    climb   to   them    through   years   of 

sweat  and  pain; 

Without  long  struggle,  none  did  e'er  at 
tain 
The  downward  look  from  Quiet's  blissful 

seat: 
Though  present  loss  may  be  the  hero's 

part, 

Yet  none  can  rob  him  of  the  victor  heart 
Whereby  the  broad-realmed  future  is  sub 
dued, 

And  Wrong,  which  now  insults  from  tri 
umph's  car, 

Sending  her  vulture  hope  to  raven  far, 
Is  made  unwilling  tributary  of  Good. 

O  Mother  State,  how  quenched  thy  Sinai 

fires  ! 

Is  there  none  left  of   thy  stanch   May 
flower  breed  ? 

No  spark  among  the  ashes  of  thy  sires, 
Of    Virtue's     altar-flame    the    kindling 

seed? 
Are  these  thy  great  men,  these  that  cringe 

and  creep, 
And  writhe  through  slimy  ways  to  place 

and  power  ?  — 
How  long,  O  Lord,  before  thy  wrath  shall 

reap 
Our  frail-stemmed  summer  prosperings 

in  their  flower  ? 

Oh  for  one  hour  of  that  undaunted  stock 
That  went  with  Vane  and  Sidney  to  the 
block  ! 

Oh    for   a   whiff   of   Naseby,   that   would 

sweep, 
With  its  stern  Puritan  besom,   all   this 

chaff 
From  the   Lord's  threshing-floor  !     Yet 

more  than  half 

The  victory  is  attained,  when  one  or  two, 
Through    the    fool's    laughter    and   the 

traitor's  scorn, 

Beside  thy  sepulchre  can  bide  the  morn, 
Crucified    Truth,    when    thou    shalt    rise 
anew. 


TO   W.    L.   GARRISON 

"  Some  time  afterward,  it  was  reported  to 
me  by  the  city  officers  that  they  had  ferreted 
out  the  paper  and  its  editor;  that  his  office 


TO   W.   L.   GARRISON 


103 


was  an  obscure  hole,  his  only  visible  auxiliary 
a  negro  boy,  and  his  supporters  a  few  very  in 
significant  persons  of  all  colors."  —  Letter  of 
H.  G.  Otis. 

This  significant  sentence  printed  at  its  head 
gave  the  key-note  to  the  following  poem,  but 
it  is  interesting  to  read  the  characterization  of 
Garrison  drawn  by  Mr.  Lowell  at  this  same  time, 
in  a  letter  to  C.  F.  Briggs  dated  March  26,  1848. 
"  I  do  not  agree  with  the  abolitionists  in  their 
disunion  and  non-voting  theories.  They  treat 
ideas  as  ignorant  persons  do  cherries.  They 
think  them  unwholesome  unless  they  are  swal 
lowed,  stones  and  all.  Garrison  is  so  used  to 
standing  alone  that,  like  Daniel  Boone,  he 
moves  away  as  the  world  creeps  up  to  him,  and 
goes  farther  into  the  wilderness.  He  considers 
every  step  a  step  forward,  though  it  be  over  the 
edge  of  a  precipice.  But,  with  all  his  faults 
(and  they  are  the  faults  of  his  position)  he  is  a 
great  and  extraordinary  man.  His  work  may 
be  over,  but  it  has  been  a  great  work.  ...  I 
respect  Garrison  (respect  does  not  include  love). 
Remember  that  Garrison  was  so  long  in  a  posi 
tion  where  he  alone  was  right  and  all  the  world 
wrong,  that  such  a  position  has  created  in  him 
a  habit  of  mind  which  may  remain,  though 
circumstances  have  wholly  changed.  Indeed  a 
mind  of  that  cast  is  essential  to  a  Reformer. 
Luther  was  as  infallible  as  any  man  that  ever 
held  St.  Peter's  keys."  Letters  I.  125,  126. 

IN   a   small   chamber,   friendless   and  un 
seen, 
Toiled  o'er  his  types  one  poor,  unlearned 

young  man; 
The   place  was   dark,    unfurnitured,    and 

mean ; 
Yet  there  the  freedom  of  a  race  began. 

Help   came   but   slowly  ;    surely   no   man 

yet 

Put  lever  to  the  heavy  world  with  less: 
What  need  of  help  ?     He  knew  how  types 

were  set, 
He  had  a  dauntless  spirit,  and  a  press. 

Such  earnest  natures  are  the  fiery  pith, 
The  compact  nucleus,  round  which  sys 
tems  grow; 

Mass  after  mass  becomes  inspired  there 
with, 

And  whirls  impregnate  with  the  central 
glow. 

0   Truth  !  O  Freedom  !  how   are  ye  still 

born 
In  the  rude  stable,  in  the  manger  nurst  ! 


What  humble  hands  unbar  those  gates  of 

morn 

Through  which  the  splendors  of  the  New 
Day  burst  ! 

What !  shall  one  monk,  scarce  known  be 
yond  his  cell, 
Front   Rome's    far-reaching   bolts,   and 

scorn  her  frown  ? 

Brave   Luther   answered   YES;  that  thun 
der's  swell 

Rocked    Europe,   and   discharmed    the 
triple  crown. 

Whatever  can  be  known  of  earth  we  know, 
Sneered  Europe's  wise  men,  in  their 

snail-shells  curled; 

No  !  said  one  man  in  Genoa,  and  that  No 
Out  of  the  darkness  summoned  this  New 
World. 

Who  is  it  will  not  dare  himself  to  trust  ? 
Who  is  it   hath   not  strength   to  stand 

alone  ? 
Who  is   it   thwarts  and  bilks  the   inward 

MUST  ? 

He  and  his  works,  like  sand,  from  earth 
are  blown. 

Men  of  a  thousand  shifts  and  wiles,  look 

here  ! 
See  one  straightforward  conscience  put 

in  pawn 

To  win  a  world;  see  the  obedient  sphere 
By  bravery's  simple  gravitation  drawn  ! 

Shall  we  not  heed  the  lesson  taught  of  old, 
And  by  the  Present's  lips  repeated  still, 

In  our  own  single  manhood  to  be  bold, 
Fortressed  in  conscience  and  impregnable 
will? 

We  stride  the  river  daily  at  its  spring, 
Nor,   in    our    childish    thoughtlessness, 

foresee 
What  myriad  vassal  streams  shall  tribute 

bring, 
How  like  an  equal  it  shall  greet  the  sea. 

O  small  beginnings,  ye  are  great  and  strong, 
Based  on  a  faithful  heart  and  weariless 
brain  ! 

Ye  build  the  future  fair,  ye  conquer  wrong, 
Ye  earn  the  crown,  and  wear  it  not  in 


IO4 


MEMORIAL   VERSES 


ON  THE  DEATH   OF  CHARLES 
TURNER   TORREY 

The  Martyr  Torrey  was  the  name  applied  to 
this  clergyman,  who  gave  up  his  professional 
life  in  order  to  devote  himself  to  the  anti- 
slavery  cause  in  Maryland.  He  was  con 
demned  to  long  imprisonment  for  aiding  in  the 
escape  of  slaves,  but  died  in  the  penitentiary, 
May,  1846,  of  disease  brought  on  by  ill  usage. 
His  body  was  taken  to  Boston,  and  the  funeral 
made  a  profound  impression  on  the  community. 

WOE  worth  the  hour  when  it  is  crime 

To  plead  the  poor  dumb  bondman's  cause, 
When  all  that  makes  the  heart  sublime, 
The  glorious  throbs  that  conquer  time, 
Are  traitors  to  our  cruel  laws  ! 

He  strove  among  God's  suffering  poor 
One  gleam  of  brotherhood  to  send; 
The  dungeon  oped  its  hungry  door 
To  give  the  truth  one  martyr  more, 

Then  shut,  —  and  here  behold  the  end  ! 

O  Mother  State  !  when  this  was  done, 
No  pitying  throe  thy  bosom  gave; 

Silent  thou  saw'st  the  death-shroud  spun, 

And  now  thou  givest  to  thy  son 
The  stranger's  charity,  —  a  grave. 

Must  it  be  thus  forever  ?     No  ! 

The  hand  of  God  sows  not  in  vain, 
Long  sleeps  the  darkling  seed  below, 
The  seasons  come,  and  change,  and  go, 

And  all  the  fields  are  deep  with  grain. 

Although  our  brother  lie  asleep, 

Man's  heart  still  struggles,  still  aspires; 
His  grave  shall  quiver  yet,  while  deep 
Through  the  brave  Bay  State's  pulses  leap 
Her  ancient  energies  and  fires. 

When  hours  like  this  the  senses'  gush 

Have  stilled,  and  left  the  spirit  room, 
It  hears  amid  the  eternal  hush 
The  swooping  pinions'  dreadful  rush, 

That    bring    the     vengeance     and     the 
doom ;  — 

Not  man's  brute  vengeance,  such  as  rends 

What  rivets  man  to  man  apart,  — 
God  doth  not  so  bring  round  his  ends, 
But  waits  the  ripened  time,  and  sends 
His  mercy  to  the  oppressor's  heart. 


ELEGY    ON  THE  DEATH   OF   DR. 
CHANNING 

I  DO  not  come  to  weep  above  thy  pall, 
And    mourn   the    dying  -  out  of    noble 

powers ; 

The  poet's  clearer  eye  should  see,  in  all 
Earth's  seeming  woe,  seed  of  immortal 
flowers. 

Truth  needs  no  champions:  in  the  infinite 

deep 

Of  everlasting  Soul  her  strength  abides, 
From  Nature's   heart   her   mighty   pulses 

leap, 

Through   Nature's   veins    her   strength, 
undying,  tides. 

Peace  is  more  strong  than  war,  and  gentle 
ness, 
Where  force  were  vain,  makes  conquest 

o'er  the  wave; 
And    love  lives  on  and  hath  a    power  to 

bless, 

When  they  who  loved  are  hidden  in  the 
grave. 

The   sculptured    marble   brags   of  death- 
strewn  fields, 

And  Glory's  epitaph  is  writ  in  blood; 
But  Alexander  now  to  Plato  yields, 

Clarkson   will  stand  where  Wellington 
hath  stood. 

I  watch  the  circle  of  the  eternal  years, 
And  read  forever  in  the  storied  page 

One  lengthened  roll  of  blood,  and  wrong. 

and  tears, 
One  onward  step  of  Truth  from  age  to 


The   poor   are   crushed;   the   tyrants   link 

their  chain; 

The    poet    sings   through   narrow  dun 
geon-grates  ; 
Man's   hope  lies  quenched;  and,  lo  !  with 

steadfast  gain 

Freedom  doth  forge  her  mail  of  adverse 
fates. 

Men  slay  the   prophets;    fagot,  rack,  and 

cross 

Make    up   the   groaning   record  of  the 
past; 


TO   THE   MEMORY   OF   HOOD 


105 


But  Evil's  triumphs  are  her  endless  loss, 
And  sovereign  Beauty  wins  the  soul  at 
last. 

No  power  can  die  that  ever  wrought  for 

Truth; 

Thereby  a  law  of  Nature  it  became, 
And    lives  unwithered   in    its  blithesome 

youth, 

When   he  who   called  it  forth  is  but  a 
name. 

Therefore  I  cannot  think  thee  wholly  gone ; 

The  better  part  of  thee  is  with  us  still; 
Thy  soul   its   hampering   clay   aside   hath 
thrown, 

And  only  freer  wrestles  with  the  111. 

Thou  livest  in  the  life  of  all  good  things; 
What  words  thou  spak'st  for   Freedom 

shall  not  die; 
Thou  sleepest  not,  for  now  thy  Love   hath 

wings 

To  soar  where   hence   thy   Hope    could 
hardly  fly. 

And  often,  from  that  other  world,  on  this 
Some  gleams  from  great  souls  gone  be 
fore  may  shine, 

To  shed  on  struggling  hearts  a  clearer  bliss, 
And  clothe  the  Right  with  lustre  more 
divine. 

Thou  art  not  idle:  in  thy  higher  sphere 
Thy  spirit  bends  itself  to  loving  tasks, 

And  strength  to  perfect  what  it  dreamed 

of  here 
Is  all  the  crown  and  glory  that  it  asks. 

For  sure,  in  Heaven's  wide  chambers,  there 

is  room 

For  love  and  pity,  and  for  helpful  deeds ; 
Else  were  our  summons  thither  but  a  doom 
To  life  more  vain   than   this   in  clayey 
weeds. 

From  off  the  starry  mountain-peak  of  song, 
Thy  spirit  shows  me,  in  the  coming  time, 

An  earth  unwithered  by  the  foot  of  wrong, 
A  race  revering  its  own  soul  sublime. 

What  wars,  what  martyrdoms,  what  crimes, 

may  come, 

Thou  knowest  not,  nor  I;  but   God  will 
lead 


The  prodigal  soul  from  want  and  sorrow 

home, 
And  Eden  ope  her  gates  to  Adam's  seed. 

Farewell !    good  man,   good    angel   now ! 

this  hand 

Soon,  like  thine  own,  shall  lose   its   cun 
ning  too; 
Soon  shall  this  soul,  like  thine,  bewildered 

stand, 

Then  leap  to  thread  the  free,  unfathomed 
blue: 

When  that  day  comes,  oh,  may  this  hand 

grow  cold, 
Busy,  like  thine,  for  Freedom   and  the 

Right; 

Oh,  may  this  soul,  like  thine,  be  ever  bold 
To    face    dark    Slavery's     encroaching 
blight ! 

This  laurel-leaf  I  cast  upon  thy  bier; 

Let  worthier  hands  than  these  thy  wreath 

intwine ; 
Upon  thy  hearse  I  shed  no  useless  tear,  — 

For  us  weep  rather  thou  in  calm  divine  ! 


TO   THE    MEMORY   OF   HOOD 

ANOTHER     star    'neath     Time's     horizon 

dropped, 

To  gleam  o'er  unknown  lands  and  seas; 
Another    heart    that     beat    for     freedom 

stopped,  — 
What  mournful  words  are  these  ! 

O   Love    Divine,   that  claspest   our  tired 

earth, 

And  lullest  it  upon  thy  heart, 
Thou  knowest  how  much  a  gentle  soul  is 

worth 
To  teach  men  what  thou  art ! 

His  was  a  spirit  that  to  all  thy  poor 
Was  kind  as  si  umber  after  pain: 

Why  ope  so  soon  thy  heaven-deep  Quiet's 

door 
And  call  him  home  again  ? 

Freedom  needs  all  her  poets:  it  is  they 
Who  give  her  aspirations  wings, 

And  to  the  wiser  law  of  music  sway 
Her  wild  imaginings. 


io6 


THE  VISION   OF   SIR   LAUNFAL 


Yet  thou  hast  called  him,  nor  art  thou  un 
kind, 

O  Love  Divine,  for  't  is  thy  will 
That  gracious  natures  leave  their  love  be 
hind 
To  work  for  Mercy  still. 

Let    laurelled    marbles    weigh    on    other 

tombs, 

Let  anthems  peal  for  other  dead, 
Rustling  the  bannered  depth  of   minster- 
glooms 
With  their  exulting  spread. 


His    epitaph   shall    mock  the    short-lived 

stone, 

No  lichen  shall  its  lines  efface, 
He    needs    these    few    and    simple    lines 

alone 
To  mark  his  resting-place :  — 

"Here  lies  a  Poet.     Stranger,  if  to  thee 
His  claim  to  memory  be  obscure, 

If  thou  wouldst  learn  how  truly  great  was 

he, 
Go,  ask  it  of  the  poor." 


THE   VISION   OF   SIR   LAUNFAL 


THIS  poem  was  written  apparently  early  in 
1848,  for  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Briggs,  dated  Feb 
ruary  1  of  that  year,  Lowell,  referring  to  it, 
says  :  "  The  new  poem  I  spoke  of  is  a  sort  of 
a  story,  and  more  likely  to  be  popular  than 
what  I  write  generally.  Maria  thinks  very 
highly  of  it.  I  shall  probably  publish  it  by 
itself  next  summer."  The  poem  was  published 
in  the  middle  of  December,  1848,  and  in  an 
exuberant  letter  to  Mr.  Briggs  shortly  after  it 
appeared,  Lowell  wrote  :  "  Last  night  ...  I 
walked  to  Watertown  over  the  snow  with  the 
new  moon  before  me  and  a  sky  exactly  like 
that  in  Page's  evening  landscape.  Orion  was 
rising  behind  me,  and,  as  1  stood  on  the  hill 
just  before  you  enter  the  village,  the  stillness 
of  the  fields  around  me  was  delicious,  broken 
only  by  the  tinkle  of  a  little  brook  which  runs 
too  swiftly  for  Frost  to  catch  it.  My  picture  of 
the  brook  in  Sir  Launfal  was  drawn  from  it." 
The  following  note  was  prefixed  to  the  poem 
by  its  author. 

According  to  the  mythology  of  the  Roman 
cers,  the  San  Greal,  or  Holy  Grail,  was  the  cup 


out  of  which  Jesus  partook  of  the  Last  Supper  ( 
with  his  disciples.  It  was  brought  into  Eng 
land  by  Joseph  of  Arimathea,  and  remained 
there,  an  object  of  pilgrimage  and  adoration, 
for  many  years  in  the  keeping  of  his  lineal 
descendants.  It  was  incumbent  upon  those 
who  had  charge  of  it  to  be  chaste  in  thought, 
word,  and  deed ;  but  one  of  the  keepers  hav 
ing  broken  this  condition,  the  Holy  Grail  dis 
appeared.  From  that  time  it  was  a  favorite 
enterprise  of  the  knights  of  Arthur's  court  to 
go  in  search  of  it.  Sir  Galahad  was  at  last 
successful  in  finding  it,  as  may  be  read  in  the 
seventeenth  book  of  the  Romance  of  King 
Arthur.  Tennyson  has  made  Sir  Galahad  the  j 
subject  of  one  of  the  most  exquisite  of  his  | 
poems. 

The  plot  (if  I  may  give  that  name  to  any 
thing  so  slight)  of  the  following  poem  is  my 
own,  and,  to  serve  its  purposes,  I  have  enlarged 
the  circle  of  competition  in  search  of  the  mira 
culous  cup  in  such  a  manner  as  to  include,  not 
only  other  persons  than  the  heroes  of  the  Round 
Table,  but  also  a  period  of  time  subsequent  to 
the  supposed  date  of  King  Arthur's  reign. 


PRELUDE   TO   PART   FIRST 

OVER  his  keys  the  musing  organist, 

Beginning  doubtfully  and  far  away, 
First  lets  his  fingers  wander  as  they  list, 

And  builds  a  bridge  from  Dreamland  for 

his  lay: 
Then,  as  the  touch  of  his  loved  instrument 

Gives  hope  and  fervor,  nearer  draws  his 

theme, 
First  guessed  by  faint  auroral  flushes  sent 

Along  the  wavering  vista  of  his  dream. 


Not  only  around  our  infancy 
Doth  heaven  with  all  its  splendors  lie; 
Daily,  with  souls  that  cringe  and  plot, 
inais  climb  and  know  it  not. 


Over  our  manhood  bend  the  skies; 

Against  our  fallen  and  traitor  lives 
The  great  winds  utter  prophecies; 

With   our    faint   hearts    the    mountain 

strives  ; 
Its  arms  outstretched,  the  druid  wood 

Waits  with  its  benedicite; 


THE   VISION   OF   SIR   LAUNFAL 


107 


And  to  our  age's  drowsy  blood 
Still  shouts  the  inspiring  sea. 

I    Earth  gets  its  price  for  what  Earth  gives 

us; 
The  beggar  is  taxed  for  a  corner  to  die 

in, 
The  priest  hath   his   fee    who   comes  and 

shrives  us, 

^±^Te  bargain  for  the  graves  we  lie  in; 
At  the  devil's  booth  are  all  things  sold, 
Each  ounce  of  dross  costs  its  ounce  of 

gold; 

For  a  cap  and  bells  our  lives  we  pay, 
Bubbles  we  buy  with  a  whole  soul's  task- 

ing: 

'T  is  heaven  alone  that  is  given  away, 
'T  jfj  only  God  may  be  had  for  the  ask- 

o  price  is  set  on  the  lavish  summer; 
June  may  be  had  by  the  poorest  comer. 

And  what  is  so  rare  as  a  day  in  June  ? 

Then,  if  ever,  come  perfect  days; 
Then  Heaven  tries  earth  if  it  be  in  tune, 
And  over  it  softly  her  warm  ear  lays; 
Whether  we  look,  or  whether  we  listen, 
We  hear  life  murmur,  or  see  it  glisten; 
Every  clod  feels  a  stir  of  might, 

An  instinct  within  it  that  reaches  and 

towers, 
And,  groping  blindly  above  it  for  light, 

U .Climbs  to  a  soul  in  grass  and  flowers; 

The  flush  of  life  may  well  be  seen 

Thrilling  back  over  hills  and  valleys; 
The  cowslip  startles  in  meadows  green, 
The   buttercup   catches   the    sun   in    its 

chalice, 
And  there  's  never  a  leaf  nor  a  blade  too 

mean 

To  be  some  happy  creature's  palace; 
The  little  bird  sits  at  his  door  in  the  sun, 
Atilt  like  a  blossom  among  the  leaves, 
And  lets  his  illumined  being  o'errun 

With  the  deluge  of  summer  it  receives; 
His  mate  feels  the  eggs  beneath  her  wings, 
And  the  heart  in  her  dumb  breast  flutters 

and  sings; 
He  sings  to  the  wide  world,  and  she  to  her 

nest,  — 

In  the  nice  ear  of  Nature  which  song  is  the 
best? 

Now  is  the  high-tide  of  the  year, 

And  whatever  of  life  hath  ebbed  away 


Comes  flooding  back  with  a  ripply  cheer, 
Into   every   bare    inlet    and   creek   and 
bay; 

Now  the  heart  is  so  full  that  a  drop  over 
fills  it, 

We  are  happy  now  because  God  wills  it; 

No  matter  how  barren  the  past  may  have 
been, 

'T  is  enough  for  us  now  that  the  leaves  are 
green; 

We  sit  in  the  warm  shade  and  feel  right 
well 

How  the  sap  creeps  up  and  the  blossoms 
swell; 

We  may  shut  our  eyes,  but  we  cannot  help 
knowing 

That   skies  are  clear  and  grass  is  grow 
ing; 

The  breeze  comes  whispering  in  our  ear, 

That  dandelions  are  blossoming  near, 
That  maize  has  sprouted,  that  streams 
are  flowing, 

That  the  river  is  bluer  than  the  sky, 

That  the  robin  is  plastering  his  house  hard 
.by; 

And   if  the   breeze   kept   the   good   news 
back, 

For  other  couriers  we  should  not  lack; 
We  could  guess    it  all  by  you  heifer's 
lowing,  — 

And  hark  !  how  clear  bold  chanticleer, 

Warmed  with  the  new  wine  of  the  year, 
Tells  all  in  his  lusty  crowing  ! 

Joy  comes,  grief  goes,  we  know  not  how; 
Everything  is  happy  now, 

Everything  is  upward  striving; 
'T  is   as   easy   now   for   the    heart    to    be 

true 
As  for  grass  to   be  green  or  skies  to    be 

blue,  — 

'T  is  the  natural  way  of  living: 
Who  knows  whither  the  clouds  have  fled  ? 
In  the  uflscarred  heaven  they  leave  no 

wake; 
And  the  eyes  forget  the  tears  they  have 

shed, 

The  heart  forgets  its  sorrow  and  ache; 
The  soul  partakes  the  season's  youth, 
And  the  sulphurous  rifts  of  passion  and 

woe 

Lie  deep  'neath  a  silence  pure  and  smooth, 
Like  burnt-out  craters  healed  with  snow. 
What  wonder  if  Sir  Launfal  now 
Remembered  the  keeping  of  his  vow  ? 


io8 


THE   VISION    OF    SIR   LAUNFAL 


PART   FIRST 


"  My  golden  spurs  now  bring  to  me, 
And  bring  to  me  my  richest  mail, 

For  to-morrow  I  go  over  land  and  sea 
In  search  of  the  Holy  Grail; 

Shall  never  a  bed  for  me  be  spread, 

Nor  shall  a  pillow  be  under  my  head, 

Till  I  begin  my  vow  to  keep; 

Here  on  the  rushes  will  I  sleep, 

And  perchance  there  may  come  a  vision 
true 

Ere  day  create  the  world  anew." 

Slowly  Sir  Launfal's  eyes  grew  dim, 
Slumber  fell  like  a  cloud  on  him, 

And  into  his  soul  the  vision  flew. 


The  crows  flapped  over  by  twos  and  threes, 
In  the  pool  drowsed  the  cattle  up  to  their 

knees, 

The  little  birds  sang  as  if  it  were 
The  one  day  of  summer  in  all  the  year, 
And  the  very  leaves  seemed  to  sing  on  the 

trees: 

The  castle  alone  in  the  landscape  lay 
->  Like  an  outpost  of  winter,  dull  and  gray: 
'T   was   the   proudest   hall   in   the   North 

Countree, 

And  never  its  gates  might  opened  be, 
'/.Saye  to  lord  or  lady  of  high  degree; 
TlSummer  besieged  it  on  every  side, 
*  But  the  churlish  stone  her  assaults  defied; 
She  could  not  scale  the  chilly  wall, 
Though  around  it  for  leagues  her  pavilions 

tall 

Stretched  left  and  right, 
Over  the  hills  and  out  of  sight; 
Green  and  broad  was  every  tent, 
And  out  of  each  a  murmur  went 
Till  the  breeze  fell  off  at  night. 

• 

7"  HI 

'   The  drawbridge  dropped  with  a  surly  clang, 
And  through   the   dark    arch    a    charger 

sprang, 

Bearing  Sir  Launfal,  the  maiden  knight, 
In  his  gilded  mail,  that  flamed  so  bright 
It  seemed  the  dark  castle  had  gathered  all 
Those  shafts  the  fierce  sun  had  shot  over 

its  wall 
In  his  siege  of  three  hundred  summers 

long, 


And,  binding  them  all  in  one  blazing  sheaf, 
Had   cast   them   forth:    so,   young  and 

strong, 

And  lightsome  as  a  locust-leaf, 
Sir  Launfal  flashed   forth   in   his   maiden 

mail, 
To  seek  in  all  climes  for  the  Holy  Grail. 

IV 

It  was  morning  on  hill  and  stream  and  tree, 
And    morning    in    the    young    knight's 
heart; 

Only  the  castle  moodily 

Rebuffed  the  gifts  of  the  sunshine  free, 
And  gloomed  by  itself  apart; 

The  season  brimmed  all  other  things  up 

Full  as  the  rain  fills  the  pitcher-plant's  cup. 


As   Sir  Launfal   made   morn  through  the 

darksome  gate, 
He  was  'ware  of  a  leper,  crouched  by  the 

same, 
Who  begged  with  his  hand  and  moaned  as 

he  sate; 

And  a  loathing  over  Sir  Launfal  came; 
The  sunshine  went  out  of  his  soul  with  a 

thrill, 
The  flesh  'neath  his  armor   'gan    shrink 

and  crawl, 
And  midway  its  leap  his  heart  stood  still 

Like  a  frozen  waterfall; 
For  this  man,  so  foul  and  bent  of  stature, 
Rasped  harshly  against  his  dainty  nature, 
And  seemed  the  one  blot  on  the  summer 

morn,  — 
So  he  tossed  him  a  piece  of  gold  in  scorn. 

VI 

The  leper  raised   not   the  gold  from  the 

dust: 

"  Better  to  me  the  poor  man's  crust, 
Better  the  blessing  of  the  poor, 
Though  I  turn  me  empty  from  his  door; 
That  is  no  true  alms  which  the  hand  can 

hold; 
He  gives  only  the  worthless  gold 

Who  gives  from  a  sense  of  duty; 
But  he  who  gives  but  a  slender  mite, 
And  gives  to  that  which  is  out  of  sight, 

That  thread  of  the  all-sustaining  Beauty 
Which    runs    through    all    and    doth    all 

unite,  — 
The  hand  cannot  clasp   the   whole   of  his 

alms, 


THE   VISION    OF   SIR   LAUNFAL 


109 


The  heart  outstretches  its  eager  palins, 
For  a  god  goes  with  it  and  makes  it  store 
To  the  soul  that  was  starving  in  darkness 
before." 


PRELUDE   TO   PART   SECOND 

Down  swept  the  chill  wind  from  the  moun 
tain  peak, 
From  the  snow  five  thousand  summers 

old; 

On  open  wold  and  hilltop  bleak 
It  had  gathered  all  the  cold, 
A.nd  whirled  it  like  sleet  on  the  wanderer's 

cheek; 

It  carried  a  shiver  everywhere 
From  the   unleafed   boughs   and   pastures 

bare; 

The  little  brook  heard  it  and  built  a  roof 
'Neath  which  he  could  house  him,  winter- 
proof; 

All  night  by  the  white  stars'  frosty  gleams 
He  groined   his  arches   and   matched   his 

beams; 

Slender  and  clear  were  his  crystal  spars 
As  the  lashes  of  light  that  trim  the  stars : 
He  sculptured  every  summer  delight 
In  his  halls  and  chambers  out  of  sight; 
Sometimes  his  tinkling  waters  slipt 
Down  through  a  frost-leaved  forest-crypt, 
Long,    sparkling   aisles   of    steel-stemmed 

trees 

Bending  to  counterfeit  a  breeze ; 
Sometimes  the  roof  no  fretwork  knew 
But  silvery  mosses  that  downward  grew; 
Sometimes  it  was  carved  in  sharp  relief 
With  quaint  arabesques  of  ice-fern  leaf  ; 
Sometimes  it  was  simply  smooth  and  clear 
For    the    gladness    of    heaven    to     shine 

through,  and  here 

He  had  caught  the  nodding  bulrush-tops 
And    hung    them    thickly   with    diamond 

drops, 

That  crystalled  the  beams  of  moon  and  sun, 
And  made  a  star  of  every  one  : 
No  mortal  builder's  most  rare  device 
Could  match  this  Avinter-palace  of  ice; 
'T  was  as  if  every  image  that  mirrored  lay 
In  his  depths  serene  through   the  summer 

day, 

Each  fleeting  shadow  of  earth  and  sky, 
Lest  the  happy  model  should  be  lost, 
Had  been  mimicked  in  fairy  masonry 
By  the  elfin  builders  of  the  frost. 


I  Within  the  hall  are  song  and  laughter, 
1      The  cheeks  of  Christmas  glow  red  and 
U.        jolly, 
And  sprouting  is  every  corbel  and  rafter 

With  lightsome  green  of  ivy  and  holly; 
Through  the   deep    gulf   of   the   chimney 

wide 

Wallows  the  Yule-log's  roaring  tide ; 
The  broad  flame-pennons  droop  and  flap 

And  belly  and  tug  as  a  flag  in  the  wind; 
Like  a  locust  shrills  the  imprisoned  sap, 
Hunted  to  death  in  its  galleries  blind ; 
And  swift  little  troops  of  silent  sparks, 
Now  pausing,  now  scattering  away  as  in 

fear, 

Go  threading  the  soot-forest's  tangled  darks 
Like  herds  of  startled  deer. 

But  the  wind  without  was  eager  and  sharp, 
Of  Sir  LaunfaPs  gray  hair  it  makes  a  harp, 
And  rattles  and  wrings 
The  icy  strings, 
Singing,  in  dreary  monotone, 
A  Christmas  carol  of  its  own, 
Whose  burden  still,  as  he  might  guess, 
Was    "Shelterless,    shelterless,    shelter 
less  !  " 
The  voice  of  the  seneschal   flared  like  a 

torch 
As  he  shouted  the  wanderer  away  from  the 

porch, 
And  he  sat  in   the   gateway  and   saw   all 

night 

The  great  hall-fire,  so  cheery  and  bold, 
Through  the  window-slits  of  the  castle 

old, 

Build  out  its  piers  of  ruddy  light 
Against  the  drift  of  the  cold. 

PART  SECOND 


There  was  never  a  leaf  on  bush  or  tree, 
The  bare  boughs  rattled  shudderingly; 
The  river  was  dumb  and  could  not  speak, 

For   the  weaver  Winter  its  shroud  had 

spun; 
A  single  crow  011  the  tree-top  bleak 

From  his  shining  feathers  shed  off  the 

cold  sun ; 

Again  it  was  morning,  but  shrunk  and  cold, 
As  if  her  veins  were  sapless  and  old, 
And  she  rose  up  decrepitly 
For  a  last  dim  look  at  earth  and  sea. 


no 


THE  VISION   OF   SIR   LAUNFAL 


I  Sir  Launfal  turned  from  his  own  hard  gate, 
For  another  heir  in  his  earldom  sate; 
An  old,  bent  man,  worn  out  and  frail, 
He    came   back   from    seeking  the   Holy 

Grail; 

Little  he  recked  of  his  earldom's  loss, 
No  more  on  his  surcoat  was  blazoned  the 

cross, 

But  deep  in  his  soul  the  sign  he  wore, 
The  badge  of  the  suffering  and  the  poor. 

Ill 

Sir  Launfal's  raiment  thin  and  spare 
Was  idle  mail  'gainst  the  barbed  air, 
For  it  was  just  at  the  Christmas  time; 
So  he  mused,  as  he  sat,  of  a  sunnier  clime, 
And  sought  for  a  shelter  from   cold  and 
I  snow 

the  light  and  warmth  of  long-ago; 
e  sees  the  snake-like  caravan  crawl 
O'er  the   edge   of   the   desert,   black  and 

small, 

Then  nearer  and  nearer,  till,  one  by  one, 
He  can  count  the  camels  in  the  sun, 
As  over  the  red-hot  sands  they  pass 
To  where,  in  its  slender  necklace  of  grass, 
The  little  spring  laughed  and  leapt  in  the 

shade, 

And  with  its  own  self  like  an  infant  played, 
And  waved^  itsjdgnal  of  palms. 

IV 

Christ's  sweet  sake,  I  beg  an  alms  ; " 
The  happy  camels  may  reach  the  spring, 
But  Sir  Launfal  sees  only  the  grewsome 

thing, 

The  leper,  lank  as  the  rain-blanched  bone, 
That  cowers  beside  him,  a  thing  as  lone 
And  white   as   the   ice -isles  of  Northern 

seas 
In  the  desolate  horror  of  his  disease. 


And  Sir  Launfal  said,  "  I  behold  in  thee 
An  image  of  Him  who  died  on  the  tree; 
Thou  also  hast  had  thy  crown  of  thorns, 
Thou  also  hast  had  the  world's  buffets  and 

scorns, 

And  to  thy  life  were  not  denied 
The   wounds   in   the   hands  and   feet  and 

side: 

Mild  Mary's  Son,  acknowledge  me; 
Behold,  through  him,  I  give  to  thee  !  " 


VI 

Then  the  soul  of  the  leper  stood  up  in  his 

eyes 

And  looked  at  Sir  Launfal,  and  straight 
way  he 
Remembered  in  what  a  haughtier  guise 

He  had  flung  an  alms  to  leprosie, 
When  he  girt  his  young  life  up  in  gilded 

mail 

And  set  forth  in  search  of  the  Holy  Grail. 
The  heart  within  him  was  ashes  and  dust; 
He  parted  in  twain  his  single  crust, 
He  broke  the  ice  on  the  streamlet's  brink, 
And  gave  the  leper  to  eat  and  drink, 
'T  was  a  mouldy   crust  of   coarse   brown 

bread, 

ras  water  out  of  a  wooden  bowl,  — 
Yet  with  fine  wheaten  bread  was  the  leper 

fed, 
And  't  was  red  wine  he  drank  with  his 

thirsty  soul. 


VII 


As 


Sir  Launfal   mused   with   a   downcast 

face, 

A  light  shone  round  about  the  place; 
The  leper  no  longer  crouched  at  his  side, 
But  stood  before  him  glorified, 
Shining  and  tall  and  fair  and  straight 
As  the  pillar  that  stood  by  the  Beautiful 

Gate,  — 

Himself  the  Gate  whereby  men  can 
k  Enter  the  temple  of  God  in  Man. 

VIII 

His   words  were  shed   softer  than   leaves 

from  the  pine, 
And  they  fell  on  Sir  Launfal  as  snows  on 

the  brine, 

That  mingle  their  softness  and  quiet  in  one 
With  the   shaggy  unrest   they  float  down 

upon; 
And  the  voice  that  was  softer  than  silence 

said, 

"  Lo,  it  is  I,  be  not  afraid  ! 
In  many  climes,  without  avail, 
Thou  hast  spent  thy  life  for  the  Holy  Grail; 
Behold,  it  is  here,  —  this  cup  which  thou 
Didst  fill  at  the  streamlet  for  me  but  now; 
This  crust  is  my  body  broken  for  thee, 
This  water  his  blood  that  died  on  the  tree; 
The  Holy  Supper  is  kept,  indeed, 
In  whatso  we  share  with  another's  need; 
Not  what  we  give,  but  what  we  share, 


LETTER   FROM   BOSTON 


in 


For  the  gift  without  the  giver  is  bare; 
Who  gives  himself  with  his  alms  feeds  three, 
Himself,  his  hungering  neighbor,  and  me." 

IX 

Sir  Launfal  awoke  as  from  a  s wound: 
"  The  Grail  in  my  castle  here  is  found  1 
Hang  my  idle  armor  up  on  the  wall, 
Let  it  be  the  spider's  banquet-hall; 
He  must  be  fenced  with  stronger  mail 
Who  would  seek  and  find  the  Holy  Grail." 

x 
The  castle  gate  stands  open  now, 

And  the  wanderer  is  welcome  to  the  hall 
As  the  hangbird  is  to  the  elm-tree  bough; 


No  longer  scowl  the  turrets  tall, 
The  Summer's  long  siege  at  last  is  o'er; 
When  the  first  poor  outcast  went  in  at  the 

door, 

She  entered  with  him  in  disguise, 
And  mastered  the  fortress  by  surprise; 
There   is   no   spot    she   loves   so  well   on 

ground, 
She  lingers  and  smiles  there  the  whole  year 

round; 

The  meanest  serf  on  Sir  Launfal's  land 
Has  hall  and  bower  at  his  command; 
And  there's   no  poor  man   in   the  North 

Countree 
But  is  lord  of  the  earldom  as  much  as  he. 


LETTER   FROM   BOSTON 


THIS  letter  was  written  to  Mr.  James  Miller 
McKim,  who  had  succeeded  Whittier  as  editor 

December,  1846. 


DEAR  M 

By  way  of  saving  time, 
I  '11  do  this  letter  up  in  rhyme, 
Whose  slim  stream  through  four  pages  flows 
Ere  one  is  packed  with  tight-screwed  prose, 
Threading  the  tube  of  an  epistle, 
Smooth  as  a  child's  breath  through  a  whistle. 

The  great  attraction  now  of  all 

Is  the  "  Bazaar  "  at  Faneuil  Hall, 

Where  swarm  the  anti-slavery  folks 

As  thick,  dear  Miller,  as  your  jokes. 

There 's  GARRISON,  his  features  very 

Benign  for  an  incendiary, 

Beaming  forth  sunshine  through  his  glasses 

On  the  surrounding  lads  and  lasses, 

(No  bee  could  blither  be,  or  brisker,)  — 

A  Pickwick  somehow  turned  John  Ziska, 

His  bump  of  firmness  swelling  up 

Like  a  rye  cupcake  from  its  cup. 

And  there,  too,  was  his  English  tea-set, 

Which  in  his  ear  a  kind  of  flea  set 

His  Uncle  Samuel  for  its  beauty 

Demanding  sixty  dollars  duty, 

('T  was  natural  Sam  should  serve  his  trunk 

ill, 

For  G.,  you  know,  has  cut  his  uncle,) 
Whereas,  had  he  but  once  made  tea  in 't, 
His  uncle's  ear  had  had  the  flea  in  't, 
There  being  not  a  cent  of  duty 
On  any  pot  that  ever  drew  tea. 

There  was  MARIA  CHAPMAN,  too, 


of  The  Pennsylvania  Freeman,  where  the  verses 
were  first  published. 

With  her  swift  eyes  of  clear  steel-blue, 
The  coiled-up  mainspring  of  the  Fair, 
Originating  everywhere 
The  expansive  force  without  a  sound 
That  whirls  a  hundred  wheels  around, 
Herself  meanwhile  as  calm  and  still 
As  the  bare  crown  of  Prospect  Hill; 
A  noble  woman,  brave  and  apt, 
Cumsean  sibyl  not  more  rapt, 
Who  might,  with  those  fair  tresses  shorn, 
The  Maid  of  Orleans'  casque  have  worn, 
Herself  the  Joan  of  our  Ark, 
For  every  shaft  a  shining  mark. 

And  there,  too,  was  ELIZA  FOLLEN, 
Who  scatters  fruit-creating  pollen 
Where'er  a  blossom  she  can  find 
Hardy  enough  for  Truth's  north  wind, 
Each  several  point  of  all  her  face 
Tremblingly  bright  with  the  inward  grace, 
As  if  all  motion  gave  it  light 
Like  phosphorescent  seas  at  night. 

There  jokes  our  EDMUND,  plainly  son 

Of  him  who  bearded  Jefferson, 

A  non-resistant  by  conviction, 

But  with  a  bump  in  contradiction, 

So  that  whene'er  it  gets  a  chance 

His  pen  delights  to  play  the  lance, 

And  —  you  may  doubt  it,  or  believe  it  — 

Full  at  the  head  of  Joshua  Leavitt 

The  very  calumet  he  'd  launch, 

And  scourge  him  with  the  olive  branch. 

A  master  with  the  foils  of  wit, 


112 


LETTER   FROM    BOSTON 


'T  is  natural  he  should  love  a  hit; 

A  gentleman,  withal,  and  scholar, 

Only  base  things  excite  his  choler. 

And  then  his  satire  's  keen  and  thin 

As  the  lithe  blade  of  Saladin. 

Good  letters  are  a  gift  apart, 

And  his  are  gems  of  Flemish  art, 

True  offspring  of  the  fireside  Muse, 

Not  a  rag-gathering  of  news 

Like  a  new  hoph'eld  which  is  all  poles, 

But  of  one  blood  with  Horace  Walpole's. 

There,  with  one  hand  behind  his  back, 
Stands  PHILLIPS  buttoned  in  a  sack, 
Our  Attic  orator,  our  Chatham ; 
Old  fogies,  when  he  lightens  at  'em, 
Shrivel  like  leaves;  to  him  't  is  granted 
Always  to  say  the  word  that  's  wanted, 
So  that  he  seems  but  speaking  clearer 
The  tiptop  thought  of  every  hearer; 
Each  flash  his  brooding  heart  lets  fall 
Fires  what  's  combustible  in  all, 
And  sends  the  applauses  bursting  in 
Like  an  exploded  magazine. 
His  eloquence  no  frothy  show, 
The  gutter's  street-polluted  flow, 
No  Mississippi's  yellow  flood 
Whose  shoalness  can't  be  seen  for  mud;  — 
So  simply  clear,  serenely  deep, 
So  silent-strong  its  graceful  sweep, 
None  measures  its  unrippling  force 
Who  has  not  striven  to  stem  its  course; 
How  fare  their  barques  who  think  to  play 
With  smooth  Niagara's  inane  of  spray, 
Let  Austin's  total  shipwreck  say. 
He  never  spoke  a  word  too  much  — 
Except  of  Story,  or  some  such, 
Whom,  though  condemned  by  ethics  strict, 
The  heart  refuses  to  convict. 

Beyond,  a  crater  in  each  eye, 
Sways    brown,   broad  -  shouldered    PILLS- 
BURY, 

Who  tears  up  words  like  trees  by  the  roots, 
A  Theseus  in  stout  cow-hide  boots, 
The  wager  of  eternal  war 
Against  that  loathsome  Minotaur 
To  whom  we  sacrifice  each  year 
The  best  blood  of  our  Athens  here, 
(Dear  M.,  pray  brush  up  your  Lempriere.) 
A  terrible  denouncer  he, 
Old  Sinai  burns  unquenchably 
Upon  his  lips;  he  well  might  be  a 
Hot-blazing  soul  from  fierce  Judea, 
Habakkuk,  Ezra,  or  Hosea. 


His  words  are  red  hot  iron  searers, 
And  nightmare-like  he  mounts  his  hearers, 
Spurring  them  like  avenging  Fate,  or 
As  Waterton  his  alligator. 

Hard  by,  as  calm  as  summer  even, 

Smiles  the  reviled  and  pelted  STEPHEN, 

The  unappeasable  Boanerges 

To  all  the  Churches  and  the  Clergies, 

The  grim  savant  who,  to  complete 

His  own  peculiar  cabinet, 

Contrived  to  label  'mong  his  kicks 

One  from  the  followers  of  Hicks; 

Who  studied  mineralogy 

Not  with  soft  book  upon  the  knee, 

But  learned  the  properties  of  stones 

By  contact  sharp  of  flesh  and  bones, 

And  made  the  experimentum  crucis 

With  his  own  body's  vital  juices; 

A  man  with  caoutchouc  endurance, 

A  perfect  gem  for  life  insurance, 

A  kind  of  maddened  John  the  Baptist, 

To  whom  the  harshest  word  comes  aptest, 

Who,  struck  by  stone  or  brick  ill-starred, 

Hurls  back  an  epithet  as  hard, 

Which,  deadlier  than  stone  or  brick, 

Has  a  propensity  to  stick. 

His  oratory  is  like  the  scream 

Of  the  iron-horse's  frenzied  steam 

Which  warns  the  world  to  leave  wide  space 

For  the  black  engine's  swerveless  race. 

Ye   men  with    neckcloths   white,   I   warn 

you  — 
Habet  a  whole  haymow  in  cornu. 

A  Judith,  there,  turned  Quakeress, 

Sits  A  BUY  in  her  modest  dress, 

Serving  a  table  quietly, 

As  if  that  mild  and  downcast  eye 

Flashed  never,  with  its  scorn  intense, 

More  than  Medea's  eloquence. 

So  the  same  force  which  shakes  its  dread 

Far-blazing  blocks  o'er  Etna's  head, 

Along  the  wires  in  silence  fares 

And  messages  of  commerce  bears. 

No  nobler  gift  of  heart  and  brain, 

No  life  more  white  from  spot  or  stain, 

Was  e'er  on  Freedom's  altar  laid 

Than  hers,  the  simple  Quaker  maid. 

These  last  three  (leaving  in  the  lurch 
Some  other  themes)  assault  the  Church, 
Who  therefore  writes  them  in  her  lists 
As  Satan's  limbs  and  atheists; 
For  each  sect  has  one  argument 


A   FABLE   FOR   CRITICS 


Whereby  the  rest  to  hell  are  sent, 
Which  serve  them  like  the  Graise's  tooth, 
Passed    round    in    turn    from    mouth   to 

mouth;  — 

If  any  ism  should  arise, 
Then  look  on  it  with  constable's  eyes, 
Tie  round  its  neck  a  heavy  athe-, 
And  give  it  kittens'  hydropathy. 
This  trick  with  other  (useful  very)  tricks 
Is  laid  to  the  Babylonian  meretrix, 
But  't  was  in  vogue  before  her  day 
Wherever  priesthoods  had  their  way, 
And  Buddha's  Popes  with  this  struck  dumb 
The  followers  of  Fi  and  Fum. 

Well,  if  the  world,  with  prudent  fear 
Pay  God  a  seventh  of  the  year, 
And  as  a  Farmer,  who  would  pack 
All  his  religion  in  one  stack, 
For  this  world  works  six  days  in  seven 
And  idles  on  the  seventh  for  Heaven, 
Expecting,  for  his  Sunday's  sowing, 
In  the  next  world  to  go  a-mowing 
The  crop  of  all  his  meeting-going;  — 
If  the  poor  Church,  by  power  enticed, 
Finds  none  so  infidel  as  Christ, 


Quite  backward  reads  his  Gospel  meek, 
(As  't  were  in  Hebrew  writ,  not  Greek,) 
Fencing  the  gallows  and  the  sword 
With  conscripts  drafted  from  his  word, 
And  makes  one  gate  of  Heaven  so  wide 
That  the  rich  orthodox  might  ride 
Through  on  their  camels,  while  the  poor 
Squirm  through  the  scant,  unyielding  door, 
Which,  of  the  Gospel's  straitest  size, 
Is  narrower  than  bead-needles'  eyes, 
What  wonder  World  and   Church  should 

call 
The  true  faith  atheistical? 

Yet,  after  all,  'twixt  you  and  me, 
Dear  Miller,  I  could  never  see 
That  Sin's  and  Error's  ugly  smirch 
Stained  the  walls  only  of  the  Church; 
There  are  good  priests,  and  men  who  take 
Freedom's  torn  cloak  for  lucre's  sake; 
I  can't  believe  the  Church  so  strong, 
As  some  men  do,  for  Right  or  Wrong. 
But,  for  this  subject  (long  and  vext) 
I  must  refer  you  to  my  next, 
As  also  for  a  list  exact 
Of  goods  with  which  the  Hall  was  packed. 


A   FABLE    FOR    CRITICS 


IN  a  Prefatory  Note  which  Mr.  Lowell  pre 
fixed  to  a  later  issue  of  this  poem,  the  history 
of  its  inception  and  publication  is  thus  briefly 
told :  "  This  jeu  d'esprit  was  extemporized,  I 
may  fairly  say,  so  rapidly  was  it  written, 
purely  for  my  own  amusement  and  with  no 
thought  of  publication.  I  sent  daily  instal 
ments  of  it  to  a  friend  in  New  York,  the  late 
Charles  F.  Briggs.  He  urged  me  to  let  it  be 
printed,  and  I  at  last  consented  to  its  anony 
mous  publication.  The  secret  was  kept  till 
after  several  persons  had  laid  claim  to  its 
authorship."  In  the  Letters  it  is  possible  to  get 
a  closer  view  of  the  author  at  work.  In  a  letter 
to  Mr.  Briggs,  written  November  13,  1847,  he 
says:  "My  satire  remains  just  as  it  was. 
About  six  hundred  lines  I  think  are  written. 
I  left  it  because  I  wished  to  finish  it  in  one 
mood  of  mind,  and  not  to  get  that  and  my 
serious  poems  in  the  new  volume  entangled. 
It  is  a  rambling,  disjointed  affair,  and  I  may 
alter  the  form  of  it,  but  if  I  can  get  it  read,  I 
know  it  will  take.  I  intend  to  give  it  some 
serial  title  and  continue  it  at  intervals."  On 
the  last  day  of  the  same  year,  he  writes  to  his 


correspondent :  "  I  have  been  hard  at  work 
copying  my  satire,  that  I  might  get  it  (what  was 
finished  of  it,  at  least)  to  you  by  New-Year's 
Day  as  a  present.  As  it  is,  I  can  only  send 
the  first  part.  It  was  all  written  with  one  im 
pulse  and  was  the  work  of  not  a  great  many 
hours,  but  it  was  written  in  good  spirits  (con 
amore,  as  Leupp  said  he  used  to  smoke),  and 
therefore  seems  to  me  to  have  a  hearty  and 
easy  swing  about  it  that  is  pleasant.  But  I 
was  interrupted  midway  by  being  obliged  to 
get  ready  the  copy  for  my  volume,  and  I  have 
never  been  able  to  weld  my  present  mood  upon 
the  old  one  without  making  an  ugly  swelling 
at  the  joint. 

"  I  wish  you  to  understand  that  I  make  you  a 
New  Year's  gift,  not  of  the  manuscript,  but  of 
the  thing  itself.  I  wish  you  to  get  it  printed 
(if  you  think  the  sale  will  warrant  it)  for  your 
own  benefit.  At  the  same  time  I  am  desirous 
of  retaining  my  copyright,  in  order  that,  if  cir 
cumstances  render  it  desirable,  I  may  still  pos 
sess  a  control  over  it.  Therefore,  if  you  think 
it  would  repay  publishing  ( I  have  no  doubt  of 
it,  or  I  should  not  offer  it  to  you)  I  wish  you 


A   FABLE   FOR   CRITICS 


would  enter  the  copyright  in  your  own  name, 
and  then  make  a  transfer  to  me  in  '  considera 
tion  of,'  etc. 

"  I  am  making  as  particular  directions  as  if 
I  were  drawing  my  will,  but  I  have  a  sort  of 
presentiment  (which  I  never  had  in  regard  to 
anything  else)  that  this  little  bit  of  pleasantry 
will  take.  Perhaps  I  have  said  too  much  of 
the  Centurion.  But  it  was  only  the  comical 
ity  of  his  character  that  attracted  me  —  for  the 
man  himself  personally  never  entered  my  head. 
But  the  sketch  is  clever  ?  " 

Again  under  date  of  March  26, 1848 :  "  Since 
I  sent  you  the  first  half,  I  have  written  some 
thing  about  Willis  and  about  Longfellow  — 
and  I  am  waiting  for  pleasanter  weather  in 
order  to  finish  it.  I  want  to  get  my  windows 
open  and  to  write  in  the  fresh  air.  I  ought 
not  to  have  sent  you  any  part  of  it  till  I  had 
finished  it  entirely.  I  feel  a  sense  of  respon 
sibility  which  hinders  my  pen  from  running 
along  as  it  ought  in  such  a  theme.  I  wish  the 
last  half  to  be  as  jolly  and  unconstrained  as 
the  first.  If  you  had  not  praised  what  I  sent 
you,  I  dare  say  you  would  have  had  the  whole 
of  it  ere  this.  Praise  is  the  only  thing  that 
can  make  me  feel  any  doubt  of  myself."  Six 


weeks  later  he  wrote,  May  12  :  "  When  I  can 
sit  at  my  open  window  and  my  friendly  leaves 
hold  their  hands  before  my  eyes  to  prevent 
their  wandering  to  the  landscape,  I  can  sit 
down  and  write.  I  have  begun  upon  the 
Fable  again  fairly,  and  am  making  some  head 
way.  I  think  with  what  I  sent  you  (which  I 
believe  was  about  five  hundred  lines)  it  will 
make  something  over  a  thousand.  I  have 
done,  since  I  sent  the  first  half,  Willis,  Long 
fellow,  Bryant,  Miss  Fuller,  and  Mrs.  Child. 
In  Longfellow's  case  I  have  attempted  no  char 
acterization.  The  same  (in  a  degree)  may  be 
said  of  S.  M.  F.  With  her  I  have  been  perfectly 

food-humored,  but  I  have  a  fancy  that  what 
say  will  stick  uncomfortably.  It  will  make 
you  laugh.  So  will  L.  M.  C.  After  S.  M.  F. 
I  make  a  short  digression  on  bores  in  general, 
which  has  some  drollery.  Willis  I  think  good. 
Bryant  is  funny,  and  as  fair  as  I  could  make  it, 
immitigably  just.  Indeed  I  have  endeavored 
to  be  so  in  all." 

The  volume  was  affectionately  inscribed  to 
Charles  F.  Briggs,  and  furnished  with  the  fol 
lowing  rhymed  title  page  and  preliminary  note, 
a  second  note  being  prefixed  to  a  second  edi 
tion. 


Header .'  walk  up  at  once  (it  will  soon  be  too  late), 
and  buy  at  a  perfectly  ruinous  rate 

A  FABLE  FOR  CRITICS: 


OR,  BETTER, 

(I  LIKE,  AS  A  THING  THAT  THE  READER'S  FIRST  FANCY  MAT 

STRIKE,  AN  OLD-FASHIONED  TITLE-PAGE,  SUCH 
AS  PRESENTS  A  TABULAR  VIEW  OF  THE  VOLUME'S  CONTENTS), 

A  GLANCE  AT  A  FEW  OF  OUR  LIT 
ERARY  PROGENIES 

(MRS.  MALAPROFS  WORD) 

FROM  THE  TUB  OF  DIOGENES  ; 

A   VOCAL   AND   MUSICAL   MEDLEY, 

THAT    IS, 

A   SERIES   OF   JOKES 


WHO  ACCOMPANIES   HIMSELF  WITH  A  RUB-A-DUB-DUB,    FULL 
OF  SPIRIT  AND  GRACE,  ON  THE  TOP  OF  THE  TUB. 

Set  forth  in  October,  the  list  day, 
In  the  year  '48,  G.  P.  Putnam,  Broadway. 


IT  being  the  commonest  mode  of  proced 
ure,  I  premise  a  few  candid  remarks 

To  THE  READER  :  — 

This  trifle,  begun  to  please  only  myself 
and  my  own  private  fancy,  was  laid  on  the 
shelf.  But  some  friends,  who  had  seen  it, 
induced  me,  by  dint  of  saying  they  liked  it, 
to  put  it  in  print.  That  is,  having  come 
to  that  very  conclusion,  I  asked  their  advice 
when  't  would  make  no  confusion.  For 
though  (in  the  gentlest  of  ways)  they  had 
hinted  it  was  scarce  worth  the  while,  I 
should  doubtless  have  printed  it. 

I  began  it,  intending  a  Fable,  a  frail, 
slender  thing,  rhyme-ywinged,  with  a  sting 
in  its  tail.  But,  by  acldings  and  alterings 
not  previously  planned,  digressions  chance- 
hatched,  like  birds'  eggs  in  the  sand,  and 
dawdlings  to  suit  every  whimsey's  demand 
(always  freeing  the  bird  which  I  held  in 
my  hand,  for  the  two  perched,  perhaps  out 
of  reach,  in  the  tree),  —  it  grew  by  degrees 
to  the  size  which  you  see.  I  was  like  the 
old  woman  that  carried  the  calf,  and  my 
neighbors,  like  hers,  no  doubt,  wonder  and 
laugh;  and  when,  my  strained  arms  with 
their  grown  burthen  full,  I  call  it  my  Fable, 
they  call  it  a  bull. 


A   FABLE   FOR   CRITICS 


Having  scrawled  at  full  gallop  (as  far  as 
that  goes)  in  a  style  that  is  neither  good 
verse  nor  bad  prose,  and  being  a  person 
whom  nobody  knows,  some  people  will  say 
I  am  rather  more  free  with  my  readers 
than  it  is  becoming  to  be,  that  I  seem  to 
expect  them  to  wait  on  my  leisure  in  fol 
lowing  wherever  I  wander  at  pleasure, 
that,  in  short,  I  take  more  than  a  young 
author's  lawful  ease,  and  laugh  in  a  queer 
way  so  like  Mephistopheles,  that  the  Pub 
lic  will  doubt,  as  they  grope  through  my 
rhythm,  if  in  truth  I  am  making  fun  of 
them  or  with  them. 

So  the  excellent  Public  is  hereby  assured 
that  the  sale  of  my  book  is  already  secured. 
For  there  is  not  a  poet  throughout  the 
whole  land  but  will  purchase  a  copy  or  two 
out  of  hand,  in  the  fond  expectation  of 
being  amused  in  it,  by  seeing  his  betters 
cut  up  and  abused  in  it.  Now,  I  find,  by  a 
pretty  exact  calculation,  there  are  some 
thing  like  ten  thousand  bards  in  the  nation, 
of  that  special  variety  whom  the  Review 
and  Magazine  critics  call  lofty  and  true,  and 
about  thirty  thousand  (this  tribe  is  increas 
ing)  of  the  kinds  who  are  termed  full  of 
promise  and  pleasing.  The  Public  will  see 
by  a  glance  at  this  schedule,  that  they  can 
not  expect  me  to  be  over-sedulous  about 
courting  them,  since  it  seems  I  have  got 
enough  fuel  made  sure  of  for  boiling  my 
pot. 

As  for  such  of  our  poets  as  find  not 
their  names  mentioned  once  in  my  pages, 
with  praises  or  blames,  let  them  SEND  IN 
THEIR  CARDS,  without  further  DELAY,  to 
my  friend  G-.  P.  PUTNAM,  Esquire,  in 
Broadway,  where  a  LIST  will  be  kept  with 
the  strictest  regard  to  the  day  and  the  hour 
of  receiving  the  card.  Then,  taking  them 
up  as  I  chance  to  have  time  (that  is,  if 
their  names  can  be  twisted  in  rhyme),  I 
will  honestly  give  each  his  PROPER  POSI 
TION,  at  the  rate  of  ONE  AUTHOR  to  each 
NEW  EDITION.  Thus  a  PREMIUM  is  of 
fered  sufficiently  HIGH  (as  the  magazines 
say  when  they  tell  their  best  lie)  to  induce 
bards  to  CLUB  their  resources  and  buy  the 
balance  of  every  edition,  until  they  have  all 
of  them  fairly  been  run  through  the  mill. 

One  word  to  such  readers  (judicious  and 
wise)  as  read  books  with  something  behind 
the  mere  eyes,  of  whom  in  the  country, 
perhaps,  there  are  two,  including  myself, 


gentle  reader,  and  you.  All  the  characters 
sketched  in  this  slight  jeu  d1  esprit,  though, 
it  may  be,  they  seem,  here  and  there, 
rather  free,  and  drawn  from  a  somewhat 
too  cynical  standpoint,  are  meant  to  be 
faithful,  for  that  is  the  grand  point,  and 
none  but  an  owl  would  feel  sore  at  a  rub 
from  a  jester  who  tells  you,  without  any 
subterfuge,  that  he  sits  in  Diogenes'  tub. 


A  PRELIMINARY  NOTE  TO  THE 
SECOND  EDITION, 

though  it  well  may  be  reckoned,  of  all 
composition,  the  species  at  once  most  de 
lightful  and  healthy,  is  a  thing  which  an 
author,  unless  he  be  wealthy  and  willing  to 
pay  for  that  kind  of  delight,  is  not,  in  all 
instances,  called  on  to  write,  though  there 
are,  it  is  said,  who,  their  spirits  to  cheer, 
slip  in  a  new  title-page  three  times  a  year, 
and  in  this  way  snuff  up  an  imaginary 
savor  of  that  sweetest  of  dishes,  the  popu 
lar  favor,  —  much  as  if  a  starved  painter 
should  fall  to  and  treat  the  Ugolino  inside 
to  a  picture  of  meat. 

You  remember  (if  not,  pray  turn  back 
ward  and  look)  that,  in  writing  the  preface 
which  ushered  my  book,  I  treated  you,  ex 
cellent  Public,  not  merely  with  a  cool  dis 
regard,  but  downright  cavalierly.  Now  I 
would  not  take  back  the  least  thing  I  then 
said,  though  I  thereby  could  butter  both 
sides  of  my  bread,  for  I  never  could  see 
that  an  author  owed  aught  to  the  people 
he  solaced,  diverted,  or  taught  ;  and,  as  for 
mere  fame,  I  have  long  ago  learned  that 
the  persons  by  whom  it  is  finally  earned 
are  those  with  whom  your  verdict  weighed 
not  a  pin,  unsustained  by  the  higher  court 
sitting  within. 

But  I  wander  from  what  I  intended  to 
say^  —  that  you  have,  namely,  shown  such 
a  liberal  way  of  thinking,  and  so  much 
aesthetic  perception  of  anonymous  worth  in 
the  handsome  reception  you  gave  to  my 
book,  spite  of  some  private  piques  (having 
bought  the  first  thousand  in  barely  two 
weeks),  that  I  think,  past  a  doubt,  if  you 
measured  the  phiz  of  yours  most  devotedly, 
Wonderful  Quiz,  you  would  find  that  its 
vertical  section  was  shorter,  by  an  inch  and 
two  tenths,  or  'twixt  that  and  a  quarter. 

You  have  watched  a  child  playing  —  in 


Tl6 


A   FABLE   FOR   CRITICS 


those  wondrous  years  when  belief  is  not 
bound  to  the  eyes  and  the  ears,  and  the 
vision  divine  is  so  clear  and  unmarred, 
that  each  baker  of  pies  in  the  dirt  is  a 
bard  ?  Give  a  knife  and  a  shingle,  he  fits 
out  a  fleet,  and,  on  that  little  mud-puddle 
over  the  street,  his  fancy,  in  purest  good 
faith,  will  make  sail  round  the  globe  with 
a  puff  of  his  breath  for  a  gale,  will  visit, 
in  barely  ten  minutes,  all  climes,  and  do 
the  Columbus-feat  hundreds  of  times.  Or, 
suppose  the  young  poet  fresh  stored  with 
delights  from  that  Bible  of  childhood,  the 
Arabian  Nights,  he  will  turn  to  a  crony 
and  cry,  "  Jack,  let  's  play  that  I  am  a 
Genius  ! "  Jacky  straightway  makes 
Aladdin's  lamp  out  of  a  stone,  and,  for 
hours,  they  enjoy  each  his  own  super 
natural  powers.  This  is  all  very  pretty 
and  pleasant,  but  then  suppose  our  two 
urchins  have  grown  into  men,  and  both 
have  turned  authors,  —  one  says  to  his 
brother,  "  Let  's  play  we  're  the  American 
somethings  or  other,  —  say  Homer  or 
Sophocles,  Goethe  or  Scott  (only  let  them 
be  big  enough,  no  matter  what).  Come, 
you  shall  be  Byron  or  Pope,  which  you 
choose:  I  '11  be  Coleridge,  and  both  shall 
write  mutual  reviews."  So  they  both  (as 
mere  strangers)  before  many  days  send 
each  other  a  cord  of  anonymous  bays. 
Each,  piling  his  epithets,  smiles  in  his 
sleeve  to  see  what  his  friend  can  be  made 
to  believe;  each,  reading  the  other's  un 
biased  review,  thinks  —  Here  's  pretty  high 
praise,  but  no  more  than  my  due.  Well, 
we  laugh  at  them  both,  and  yet  make  no 
great  fuss  when  the  same  farce  is  acted  to 
benefit  us.  Even  I,  who,  if  asked,  scarce 
a  month  since,  what  Fudge  meant,  should 
have  answered,  the  dear  Public's  critical 
judgment,  begin  to  think  sharp-witted 
Horace  spoke  sooth  when  he  said  that  the 
Public  sometimes  hit  the  truth. 

In  reading  these  lines,  you  perhaps  have 
a  vision  of  a  person  in  pretty  good  health 
and  condition  ;  and  yet,  since  I  put  forth 
my  primary  edition,  I  have  been  crushed, 
scorched,  withered,  used  up  and  put  down 
(by  Smith  with  the  cordial  assistance  of 
Brown),  in  all,  if  you  put  any  faith  in  my 
rhymes,  to  the  number  of  ninety-five  several 
times,  and,  while  I  am  writing,  —  I  tremble 
to  think  of  it,  for  I  may  at  this  moment  be 
just  on  the  brink  of  it,  —  Molybdostom, 


angry  at  being  omitted,  has  begun  a   crit 
ique,  —  am  I  not  to  be  pitied  ?  l 

Now  I  shall  not  crush  them  since,  indeed, 
for  that  matter,  no  pressure  I  know  of 
could  render  them  flatter  ;  nor  wither,  nor 
scorch  them,  —  no  action  of  fire  could 
make  either  them  or  their  articles  drier  ; 
nor  waste  time  in  putting  them  down  — 
I  am  thinking  not  their  own  self-inflation 
will  keep  them  from  sinking  ;  for  there  's 
this  contradiction  about  the  whole  bevy, — 
though  without  the  least  weight,  they  are 
awfully  heavy.  No,  my  dear  honest  bore, 
surdo  fabulam  narras,  they  are  no  more  to 
me  than  a  rat  in  the  arras.  I  can  walk 
with  the  Doctor,  get  facts  from  the  Don, 
or  draw  out  the  Lambish  quintessence  of 
John,  and  feel  nothing  more  than  a  half- 
comic  sorrow,  to  think  that  they  all  will 
be  lying  to-morrow  tossed  carelessly  up  on 
the  waste-paper  shelves,  and  forgotten  by 
all  but  their  half-dozen  selves.  Once  snug 
in  my  attic,  my  fire  in  a  roar,  I  leave 
the  whole  pack  of  them  outside  the  door. 
With  Hakluyt  or  Purchas  I  wander  away 
to  the  black  northern  seas  or  barbaric  Ca 
thay  ;  get  fou  with  O'Shanter,  and  sober 
me  then  with  that  builder  of  brick-kilnish 
dramas,  rare  Ben  ;  snuff  Herbert,  as  holy 
as  a  flower  on  a  grave  ;  with  Fletcher  wax 
tender,  o'er  Chapman  grow  brave  ;  with 
Marlowe  or  Kyd  take  a  fine  poet-rave  ;  in 
Very,  most  Hebrew  of  Saxons,  find  peace  ; 
with  Lycidas  welter  on  vext  Irish  seas  ; 
with  Webster  grow  wild,  and  climb  earth 
ward  again,  down  by  mystical  Browne's 
Jacob's-ladder-like  brain,  to  that  spiritual 
Pepys  (Cotton's  version)  Montaigne  ;  find 
a  new  depth  in  Wordsworth,  undreamed 
of  before,  that  marvel,  a  poet  divine  who 
can  bore.  Or,  out  of  my  study,  the  scholar 
thrown  off,  Nature  holds  up  her  shield 
'gainst  the  sneer  and  the  scoff  ;  the  land 
scape,  forever  consoling  and  kind,  pours 
her  wine  and  her  oil  on  the  smarts  of  the 
mind.  The  waterfall,  scattering  its  vanish 
ing  gems  ;  the  tall  grove  of  hemlocks,  with 
moss  on  their  stems,  like  plashes  of  sun 
light  ;  the  pond  in  the  woods,  where  no 
foot  but  mine  and  the  bittern's  intrudes, 
where  pitcher-plants  purple  and  gentians 

1  The  wise  Scandinavians  probably  called  their  barda 
by  the  queer-looking  title  of  Scald  in  a  delicate  way,  as 
it  were,  just  to  hint  to  the  world  the  hot  water  they 
always  get  into. 


A   FABLE   FOR   CRITICS 


7 


hard  by  recall  to  September  the  blue  of 
June's  sky;  these  are  all  my  kind  neigh 
bors,  and  leave  me  no  wish  to  say  aught  to 
you  all,  my  poor  critics,  but  —  pish  !  I  've 
buried  the  hatchet  :  I  'm  twisting  an  allu- 
mette  out  of  one  of  you  now,  and  relight 
ing  my  calumet.  In  your  private  capaci 
ties,  come  when  you  please,  I  will  give  you 
my  hand  and  a  fresh  pipe  apiece. 

As  I  ran  through  the  leaves  of  my  poor 
little  book,  to  take  a  fond  author's  first 
tremulous  look,  it  was  quite  an  excitement 
to  hunt  the  errata,  sprawled  in  as  birds' 
tracks  are  in  some  kinds  of  strata  (only 
these  made  things  crookeder).  Fancy  an 
heir  that  a  father  had  seen  born  well- 
featured  and  fair,  turning  suddenly  wry- 
nosed,  club-footed,  squint-eyed,  hair-lipped, 
wapper-jawed,  carrot-haired,  from  a  pride 
become  an  aversion,  —  my  case  was  yet 
worse.  A  club-foot  (by  way  of  a  change) 
in  a  verse,  I  might  have  forgiven,  an  o's 
being  wry,  a  limp  in  an  e,  or  a  cock  in  an 
it  —  but  to  have  the  sweet  babe  of  my 
brain  served  in  pi!  I  am  not  queasy- 
stomached,  but  such  a  Thyestean  banquet 
as  that  was  quite  out  of  the  question. 

In  the  edition  now  issued  no  pains  are 
neglected,  and  my  verses,  as  orators  say, 
stand  corrected.  Yet  some  blunders  re 
main  of  the  Public's  own  make,  which  I 
wish  to  correct  for  my  personal  sake.  For 
instance,  a  character  drawn  in  pure  fun 
and  condensing  the  traits  of  a  dozen  in  one, 
has  been,  as  I  hear,  by  some  persons  ap 
plied  to  a  good  friend  of  mine,  whom  to 
stab  in  the  side,  as  we  walked  along  chat 
ting  and  joking  together,  would  not  be  my 
way.  I  can  hardly  tell  whether  a  question 
will  ever  arise  in  which  he  and  I  should  by 
any  strange  fortune  agree,  but  meanwhile 
my  esteem  for  him  grows  as  I  know  him, 
and,  though  not  the  best  judge  on  earth  of 
a  poem,  he  knows  what  it  is  he  is  saying 
and  why,  and  is  honest  and  fearless,  two 
good  points  which  I  have  not  found  so  rife 
I  can  easily  smother  my  love  for  them, 
whether  on  my  side  or  t'  other. 

For  my  other  anonyml,  you  may  be  sure 
that  I  know  what  is  meant  by  a  caricature, 
and  what  by  a  portrait.  There  are  those 
who  think  it  is  capital  fun  to  be  spattering 
their  ink  on  quiet,  unquarrelsome  folk,  but 
the  minute  the  game  changes  sides  and  the 
others  begin  it,  they  see  something  savage 


and  horrible  in  it.  As  for  me  I  respect 
neither  women  nor  men  for  their  gender, 
nor  own  any  sex  in  a  pen.  I  choose  just 
to  hint  to  some  causeless  unfriends  that,  as 
far  as  I  know,  there  are  always  two  ends 
(and  one  of  them  heaviest,  too)  to  a  staff, 
and  two  parties  also  to  every  good  laugh. 


A  FABLE  FOR   CRITICS 

PHCEBUS,  sitting   one   day   in   a  laurel- 
tree's  shade, 
Was  reminded  of  Daphne,  of  whom  it  was 

made, 
For  the  god  being  one  day  too  warm  in  his 

wooing, 

She  took  to  the  tree  to  escape  his  pursuing; 
Be  the  cause  what  it  might,  from  his  offers 

she  shrunk, 
And,  Ginevra-like,   shut   herself  up   in  a 

trunk ; 
And,  though  't  was  a  step   into   which  he 

had  driven  her, 
He  somehow  or  other  had  never  forgiven 

her; 

Her  memory  he  nursed  as  a  kind  of  a  tonic, 
Something  bitter  to  chew  when  he  'd  play 

the  Byronic, 
And  I  can't   count   the   obstinate  nymphs 

that  he  brought  over 
By  a  strange  kind  of  smile  he  put  on  when 

he  thought  of  her. 

"  My  case  is  like  Dido's,"  he  sometimes  re 
marked; 
"  When  I  last  saw  my  love,  she  was  fairly 

embarked 
In  a  laurel,  as  she  thought  —  but   (ah,  how 

Fate  mocks  !) 
She  has  found  it  by  this  time  a  very  bad 

box; 
Let  hunters  from  me  take  this   saw  when 

they  need  it,  — 
You  're  not  always  sure  of  your  game  when 

you  've  treed  it. 
Just  conceive  such  a  change  taking  place 

in  one's  mistress  ! 
What  romance  would  be  left  ?  —  who  can 

flatter  or  kiss  trees  ? 
And,  for  mercy's  sake,  how  could  one  keep 

up  a  dialogue 
With  a  dull  wooden  thing   that  will  live 

and  will  die  a  log,  — 
Not  to  say  that  the  thought  would  forever 

intrude 


n8 


A   FABLE   FOR   CRITICS 


That  you  've  less  chance  to  win  her  the 

more  she  is  wood  ? 
Ah  !  it  went  to  my  heart,  and  the  memory 

still  grieves, 
To  see  those  loved  graces  all  taking  their 

leaves; 
Those  charms  beyond  speech,  so  enchanting 

but  now, 
As  they  left  me  forever,  each  making  its 

bough  ! 
If  her  tongue  had  a  tang  sometimes  more 

than  was  right, 
Her  new  bark  is  worse  than  ten  times  her 

old  bite." 

Now,  Daphne  —  before  she  was  happily 

treeified  — 

Over  all  other  blossoms  the  lily  had  deified, 
And  when  she  expected  the  god  on  a  visit 
('T  was  before  he  had  made  his  intentions 

explicit), 
Some  buds  she  arranged  with  a  vast  deal 

of  care, 

To  look  as  if  artlessly  twined  in  her  hair, 
Where   they  seemed,  as  he  said,  when  he 

paid  his  addresses, 
Like  the  day  breaking  through   the   long 

night  of  her  tresses; 

So  whenever  he  wished  to  be  quite  irresisti 
ble, 
Like  a  man  with  eight  trumps  in  his  hand 

at  a  whist-table 
(I  feared  me  at  first   that   the   rhyme  was 

untwistable, 
Though  I  might  have  lugged  in  an  allusion 

to  Cristabel),  — 
He  would  take  up  a  lily,  and  gloomily  look 

in  it, 
As  I  shall  at  the ,  when  they  cut  up 

my  book  in  it. 

Well,  here,  after  all  the  bad  rhyme  I  Ve 
been  spinning, 

I  've  got  back  at  last  to  my  story's  begin 
ning: 

Sitting  there,  as  I  say,  in  the  shade  of  his 
mistress, 

As  dull  as  a  volume  of  old  Chester  myster 
ies, 

Or  as  those  puzzling  specimens  which,  in 
old  histories, 

We  read  of  his  verses  —  the  Oracles, 
namely,  — 

(I  wonder  the  Greeks  should  have  swal 
lowed  them  tamely, 


For  one  might  bet  safely  whatever  he  has 
to  risk, 

They  were  laid  at  his  door  by  some  ancient 
Miss  Asterisk, 

And  so  dull  that  the  men  who  retailed 
them  out-doors 

Got  the  ill  name  of  augurs,  because  they 
were  bores,  — ) 

First,  he  mused  what  the  animal  substance 
or  herb  is 

Would  induce  a  mustache,  for  you  know 
he  's  imberbis  • 

Then  he  shuddered  to  think  how  his  youth 
ful  position 

Was  assailed  by  the  age  of  his  son  the 
physician  ; 

At  some  poems  he  glanced,  had  been  sent 
to  him  lately, 

And  the  metre  and  sentiment  puzzled  him 
greatly; 

"  Mehercle  !  I  'd  make  such  proceeding 
felonious,  — 

Have  they  all  of  them  slept  in  the  cave  of 
Trophonius  ? 

Look  well  to  your  seat,  't  is  like  taking  an 
airing 

On  a  corduroy  road,  and  that  out  of  repair 
ing; 

It  leads  one,  't  is  true,  through  the  primi 
tive  forest, 

Grand  natural  features,  but  then  one  has 
no  rest; 

You  just  catch  a  glimpse  of  some  ravish 
ing  distance, 

When  a  jolt  puts  the  whole  of  it  out  of  ex 
istence,  — 

Why  not  use  their  ears,  if  they  happen  to 
have  any  ?  " 

—  Here  the  laurel-leaves  murmured  the 
name  of  poor  Daphne. 

"  Oh,  weep  with  me,  Daphne,"  he  sighed, 

"  for  you  know  it  's 

A  terrible  thing  to  be  pestered  with  po 
ets  ! 
But,  alas,  she  is   dumb,  and  the  proverb 

holds  good, 
She  never  will  cry  till   she  's   out   of  the 

wood  ! 
What  would   n't   I   give   if   I   never   had 

known  of  her  ? 
'T  were  a  kind  of  relief  had  I   something 

to  groan  over: 
If  I  had  but  some  letters  of  hers,  now,  to 

toss  over, 


A   FABLE   FOR   CRITICS 


119 


I  might  turn  for  the  nonce  a  Byronic  phi 
losopher, 

And  bewitch  all  the  flats  by  bemoaning  the 
loss  of  her. 

One  needs  something  tangible,  though,  to 
begin  on,  — 

A  loom,  as  it  were,  for  the  fancy  to  spin 
on; 

What  boots  all  your  grist  ?  it  can  never  be 
ground 

Till  a  breeze  makes  the  arms  of  the  wind 
mill  go  round; 

(Or,  if  't  is  a  water-mill,  alter  the  meta 
phor, 

And  say  it  won't  stir,  save  the  wheel  be 
well  wet  afore, 

Or  lug  in  some  stuff  about  water  'so 
dreamily,'  — 

It  is  not  a  metaphor,  though,  't  is  a  sim- 
ile); 

A  lily,  perhaps,  would  set  my  mill  a-going, 

For  just  at  this  season,  I  think,  they  are 
blowing. 

Here,  somebody,  fetch  one;  not  very  far 
hence 

They  're  in  bloom  by  the  score,  't  is  but 
climbing  a  fence; 

There  's  a  poet  hard  by,  who  does  nothing 
but  fill  his 

Whole  garden,  from  one  end  to  t'  other, 
with  lilies; 

A  very  good  plan,  were  it  not  for  satiety, 

One  longs  for  a  weed  here  and  there,  for 
variety; 

Though  a  weed  is  no  more  than  a  flower  in 
disguise, 

Which  is  seen  through  at  once,  if  love  give 
a  man  eyes." 

Now  there  happened  to  be  among  Pho3- 

bus's  followers, 
A  gentleman,  one  of  the  omnivorous  swal- 

lowers, 
Who  bolt  every  book  that   comes   out  of 

the  press, 
Without  the  least   question   of  larger   or 

less, 
Whose  stomachs  are  strong  at  the  expense 

of  their  head,  — 
For  reading  new  books  is  like  eating  new 

bread, 
One  can  bear  it  at  first,  but  by  gradual 

steps  he 
Is  brought  to   death's   door   of  a   mental 

dyspepsy. 


On    a    previous    stage   of  existence,    our 

Hero 
Had  ridden  outside,  with  the  glass  below 

zero; 
He  had  been,  't  is  a  fact  you  may  safely 

rely  on, 
Of    a    very   old    stock    a    most    eminent 

scion,  — 
A  stock  all  fresh  quacks  their  fierce  boluses 

ply  on, 

Who  stretch  the  new  boots  Earth 's  unwill 
ing  to  try  on, 
Whom  humbugs  of  all   shapes  and  sorts 

keep  their  eye  on, 
Whose  hair  's  in  the  mortar  of  every  new 

Zion, 
'Vyho,  when  whistles  are  dear,  go  directly 

and  buy  one, 
Who  think  slavery  a  crime  that  we  must 

not  say  fie  on, 
Who  hunt,  if  they  e'er  hunt  at  all,  with  the 

lion 
(Though   they   hunt  lions   also,  whenever 

they  spy  one), 
Who  contrive  to  make  every  good  fortune 

a  wry  one, 
And  at  last  choose  the  hard  bed  of  honor 

to  die  on, 
Whose  pedigree,  traced  to  earth's  earliest 

years, 
Is    longer   than   anything   else    but   their 

ears ; — 
In  short,  he  was  sent  into  life  with   the 

wrong  key, 
He  unlocked  the   door,  and  stept  forth  a 

poor  donkey. 
Though  kicked  and  abused  by  his  bipedal 

betters 
Yet  he  filled  no  mean  place  in  the  kingdom 

of  letters; 

Far  happier  than  many  a  literary  hack, 
He    bore    only    paper-mill    rags    on    his 

back 
(For  it  makes  a  vast  difference  which  side 

the  mill 
One   expends  on  the  paper  his  labor  and 

skill); 

So,  when  his  soul  waited  a   new  transmi 
gration, 
And  Destiny  balanced  'twixt  this  and  that 

station, 
Not  having   much   time   to   expend   upon 

bothers, 
Remembering  he  'd  had   some   connection 

with  authors. 


120 


A   FABLE   FOR   CRITICS 


And  considering  his  four  legs  had   grown 

paralytic,  — 
She  set  him  on  two,  and  he  came   forth  a 

critic. 

Through  his  babyhood  no  kind  of  pleas 
ure  he  took 

In  any  amusement  but  tearing  a  book; 
For  him  there  was  no  intermediate  stage 
From  babyhood  up  to  straight-laced  mid 
dle  age; 
There  were  years  when  he   did  n't   wear 

coat-tails  behind, 

But  a  boy  he  could  never  be  rightly  de 
nned; 
Like  the  Irish  Good  Folk,  though  in  length 

scarce  a  span, 
From  the  womb  he  came  gravely,  a  little 

old  man; 
While  other  boys'  trousers  demanded  the 

toil 
Of  the  motherly   fingers   on   all   kinds  of 

soil, 
Ked,  yellow,  brown,  black,  clayey,  gravelly, 

loamy, 

He  sat  in  the  corner  and  read  Viri  Romse. 
He  never  was  known  to  unbend  or  to  revel 

once 
In  base,  marbles,  hockey,  or  kick  up  the 

devil  once; 
He  was  just  one  of  those   who   excite  the 

benevolence 
Of  your  old   prigs   who   sound   the   soul's 

depths  with  a  ledger, 
And  are  on  the  lookout   for   some  young 

men  to  "  edger- 
cate,"  as  they  call  it,   who   won't   be   too 

costly, 
And  who  '11  afterward  take  to  the  ministry 

mostly; 
Who   always  wear  spectacles,  always  look 

bilious, 
Always    keep   on   good   terms   with   each 

ma  ter-familias 
Throughout  the  whole  parish,  and  manage 

to  rear 
Ten  boys  like  themselves,  on  four  hundred 

a  year: 
Who,  fulfilling  in  turn  the   same   fearful 

conditions, 
Either   preach  through  their  noses,  or  go 

upon  missions. 

In  this  way  our  Hero  got  safely  to  col 
lege, 


Where  he  bolted  alike  both  his  commons 
and  knowledge; 

A  reading-machine,  always  wound  up  and 
going 

He  mastered  whatever  was  not  worth  the 
knowing, 

Appeared  in  a  gown,  with  black  waistcoat 
of  satin, 

To  spout  such  a  Gothic  oration  in  Latin 

That  Tully  could  never  have  made  out  a 
word  in  it 

(Though  himself  was  the  model  the  author 
preferred  in  it), 

And  grasping  the  parchment  which  gave 
him  in  fee 

All  the  mystic  and-so-forths  contained  in 
A.  B., 

He  was  launched  (life  is  always  compared 
to  a  sea) 

With  just  enough  learning,  and  skill  for 
the  using  it, 

To  prove  he  'd  a  brain,  by  forever  confus 
ing  it. 

So  worthy  St.  Benedict,  piously  burning 

With  the  holiest  zeal  against  secular  learn 
ing? 

Nesciensque  scienter,  as  writers  express  it, 

Indoctusque  sapienter  a  Roma  recessit. 

'T  would  be  endless  to  tell  you  the 
things  that  he  knew, 

Each  a  separate  fact,  undeniably  true, 

But  with  him  or  each  other  they  'd  nothing 
to  do; 

No  power  of  combining,  arranging,  dis 
cerning, 

Digested  the  masses  he  learned  into  learn 
ing; 

There  was  one  thing  in  life  he  had  practical 
knowledge  for 

(And  this,  you  will  think,  he  need  scarce 

£to  college  for),  — 
$d  would  he  do,  nor  a  word  would 

he  utter, 
Till  he  'd   weighed   its   relations   to  plain 

bread  and  butter. 
When  he  left  Alma  Mater,  he  practised  his 

wits 

In  compiling  the  journals'  historical  bits,  — 
Of    shops    broken    open,    men    falling    in 

fits, 
Great  fortunes  in  England  bequeathed  to 

poor  printers, 
And  cold  spells,  the  coldest  for  many  past 

winters,  — 


A   FABLE   FOR   CRITICS 


121 


Then,  rising  by  industry,  knack,  and  ad 
dress, 

Got  notices  up  for  an  unbiased  press, 

With  a  mind  so  well  poised,  it  seemed 
equally  made  for 

Applause  or  abuse,  just  which  chanced  to 
be  paid  for: 

From  this  point  his  progress  was  rapid  and 
sure, 

To  the  post  of  a  regular  heavy  reviewer. 

And  here  I  must  say  he  wrote  excellent 

articles 
On  Hebraical  points,  or  the  force  of  Greek 

particles; 
They  filled  up  the  space  nothing  else  was 

prepared  for, 
And  nobody  read  that  which  nobody  cared 

for; 

If  any  old  book  reached  a  fiftieth  edition, 
He  could  fill  forty  pages  with  safe  erudi 
tion  : 
He  could  gauge  the  old   books  by  the   old 

set  of  rules, 
And  his  very  old  nothings  pleased  very  old 

fools; 
But  give  him  a  new  book,  fresh  out  of  the 

heart, 
And  you  put  him  at   sea  without  compass 

or  chart,  — 

His  blunders  aspired  to  the  rank  of  an  art; 
For  his  lore  was  engraft,  something  foreign 

that  grew  in  him, 
Exhausting  the  sap  of  the  native  and  true 

in  him, 
So  that  when  a  man  came  with  a  soul  that 

was  new  in  him, 
Carving  new  forms  of  truth  out  of  Nature's 

old  granite, 
New  and  old  at  their  birth,  like  Le  Ver- 

rier's  planet, 
Which,  to  get  a  true  judgment,  themselves 

must  create 
In  the  soul  of  their  critic  the  measure  and 

weight, 
Being  rather  themselves  a  fresh  standard 

of  grace, 
To  compute  their  own   judge,  and  assign 

him  his  place, 
Our  reviewer  would  crawl  all  about  it  and 

round  it, 
And,  reporting  each  circumstance  just  as 

he  found  it, 
Without    the    least    malice,  —  his   record 

would  be 


Profoundly  aesthetic  as  that  of  a  flea, 
Which,   supping   on   Wordsworth,    should 

print,  for  our  sakes, 
Recollections  of  nights  with  the  Bard  of 

the  Lakes, 
Or,  lodged  by  an  Arab  guide,  ventured  to 

render  a 
Comprehensive   account   of    the    ruins    at 

Denderah. 

As  I  said,  he  was  never  precisely  unkind, 

The  defect  in  his  brain  was  just  absence  of 
mind; 

If  he  boasted,  't  was  simply  that  he  was 
self-made, 

A  position  which  I,  for  one,  never  gain 
said, 

My  respect  for  my  Maker  supposing  a  skill 

In  his  works  which  our  Hero  would  an 
swer  but  ill; 

And  I  trust  that  the  mould  which  he  used 
may  be  cracked,  or  he, 

Made  bold  by  success,  may  enlarge  his 
phylactery, 

And  set  up  a  kind  of  a  man-manufactory,  — 

An  event  which  I  shudder  to  think  about, 
seeing 

That  Man  is  a  moral,  accountable  being. 

He  meant  well  enough,  but  was  still  in 

the  way, 
As  dunces  still  are,  let  them  be  where  they 

may; 

Indeed,    they  appear  to  come  into  exist 
ence 
To  impede  other  folks  with  their  awkward 

assistance ; 
If  you  set  up  a  dunce  on  the  very  North 

pole 
All  alone  with  himself,  I   believe,  on  my 

soul, 
He  'd  manage  to  get  betwixt   somebody's 

shins, 

And  pitch  him  down  bodily,  all  in  his  sins, 
To  the  grave  polar  bears  sitting  round  on 

the  ice, 
All  shortening  their  grace,  to  be  in  for  a 

slice ; 

Or,  if  he  found  nobody  else  there  to  pother, 
Why,  one  of  his  legs  would  just  trip  up  the 

other, 
For  there  's  nothing  we  read  of  in  torture's 

inventions, 
Like  a  well-meaning  dunce,  with  the  best 

of  intentions. 


122 


A   FABLE  FOR  CRITICS 


A  terrible  fellow  to  meet  in  society, 
Not  the  toast  that  he  buttered  was  ever  so 

dry  at  tea; 
There  he  'd  sit  at  the  table  and  stir  in  his 

sugar, 
Crouching  close  for  a  spring,  all  the  while, 

like  a  cougar; 
Be  sure  of  your  facts,  of  your  measures 

and  weights, 
Of  your  time,  —  he 's  as  fond  as  an  Arab  of 

dates; 
You  '11  be  telling,  perhaps,  in  your  comical 

way, 
Of  something  you  've  seen  in  the  course  of 

the  day; 

And,  just  as  you  're  tapering  out  the  con 
clusion, 

You  venture  an  ill-fated  classic  allusion,  — 
The  girls  have  all  got  their  laughs  ready, 

when,  whack  ! 

The  cougar  comes  down  on  your  thunder 
struck  back  ! 
You  had  left  out  a  comma,  —  your  Greek's 

put  in  joint, 
And  pointed  at  cost  of  your  story's  whole 

point. 
In   the   course    of   the    evening,    you   find 

chance  for  certain 
Soft  speeches  to  Anne,  in  the  shade  of  the 

curtain: 
You  tell  her  your  heart  can  be  likened  to 

one  flower, 
"  And  that,  O  most  charming  of  women,  's 

the  sunflower, 
Which  turns  "  —  here  a  clear  nasal  voice, 

to  your  terror, 
From  outside  the  curtain,  says,  "  That's  all 

an  error." 
As  for   him,  he  's  —  no  matter,  he    never 

grew  tender, 
Sitting  after  a  ball,  with  his   feet  on  the 

fender, 
Shaping  somebody's  sweet  features  out  of 

cigar  smoke 
(Though   he  'd   willingly   grant   you   that 

such  doings  are  smoke); 
All  women  he  damns  with  mutdbile  semper, 
And  if  ever  he  felt  something  like  love's 

distemper, 
'T  was  tow'rds  a  young  lady   who   spoke 

ancient  Mexican, 

And  assisted  her  father  in  making  a  lexi 
con; 
Though  I  recollect  hearing  him  get  quite 

ferocious 


About  Mary  Clausum,  the  mistress  of  Gro- 

tius, 
Or  something  of  that  sort,  —  but,  no  more 

to  bore  ye 
With  character-painting,  I'll  turn  to  my 

story. 

Now,  Apollo,  who  finds  it  convenient 
sometimes 

To  get  his  court  clear  of  the  makers  of 
rhymes, 

The  genus,  I  think  it  is  called,  irritabile, 

Every  one  of  whom  thinks  himself  treated 
most  shabbily, 

And  nurses  a  —  what  is  it  ?  —  immedicabile, 

Which  keeps  him  at  boiling-point,  hot  for  a 
quarrel, 

As  bitter  as  wormwood,  and  sourer  than 
sorrel, 

If  any  poor  devil  but  look  at  a  laurel;  — 

Apollo,  I  say,  being  sick  of  their  rioting 

(Though  he  sometimes  acknowledged  their 
verse  had  a  quieting 

Effect  after  dinner,  and  seemed  to  sug 
gest  a 

Retreat  to  the  shrine  of  a  tranquil  siesta), 

Kept  our  Hero  at  hand,  who,  by  means  of 
a  bray, 

Which  he  gave  to  the  life,  drove  the  rabble 
away; 

And  if  that  wouldn't  do,  he  was  sure  to 
succeed, 

If  he  took  his  review  out  and  offered  to 
read; 

Or,  failing  in  plans  of  this  milder  descrip 
tion, 

He  would  ask  for  their  aid  to  get  up  a 
subscription, 

Considering  that  authorship  was  n't  a  rich 
craft, 

To  print  the  "  American  drama  of  Witch 
craft." 

"  Stay,  I  '11  read  you  a  scene,"  —  but  he 
hardly  began, 

Ere  Apollo  shrieked  "  Help ! "  and  the 
authors  all  ran: 

And  once,  when  these  purgatives  acted 
with  less  spirit, 

And  the  desperate  case  asked  a  remedy 
desperate, 

He  drew  from  his  pocket  a  foolscap  epistle 

As  calmly  as  if  't  were  a  nine-barrelled 
pistol, 

And  threatened  them  all  with  the  judg 
ment  to  come, 


A   FABLE   FOR   CRITICS 


123 


Of  "A  wandering  Star's  first  impressions 

of  Rome." 
"  Stop  !  stop  !  "  with  their  hands  o'er  their 

ears,  screamed  the  Muses, 
"  He  may  go  off  and  murder  himself,  if  he 

chooses, 
'T  was  a  means  self-defence  only  sanctioned 

his  trying, 
'T  is  mere  massacre  now  that  the  enemy  's 

flying; 
If  he  's  forced  to  't  again,  and  we  happen 

to  be  there, 
Give  us  each  a  large  handkerchief  soaked 

in  strong  ether.'1 

I  called  this  a  "  Fable  for  Critics  ; " 
you  think  it  's 

More  like  a  display  of  my  rhythmical 
trinkets ; 

My  plot,  like  an  icicle,  's  slender  and  slip 
pery, 

Every  moment  more  slender,  and  likely 
to  slip  awry, 

And  the  reader  unwilling  in  loco  desipere 

Is  free  to  jump  over  as  much  of  my  frip 
pery 

As  he  fancies,  and,  if  he  's  a  provident 
skipper,  he 

May  have  like  Odysseus  control  of  the 
gales, 

And  get  safe  to  port,  ere  his  patience  quite 
fails; 

Moreover,  although  't  is  a  slender  return 

For  your  toil  and  expense,  yet  my  paper 
will  burn, 

And,  if  you  have  manfully  struggled  thus 
far  with  me, 

You  may  e'en  twist  me  up,  and  just  light 
your  cigar  with  me: 

If  too  angry  for  that,  you  can  tear  me  in 
pieces, 

And  my  membra  disjecta  consign  to  the 
breezes, 

A  fate  like  great  Ratzau's,  whom  one  of 
those  bores, 

Who  beflead  with  bad  verses  poor  Louis 
Quatorze, 

Describes  (the  first  verse  somehow  ends 
with  victoire), 

As  dispersant  partout  et  ses  membres  et  sa 
gloire; 

Or,  if  I  were  over-desirous  of  earning 

A  repute  among  noodles  for  classical  learn 
ing, 

I  could  pick  you  a  score  of  allusions,  i-wis, 


As  new  as  the  jests  of  Didaskalos  tis  • 
Better  still,  I  could  make  out  a  good  solid 

list 

From  authors  recondite  who  do  not  exist,  — 
But  that  would  be  naughty:  at  least,  I 

could  twist 
Something  out  of  Absyrtus,  or  turn  your 

inquiries 
After  Milton's  prose  metaphor,  drawn  from 

Osiris; 

But,  as  Cicero  says  he  won't  say  this  or  that 
(A  fetch,  I  must  say,  most  transparent  and 

flat), 
After  saying   whate'er   he   could  possibly 

think  of,  — 
I  simply  will   state   that  I  pause   on  the 

brink  of 

A  mire,  ankle-deep,  of  deliberate  confusion, 
Made  up  of  old  jumbles  of  classic  allusion: 
So,  when  you  were  thinking  yourselves  to 

be  pitied, 
Just  conceive  how  much  harder  your  teeth 

you  'd  have  gritted, 
An  't  were  not  for  the  dulness  I  've  kindly 

omitted. 

I  'd  apologize  here  for  my  many  digres 
sions, 

Were  it  not  that  I  'm  certain  to  trip  into 
fresh  ones 

('T  is  so  hard  to  escape  if  you  get  in  their 
mesh  once); 

Just  reflect,  if  you  please,  how  't  is  said  by 
Horatius, 

That  Mseonides  nods  now  and  then,  and, 
my  gracious  ! 

It  certainly  does  look  a  little  bit  ominous 

When  he  gets  under  way  with  ton  d' 
apameibomenos. 

(Here  a  something  occurs  which  I  '11  just 
clap  a  rhyme  to, 

And  say  it  myself,  ere  a  Zoilus  have  time 
to,— 

Any  author  a  nap  like  Van  Winkle's  may 
take, 

If  he  only  contrive  to  keep  readers  awake, 

But  he  '11  very  soon  find  himself  laid  on 
the  shelf, 

If  they  fall  a-nodding  when  he  nods  him 
self.) 

Once  for  all,  to  return,  and  to  stay,  will 

I,  nilll  — 
When  Phoebus   expressed  his  desire  for  a 

lily, 


124 


A   FABLE   FOR   CRITICS 


Our  Hero,  whose  homceopjithic  sagacity 

With  an  ocean  of  zeal  mixed  his  drop  of 
capacity, 

Set  off  for  the  garden  as  fast  as  the  wind 

(Or,  to  take  a  comparison  more  to  my 
mind, 

As  a  sound  politician  leaves  conscience  be 
hind), 

And  leaped  the  low  fence,  as  a  party  hack 
jumps 

O'er  his  principles,  when  something  else 
turns  up  trumps. 

He  was  gone  a  long  time,  and  Apollo, 
meanwhile, 

Went  over  some  sonnets  of  his  with  a  file, 

For,  of  all  compositions,  he  thought  that  the 
sonnet 

Best  repaid  all  the  toil  you  expended  upon 
it; 

It  should  reach  with  one  impulse  the  end  of 
its  course, 

And  for  one  final  blow  collect  all  of  its 
force ; 

Not  a  verse  should  be  salient,  but  each  one 
should  tend 

With  a  wave-like  up-gathering  to  break  at 
the  end; 

So,  condensing  the  strength  here,  there 
smoothing  a  wry  kink, 

He  was  killing  the  time,  when  up  walked 
Mr.  D ; 

At  a  few  steps  behind  him,  a  small  man  in 
glasses 

Went  dodging  about,  muttering,  "Murder 
ers  !  asses  ! " 

From  out  of  his  pocket  a  paper  he  'd  take, 

With  a  proud  look  of  martyrdom  tied  to 
its  stake, 

And,  reading  a  squib  at  himself,  he  'd  say, 
"  Here  I  see 

'Gainst  American  letters  a  bloody  conspir 
acy, 

They  are  all  by  my  personal  enemies  writ 
ten; 

I  must  post  an  anonymous  letter  to  Britain, 

And  show  that  this  gall  is  the  merest  sug 
gestion 

Of  spite  at  my  zeal  on  the  Copyright  ques 
tion, 

For  on  this  side  the  water,  't  is  prudent  to 
pull 

O'er  the  eyes  of  the  public  their  national 
wool, 

By  accusing  of  slavish  respect  to  John  Bull 


All  American  authors  who  have  more  or 
less 

Of  that  anti-American  humbug  —  success, 

While  in  private  we  're  always  embracing 
the  knees 

Of  some  twopenny  editor  over  the  seas, 

And  licking  his  critical  shoes,  for  you 
know  't  is 

The  whole  aim  of  our  lives  to  get  one  Eng 
lish  notice; 

My  American  puffs  I  would  willingly  burn 
all 

(They  're  all  from  one  source,  monthly, 
weekly,  diurnal) 

To  get  but  a  kick  from  a  transmarine  jour 
nal  !  " 

So,  culling   the   gibes    of    each   critical 

scorner 
As  if  they  were  plums,  and  himself  were 

Jack  Homer, 
He  came  cautiously  on,  peeping  round  every 

corner, 
And  into  each  hole  where  a  weasel  might 

pass  in, 

Expecting  the  knife  of  some  critic  assassin, 
Who  stabs  to  the  heart  with  a  caricature, 
Not  so  bad  as  those  daubs  of  the  Sun,  to  be 

sure, 
Yet  done  with  a  dagger-o'-type,  whose  vile 

portraits 
Disperse  all  one's  good  and  condense  all 

one's  poor  traits. 

Apollo  looked  up,  hearing  footsteps  ap 
proaching, 

And  slipped  out  of  sight  the  new  rhymes 
he  was  broaching, — 

"  Good  day,  Mr.  D ,  I  'm  happy  to  meet 

With  a  scholar  so  ripe,  and  a  critic  so  neat, 

Who  through  Grub  Street  the  soul  of  a 
gentleman  carries  ; 

What  news  from  that  suburb  of  London  and 
Paris 

Which  latterly  makes  such  shrill  claims  to 
monopolize 

The  credit  of  being  the  New  World's  me 
tropolis  ?  " 

"  Why,  nothing  of  consequence,  save  this 

attack 
On  my  friend  there,  behind,  by  some  pitiful 

hack, 
Who  thinks  every  national  author  a  poor 

onev 


A   FABLE   FOR   CRITICS 


I25 


That  is  n't  a  copy  of  something  that 's  for 
eign, 
And  assaults  the  American  Dick —  " 

"  Nay,  't  is  clear 
That  your  Damon  there 's  fond  of  a  flea  in 

his  ear, 
And,  if  no  one  else  furnished  them  gratis, 

on  tick 
He  would  buy  some  himself,  just  to  hear  the 

old  click  ; 

Why,  I  honestly  think,  if  some  fool  in  Japan 
Should  turn  up  his  nose  at  the  '  Poems  on 

Man,' 
(Which  contain  many  verses  as  fine,  by  the 

bye, 

As  any  that  lately  came  under  my  eye,) 
Your  friend  there  by  some  inward  instinct 

would  know  it, 
Would  get  it  translated,  reprinted,  and  show 

it; 
As  a  man  might  take  off  a  high  stock  to 

exhibit 
The  autograph  round  his  own  neck  of  the 

gibbet  ; 
Nor  would  let  it  rest  so,  but  fire  column  after 

column, 
Signed  Cato,  or  Brutus,  or  something  as 

solemn, 

By  way  of  displaying  his  critical  crosses, 
And  tweaking  that  poor  transatlantic  pro 
boscis, 
His  broadsides  resulting  (this  last  there  's  no 

doubt  of) 
In   successively  sinking  the  craft  they  're 

fired  out  of. 

Now  nobody  knows  when  an  author  is  hit, 
If  he  have  not  a  public  hysterical  fit  ; 
Let  him  only  keep  close  in  his  snug  garret's 

dim  ether, 
And  nobody  'd  think  of  his  foes  —  or  of  him 

either  ; 
If  an  author  have  any  least  fibre  of  worth 

in  him, 
Abuse  would  but  tickle  the  organ  of  mirth 

in  him  ; 
All  the  critics  on  earth  cannot  crush  with 

their  ban 
One  word  that 's  in  tune  with  the  nature  of 

man." 

"  Well,  perhaps  so  ;    meanwhile  I  have 

brought  you  a  book, 

Into  which  if  you  '11  just  have  the  goodness 
to  look, 


You  may  feel  so  delighted  (when  once  you 
are  through  it) 

As  to  deem  it  not  unworth  your  while  to  re 
view  it, 

And  I  think  I  can  promise  your  thoughts, 
if  you  do, 

A  place  in  the  next  Democratic  Review." 

"  The  most  thankless  of  gods  you  must 

surely  have  thought  me, 
For  this  is  the   forty-fourth  copy   you  've 

brought  me  ; 
I  have  given  them  away,  or  at  least  I  have 

tried, 
But  I  've  forty-two  left,  standing  all  side  by 

side 
(The   man   who   accepted   that    one   copy 

died),  — 
From  one  end  of  a  shelf  to  the  other  they 

reach, 
'  With  the  author's  respects  '  neatly  written 

in  each. 
The   publisher,   sure,    will    proclaim  a  Te 

Deum, 
When  he  hears  of  that  order  the  British 

Museum 
Has  sent  for  one  set  of  what  books  were  first 

printed 

In  America,  little  or  big,  —  for 't  is  hinted 
That  this  is  the  first  truly  tangible  hope  he 
Has  ever  had  raised  for  the  sale  of  a  copy. 
I  've  thought  very  often  't  would  be  a  good 

thing 

In  all  public  collections  of  books,  if  a  wing 
Were  set  off  by  itself,  like  the  seas  from  the 

dry  lands, 

Marked  Literature  suited  to  desolate  islands, 
And  filled  with  such  books  as  could  never  be 

read 
Save  by  readers  of  proofs,  forced  to  do  it 

for  bread,  — 
Such  books  as  one  's  wrecked  on  in  small 

country  taverns, 
Such   as   hermits    might   mortify   over  in 

caverns, 
Such  as  Satan,  if  printing  had  then  been 

invented, 
As  the  climax  of  woe,  would  to  Job  have 

presented, 
Such  as  Crusoe  might  dip  in,  although  there 

are  few  so 

Outrageously  cornered  by  fate  as  poor  Cru 
soe  ; 
And  since  the  philanthropists  just  now  are 

banging 


126 


A   FABLE   FOR   CRITICS 


And  gibbeting  all  who  're  in  favor  of  hang 
ing 

(Though  Cheever  has  proved  that  the  Bible 
and  Altar 

Were  let  down  from  Heaven  at  the  end  of  a 
halter, 

And  that  vital  religion  would  dull  and  grow 
callous, 

Unrefreshed,  now  and  then,  with  a  sniff  of 
the  gallows),  — 

And  folks  are  beginning  to  think  it  looks 
odd, 

To  choke  a  poor  scamp  for  the  glory  of 
God; 

And  that  He  who  esteems  the  Virginia  reel 

A  bait  to  draw  saints  from  their  spiritual 
weal, 

And  regards  the  quadrille  as  a  far  greater 
knavery 

Than  crushing  his  African  children  with 
slavery,  — 

Since  all  who  take  part  in  a  waltz  or  cotil 
lon 

Are  mounted  for  hell  on  the  Devil's  own 
pillion, 

Who,  as  every  true  orthodox  Christian  well 
knows, 

Approaches  the  heart  through  the  door  of 
the  toes,  — 

That  He,  I  was  saying,  whose  judgments 
are  stored 

For  such  as  take  steps  in  despite  of  his 
word, 

Should  look  with  delight  on  the  agonized 
prancing 

Of  a  wretch  who  has  not  the  least  ground 
for  his  dancing, 

While  the  State,  standing  by,  sings  a  verse 
from  the  Psalter 

About  offering  to  God  on  his  favorite  hal 
ter, 

And,  when  the  legs  droop  from  their  twitch 
ing  divergence, 

Sells  the  clothes  to  a  Jew,  and  the  corpse 
to  the  surgeons ;  — 

Now,  instead  of  all  this,  I  think  I  can  di 
rect  you  all 

To  a  criminal  code  both  humane  and  effect 
ual; — 

I  propose  to  shut  up  every  doer  of  wrong 

With  these  desperate  books,  for  such  term, 
short  or  long, 

As,  by  statute  in  such  cases  made  and  pro 
vided, 

Shall  be  by  your  wise  legislators  decided: 


Thus:   Let   murderers  be    shut,   to   grow 

wiser  and  cooler, 
At  hard  labor  for  life  on  the   works   of 

Miss ; 

Petty  thieves,  kept  from  flagranter  crimes 

by  their  fears, 
Shall  peruse  Yankee  Doodle  a  blank  term 

of  years,  — 
That  American  Punch,  like  the  English,  no 

doubt,  — 
Just  the  sugar  and  lemons  and  spirit  left 

out. 

"  But  stay,  here  comes  Tityrus  Griswold, 

and  leads  on 
The  flocks  whom  he  first  plucks  alive,  and 

then  feeds  on,  — 
A  loud-cackling  swarm,  in  whose  feathers 

warm  drest, 
He  goes  for  as  perfect  a  —  swan  as  the  rest. 

"  There  comes  Emerson  first,  whose  rich 

words,  every  one, 

Are  like  gold  nails  in  temples  to  hang  tro 
phies  on. 
Whose   prose   is   grand  verse,   while    his 

verse,  the  Lord  knows, 
Is   some   of   it   pr —     No,  't   is   not   even 

prose; 
I  'm  speaking  of  metres;  some  poems  have 

welled  • 
From  those  rare  depths  of  soul  that  have 

ne'er  been  excelled; 
They  're  not  epics,  but  that  does  n't  matter 

a  pin, 
In   creating,    the   only    hard    thing  's    to 

begin; 
A  grass-blade 's  no  easier  to  make  than  an 

oak; 
If   you  've   once   found   the   way,   you  've 

achieved  the  grand  stroke; 
In  the  worst  of  his  poems  are  mines  of  rich 

matter, 
But  thrown  in  a  heap  with  a  crash  and  a 

clatter; 

Now  it  is  not  one  thing  nor  another  alone 
Makes   a   poem,    but    rather    the   general 

tone, 
The    something    pervading,     uniting    the 

whole, 

The  before  unconceived,  unconceivable  soul, 
So  that  just  in  removing  this  trifle  or  that, 

you 
Take  away,  as  it  were,  a  chief  limb  of  the 

statue; 


A   FABLE   FOR   CRITICS 


127 


Roots,  wood,  bark,  and  leaves  singly  per 
fect  may  be, 

But,  clapt  hodge-podge  together,  they 
don't  make  a  tree. 

"  But,  to  come  back  to  Emerson  (whom, 
by  the  way, 

I  believe  we  left  waiting),  —  his  is,  we  may 
say, 

A  Greek  head  on  right  Yankee  shoulders, 
whose  range 

Has  Olympus  for  one  pole,  for  t'  other  the 
Exchange ; 

He  seems,  to  my  thinking  (although  I  'm 
afraid 

The  comparison  must,  long  ere  this,  have 
been  made), 

A  Plotinus-Montaigne,  where  the  Egyp 
tian's  gold  mist 

And  the  Gascon's  shrewd  wit  cheek-by-jowl 
coexist; 

All  admire,  and  yet  scarcely  six  converts 
he  's  got 

To  I  don't  (nor  they  either)  exactly  know 
what; 

For  though  he  builds  glorious  temples,  't  is 
odd 

He  leaves  never  a  doorway  to  get  in  a 
god. 

'T  is  refreshing  to  old-fashioned  people  like 
me 

To  meet  such  a  primitive  Pagan  as  he, 

In  whose  mind  all  creation  is  duly  re 
spected 

As  parts  of  himself — just  a  little  pro 
jected; 

And  who 's  willing  to  worship  the  stars  and 
the  sun, 

A  convert  to  —  nothing  but  Emerson. 

So  perfect  a  balance  there  is  in  his  head, 

That  he  talks  of  things  sometimes  as  if 
they  were  dead; 

Life,  nature,  love,  God,  and  affairs  of  that 
sort, 

He  looks  at  as  merely  ideas;  in  short, 

As  if  they  were  fossils  stuck  round  in  a 
cabinet, 

Of  such  vast  extent  that  our  earth 's  a  mere 
dab  in  it; 

Composed  just  as  he  is  inclined  to  conjec 
ture  her, 

Namely,  one  part  pure  earth,  ninety-nine 
parts  pure  lecturer; 

You  are  filled  with  delight  at  his  clear 
demonstration, 


Each  figure,   word,  gesture,  just   fits   the 

occasion, 
With  the  quiet  precision  of  science  he  '11 

sort  'em, 
But  you  can't  help  suspecting  the  whole  a 

post  mortem. 

"There  are   persons,  mole-blind  to  the 

soul's  make  and  style, 
Who  insist  on  a  likeness  'twixt  him  and 

Carlyle; 
To  compare  him  with  Plato  would  be 

vastly  fairer, 
Carlyle  's  the  more  burly,  but  E.  is  the 

rarer; 
He  sees  fewer  objects,  but  clearlier,  true- 

lier, 

If  C.  's  as  original,  E.  's  more  peculiar; 
That  he  's  more  of  a  man  you  might  say  of 

the  one, 

Of  the  other  he 's  more  of  an  Emerson; 
C.  's  the  Titan,   as  shaggy  of  mind  as  of 

limb,  — 
E.  the  clear-eyed  Olympian,  rapid  and 

slim; 
The  one  's  two  thirds  Norseman,  the  other 

half  Greek, 
Where    the    one  's   most    abounding,    the 

other's  to  seek; 
C.'s   generals   require   to  be   seen  in    the 

mass,  — 

E.'s  specialties  gain  if  enlarged  by  the  glass; 
C.  gives  nature  and  God  his  own  fits  of  the 

blues, 

And  rims  common-sense  things  with  mysti 
cal  hues,  — 

E.  sits  in  a  mystery  calm  and  intense, 
And  looks  coolly  around  him  with  sharp 

common-sense  ; 

C.  shows  you  how  every-day  matters  unite 
With    the    dim    transdiurnal   recesses   of 

night,  — 

While  E.,  in  a  plain,  preternatural  way, 
Makes  mysteries  matters   of   mere   every 

day; 
C.  draws  all  his  characters  quite  a  la  Fu- 

seli,  — 
Not  sketching  their  bundles  of  muscles  and 

thews  illy, 

He  paints  with  a  brush  so  untamed  and  pro 
fuse, 
They  seem  nothing  but  bundles  of  muscles 

and  thews  ; 
E.  is  rather  like  Flaxman,  lines  strait  and 

severe, 


128 


A   FABLE   FOR   CRITICS 


And  a  colorless  outline,  but  full,  round,  and 

clear  ;  — 
To  the  men  he  thinks  worthy  he  frankly 

accords 
The   design   of  a  white  marble  statue  in 

words. 

C.  labors  to  get  at  the  centre,  and  then 
Take  a  reckoning  from  there  of  his  actions 

and  men  ; 
E.  calmly  assumes  the  said  centre  as  grant- 

And,  given  himself,  has  whatever  is  wanted. 

"  He  has  imitators  in  scores,  who  omit 
No  part  of  the  man  but  his  wisdom  and 

wit, — 
Who  go  carefully  o'er  the  sky-blue  of  his 

brain, 
And  when  he  has  skimmed  it  once,  skim  it 

again  ; 
If  at  all  they  resemble  him,  you  may  be  sure 

it  is 
Because  their  shoals  mirror  his  mists  and 

obscurities, 
As  a  mud-puddle  seems  deep  as  heaven  for 

a  minute, 
While  a  cloud  that  floats  o'er  is  reflected 

within  it. 

^lt^^ 

"  There  comes  — : — ,  for  instance  ;  to  see 

him  's  rare  sport, 

Tread  in  Emerson's  tracks  with  legs  pain 
fully  short  ; 
How  he  jumps,  how  he  strains,  and  gets  red 

in  the  face, 
To  keep  step  with  the  mystagogue's  natural 

pace  ! 

He  follows  as  close  as  a  stick  to  a  rocket, 
His  fingers   exploring  the  prophet's  each 

pocket. 
Fie,  for  shame,  brother  bard ;  with  good  fruit 

of  your  own, 
Can't  you  let  Neighbor  Emerson's  orchards 

alone  ? 
Besides,  't  is  no  use,  you  '11  not  find  e'en  a 

if  1  A/wW core' — 

— —  has  picked  up  all  the  windfalls  before. 
They  might  strip  every  tree,  and  E.  never 

would  catch  'em, 
His   Hesperides    have  no  rude  dragon  to 

watch  'em  ; 
When  they  send  him  a  dishful,  and  ask  him 

to  try  'em, 
He  never  suspects  how  the  sly  rogues  came 

by  'em  ; 


He  wonders  why  't  is  there  are  none  such 

his  trees  on, 
And  thinks  'em  the  best  he  has  tasted  this 

season. 

"  Yonder,  calm  as  a  cloud,  Alcott  stalks 

in  a  dream, 

And  fancies   himself  in  thy  groves,  Aca 
deme, 
With  the  Parthenon  nigh,  and  the  olive-trees 

o'er  him, 
And  never  a  fact  to  perplex  him  or  bore 

him, 
With  a  snug  room  at  Plato's  when  night 

comes,  to  walk  to, 
And  people  from  morning  till  midnight  to 

talk  to, 
And  from  midnight  till  morning,  nor  snore 

in  their  listening  ;  — 

So  he  muses,  his  face  with  the  joy  of  it  glis 
tening, 

For  his  highest  conceit  of  a  happiest  state  is 
Where  they  'd  live  upon  acorns,  and  hear 

him  talk  gratis; 
And  indeed,  I  believe,  no  man  ever  talked 

better,  — 
Each  sentence  hangs  perfectly  poised  to  a 

letter  ; 
He  seems  piling  words,  but  there  's  royal 

dust  hid 

In  the  heart  of  each  sky-piercing  pyramid 
While  he  talks  he  is  great,  but  goes  out  like 

a  taper, 
If  you  shut  him  up  closely  with  pen,  ink, 

and  paper; 
Yet  his  fingers  itch  for  'em   from  morning 

till  night, 
And  he  thinks  he  does  wrong  if  he  don't 

always  write; 

In  this,  as  in  all  things,  a  lamb  among  men, 
He  goes  to  sure  death  when  he  goes  to  his 

pen. 

"  Close  behind  him  is  Brownson,  his  mouth 
very  full 

With  attempting  to  gulp  a  Gregorian  bull ; 

Who  contrives,  spite  of  that,  to  pour  out  as 
he  goes 

A  stream  of  transparent  and  forcible  prose ; 

He  shifts  quite  about,  then  proceeds  to  ex 
pound 

That 't  is  merely  the  earth,  not  himself,  that 
turns  round, 

And  wishes  it  clearly  impressed  on  your 
mind 


A   FABLE   FOR   CRITICS 


129 


That  the  weathercock  rules  and  not  follows 

the  wind  ; 
Proving  first,  then  as  deftly  confuting  each 

side, 

With  no  doctrine  pleased  that 's  not  some 
where  denied, 

He  lays  the  denier  away  on  the  shelf, 
And  then  —  down  beside  him  lies  gravely 

himself. 
He 's  the  Salt  River  boatman,  who  always 

stands  willing 
To  convey  friend  or  foe  without  charging  a 

shilling, 
And  so  fond  of  the  trip  that,  when  leisure 's 

to  spare, 

He  '11  row  himself  up,  if  he  can't  get  a  fare. 
The  worst  of  it  is,  that  his  logic 's  so  strong, 
That  of  two  sides  he  commonly  chooses  the 

wrong ; 

If  there  is  only  one,  why,  he  '11  split  it  in  two, 
And  first  pummel  this  half,  then  that,  black 

and  blue. 
That  white  's  white  needs  no  proof,  but  it 

takes  a  deep  fellow 
To  prove  it  jet-black,  and  that  jet-black  is 

yellow. 
He   offers   the   true   faith   to  drink   in   a 

sieve,  — 
When  it  reaches  your  lips  there  's  naught 

left  to  believe 
But  a  few  silly-  (syllo-,  I  mean,)  -gisms 

that  squat  'em 
Like  tadpoles,  o'erjoyed  with  the  mud  at  the 

bottom. 

"  There  is  Willis,  all  natty  and  jaunty  and 

gav> 
Who  says  his  best  things  in  so  foppish  a 

way, 
With  conceits  and  pet  phrases  so   thickly 

o'erlaying  'em, 
That  one  hardly  knows  whether  to  thank 

him  for  saying  'em ; 

Over-ornament  ruins  both  poem  and  prose, 
Just  conceive  of  a  Muse  with  a  ring  in  her 

nose  ! 

His  prose  had  a  natural  grace  of  its  own, 
And  enough  of  it,  too,  if  he  'd  let  it  alone ; 
But  he  twitches  and  jerks  so,  one  fairly  gets 

tired, 
And  is  forced  to  forgive  where  one  might 

have  admired; 

Yet  whenever  it  slips  away   free  and  un 
laced, 
It  runs  like  a  stream  with  a  musical  waste, 


And    gurgles    along     with    the    liquidest 

sweep;  — 
'T  is  not  deep  as  a  river,  but  who  'd  have  it 

deep? 
In  a  country  where  scarcely  a  village  is 

found 
That  has  not  its  author  sublime  and  pro 

found, 

For  some  one  to  be  slightly  shallow  's  a  duty, 
And  Willis's  shallowness  makes   half   his 

beauty. 
His  prose  winds  along  with  a  blithe,  gur 

gling  error, 
And  reflects  all  of  Heaven  it  can  see  in  its 

mirror: 
'T  is  a  narrowish  strip,  but  it  is  not  an  arti 

fice; 
'T  is  the  true  out-of-doors  with  its  genuine 

hearty  phiz; 
It  is  Nature  herself,  and  there  's  something 

in  that, 
Since  most  brains  reflect  but  the  crown  of  a 

hat. 

Few  volumes  I  know  to  read  under  a  tree, 
More  truly  delightful  than  his  A  1'Abri, 
With  the  shadows  of  leaves  flowing  over 

your  book, 
Like  ripple-shades  netting  the   bed   of  a 

brook; 
With  June  coming  softly  your  shoulder  to 

look  over, 
Breezes  waiting  to  turn  every  leaf  of  your 

book  over, 

And  Nature  to  criticise  still  as  you  read,  — 
The  pae  that  bears  that  is  a  rare  one  in 


ge 
deed. 


"  He  's  so  innate  a  cockney,  that  had  he 

been  born 
Where  plain  bare-skin  's  the  only  full-dress 

that  is  worn, 
He  'd  have  given  his  own  such  an  air  that 

you  'd  say 
'T  had  been  made  by  a  tailor  to  lounge  in 

Broadway. 
His  nature  's  a  glass  of  champagne  with  the 

foam  on  't, 
As  tender  as  Fletcher,  as  witty  as  Beau 

mont; 
So  his  best  things  are  done  in  the  flush  of 

the  moment; 
If  he  wait,  all  is  spoiled  ;  he  may  stir  it  and 

shake  it, 
But,  the  fixed  air  once  gone,  he  can  never 

re-make  it. 


130 


A   FABLE   FOR   CRITICS 


He  might  be  a  marvel  of  easy  delightf  ulness, 
If  he  would  not  sometimes  leave  the  r  out 

of  sprightf  ulness ; 
And  he  ought  to  let  Scripture  alone  —  't  is 

self-slaughter, 

For  nobody  likes  inspiration-and-water. 
He  'd  have  been  just  the  fellow  to  sup  at 

the  Mermaid, 
Cracking  jokes  at  rare  Ben,  with  an  eye  to 

the  barmaid, 

His  wit  running  up  as  Canary  ran  down,  — 
The  topmost  bright  bubble  on  the  wave  of 

The  Town. 

"  Here  comes  Parker,  the  Orson  of  par 
sons,  a  man 
Whom  the  Church  undertook  to  put  under 

her  ban 
(The   Church  of  Socinus,    I   mean), — his 

opinions 
Being  So-  (ultra)  -cinian,  they  shocked  the 

Socinians ; 
They   believed  —  faith,  I  'm   puzzled  —  I 

think  I  may  call 

Their  belief  a  believing  in  nothing  at  all, 
Or  something  of  that  sort ;  I  know  they  all 

went 

For  a  general  union  of  total  dissent: 
He  went  a  step  farther;    without  cough  or 

hem, 

He  frankly  avowed  he  believed  not  in  them; 
And,  before  he  could  be  jumbled  up  or  pre 
vented, 
From  their   orthodox  kind   of  dissent   he 

dissented. 
There  was  heresy  here,  you  perceive,   for 

the  right 
Of  privately   judging  means   simply  that 

light 
Has  been  granted  to  me,  for  deciding  on 

you; 

And  in  happier  times,  before  Atheism  grew, 
The  deed  contained  clauses  for  cooking  you 

too: 
Now  at  Xerxes  and  Knut  we  all  laugh,  yet 

our  foot 
With  the  same  wave  is  wet  that  mocked 

Xerxes  and  Knut, 

And  we  all  entertain  a  secure  private  notion, 
That  our  Thus  far  !  will  have  a  great  weight 

with  the  ocean. 
'T  was  so  with  our  liberal  Christians:  they 

bore 
With  sincerest  conviction  their  chairs  to  the 

shore; 


They   brandished    their  worn    theological 

birches, 
Bade   natural   progress   keep    out    of   the 

Churches, 
And  expected  the  lines  they  had  drawn  to 

prevail 
With  the  fast -rising  tide  to  keep  out  of 

their  pale; 
They  had  formerly  dammed  the  Pontifical 

See, 
And  the  same  thing,  they  thought,  would 

do  nicely  for  P. ; 

But  he  turned  up  his  nose  at  their  mum 
ming  and  shamming, 
And  cared  (shall  I  say  ?)   not  a  d for 

their  damming; 
So  they  first  read  him  out  of  their  church, 

and  next  minute 
Turned  round  and  declared  he  had  never 

been  in  it. 
But  the  ban  was  too  small  or  the  man  was 

too  big, 
For  he  recks  not  their  bells,  books,   and 

candles  a  fig 
(He  scarce  looks  like  a  man  who  would  stay 

treated  shabbily, 
Sophroniscus'  son's  head  o'er  the  features 

of  Rabelais) ;  — 
He  bangs  and  bethwacks  them, —  their  backs 

he  salutes 
With  the  whole  tree  of  knowledge  torn  up 

by  the  roots; 
His  sermons   with   satire   are   plenteously 

verjuiced, 
And  he  talks  in  one  breath  of  Confutzee, 

Cass,  Zerduscht, 
Jack  Robinson,   Peter   the  Hermit,  Strap, 

Dathan, 
Cush,   Pitt  (not  the  bottomless,    that  he  'a 

no  faith  in), 
Pan,  Pillicock,  Shakespeare,  Paul,    Toots, 

Monsieur  Tonson, 
Aldebaran,    Alcander,   Ben    Khorat,    Ben 

Jouson, 
Thoth,  Richter,  Joe   Smith,    Father  Paul, 

Judah  Monis, 

Musseus,  Muretus,  hem,  —  p  Scorpionis, 
Maccabee,    Maccaboy,   Mac  —  Mac  —  ah  ! 

Machiavelli, 
Condorcet,   Count  d'Orsay,    Conder,   Say, 

Ganganelli, 

Orion,  O'Connell,  the  Chevalier  D'O, 
(See    the   Memoirs   of   Sully,)  rb  irav,  the 

great  toe 
Of  the  statue  of  Jupiter,  now  made  to  pass 


A   FABLE   FOR   CRITICS 


For  that  of  Jew  Peter  by  good  Romish 
brass, 

(You  may  add  for  yourselves,  for  I  find  it 
a  bore, 

All  the  names  you  have  ever,  or  not,  heard 
before, 

And  when  you  've  done  that  —  why,  invent 
a  few  more). 

His  hearers  can't  tell  you  on  Sunday  be 
forehand, 

If  in  that  day's  discourse  they  '11  be  Bibled 
or  Koraned, 

For  he  's  seized  the  idea  (by  his  martyr 
dom  fired) 

That  all  men  (not  orthodox)  may  be  in 
spired  ; 

Yet  though  wisdom  profane  with  his  creed 
he  may  weave  in, 

He  makes  it  quite  clear  what  he  does  n't 
believe  in, 

While  some,  who  decry  him,  think  all 
Kingdom  Come 

Is  a  sort  of  a,  kind  of  a,  species  of  Hum, 

Of  which,  as  it  were,  so  to  speak,  not  a 
crumb 

Would  be  left,  if  we  did  n't  keep  carefully 
mum, 

And,  to  make  a  clean  breast,  that  't  is  per 
fectly  plain 

That  all  kinds  of  wisdom  are  somewhat 
profane ; 

Now  P.'s  creed  than  this  may  be  lighter  or 
darker, 

But  in  one  thing,  't  is  clear,  he  has  faith, 
namely  —  Parker; 

And  this  is  what  makes  him  the  crowd- 
drawing  preacher, 

There  's  a  background  of  god  to  each  hard 
working  feature, 

Every  word  that  he  speaks  has  been  fierily 
furnaced 

In  the  blast  of  a  life  that  has  struggled  in 
earnest: 

There  he  stands,  looking  more  like  a 
ploughman  than  priest, 

If  not  dreadfully  awkward,  not  graceful  at 
least, 

His  gestures  all  downright  and  same,  if 
you  will, 

As  of  brown-fisted  Hobnail  in  hoeing:  a 
drill; 

But  his  periods  fall  on  you,  stroke  after 
stroke, 

Like  the  blows  of  a  lumberer  felling  an 
oak, 


You  forget  the  man  wholly,  you  're  thank 
ful  to  meet 

With  a  preacher  who  smacks  of  the  field 
and  the  street, 

And  to  hear,  you  're  not  over-particular 
whence, 

Almost  Taylor's  profusion,  quite  Latimer's 
sense. 

"  There  is  Bryant,  as  quiet,  as  cool,  and 
as  dignified, 

As  a  smooth,  silent  iceberg,  that  never  is 
ignified, 

Save  when  by  reflection  't  is  kindled  o' 
nights 

With  a  semblance  of  flame  by  the  chill 
Northern  Lights. 

He  may  rank  (Griswold  says  so)  first  bard 
of  your  nation 

(There  's  no  doubt  that  he  stands  in  su 
preme  iceolation), 

Your  topmost  Parnassus  he  may  set  his 
heel  on, 

But  no  warm  applauses  come,  peal  follow 
ing  peal  on,  — 

He  's  too  smooth  and  too  polished  to  hang 
any  zeal  on: 

Unqualified  merits,  1  '11  grant,  if  you 
choose,  he  has  'em, 

But  he  lacks  the  one  merit  of  kindling 
enthusiasm; 

If  he  stir  you  at  all,  it  is  just,  on  my  soul, 

Like  being  stirred  up  with  the  very  North 
Pole. 

"  He  is  very  nice  reading  in  summer, 
but  inter 

Nos,  we  don't  want  extra  freezing  in  win 
ter; 

Take  him  up  in  the  depth  of  July,  my  ad 
vice  is, 

When  you  feel  an  Egyptian  devotion  to 
ices. 

But,  deduct  all  you  can,  there  's  enough 
that  's  right  good  in  him, 

He  has  a  true  soul  for  field,  river,  and 
wood  in  him; 

And  his  heart,  in  the  midst  of  brick  walls, 
or  where'er  it  is, 

Glows,  softens,  and  thrills  with  the  tender- 
est  charities  — 

To  you  mortals  that  delve  in  this  trade- 
ridden  planet  ? 

No,  to  old  Berkshire's  hills,  with  their 
limestone  and  granite. 


I32 


A  FABLE   FOR   CRITICS 


If  you  're  one  who  in  loco  (addfoco  here) 


You  will  get  of  his  outermost  heart  (as  I 
guess)  a  piece; 

But  you  'd  get  deeper  down  if  you  came  as 
a  precipice, 

And  would  break  the  last  seal  of  its  in- 
wardest  fountain, 

If  you  only  could  palm  yourself  off  for  a 
mountain. 

Mr.  Quivis,  or  somebody  quite  as  discern 
ing. 

Some  scholar  who  's  hourly  expecting  his 
learning, 

Calls  B.  the  American  Wordsworth;  but 
Wordsworth 

May  be  rated  at  more  than  your  whole 
tuneful  herd  's  worth. 

No,  don't  be  absurd,  he  's  an  excellent 
Bryant; 

But,  my  friends,  you  '11  endanger  the  life 
of  your  client, 

By  attempting  to  stretch  him  up  into  a 
giant: 

If  you  choose  to  compare  him,  I  think 
there  are  two  per- 

-sons  fit  for  a  parallel  —  Thomson  and 
Cowper;1 

I  don't  mean  exactly,  —  there  's  something 
of  each, 

There  's  T.'s  love  of  nature,  C.'s  penchant 
to  preach; 

Just  mix  up  their  minds  so  that  C.'s  spice 
of  craziness 

Shall  balance  and  neutralize  T.'s  turn  for 
laziness, 

And  it  gives  you  a  brain  cool,  quite  fric- 
tionless,  quiet, 

Whose  internal  police  nips  the  buds  of  all 
riot,  — 

A  brain  like  a  permanent  strait- jacket  put  on 

The  heart  that  strives  vainly  to  burst  off  a 
button,  — 

A  brain  which,  without  being  slow  or  me 
chanic, 

Does  more  than  a  larger  less  drilled,  more 
volcanic; 

He  's  a  Cowper  condensed,  with  no  crazi 
ness  bitten, 

And  the  advantage  that  Wordsworth  be 
fore  him  had  written. 


1  To  demonstrate  quickly  and  easily  how  per- 
-versely  absurd  't  is  to  sound  this  name  Cowper, 
As  people  in  general  call  him  named  super, 
I  remark  that  he  rhymes  it  himself  with  horse-trooper. 


"  But,   my   dear  little   bardliugs,   don't 

prick  up  your  ears 
Nor  suppose  I  would  rank  you  and  Bryant 

as  peers; 
If  I  call  him  an  iceberg,  I  don't  mean  to 

say 
There  is  nothing  in  that  which  is  grand  in 

its  way; 
He  is  almost  the  one   of  your  poets   that 

knows 
How  much  grace,  strength,  and  dignity  lie 

in  Repose; 
If  he  sometimes  fall  short,  he  is  too  wise 

to  mar 
His  thought's  modest  fulness  by  going  too 

far; 
'T  would  be  well  if  your  authors  should  all 

make  a  trial 

Of  what   virtue   there   is   in  severe   self- 
denial, 
And   measure  their  writings   by   Hesiod's 

staff, 
Which  teaches  that  all  has  less  value  than 

half. 

"  There  is  Whittier,  whose  swelling  and 
vehement  heart 

Strains  the  strait  -  breasted  drab  of  the 
Quaker  apart, 

And  reveals  the  live  Man,  still  supreme 
and  erect, 

Underneath  the  bemummying  wrappers  of 
sect; 

There  was  ne'er  a  man  born  who  had  more 
of  the  swing 

Of  the  true  lyric  bard  and  all  that  kind  of 
thing; 

And  his  failures  arise  (though  he  seem  not 
to  know  it) 

From  the  very  same  cause  that  has  made 
him  a  poet,  — 

A  fervor  of  mind  which  knows  no  separa 
tion 

'Twixt  simple  excitement  and  pure  inspira 
tion, 

As  my  Pythoness  erst  sometimes  erred 
from  not  knowing 

If  't  were  I  or  mere  wind  through  her  tri 
pod  was  blowing; 

Let  his  mind  once  get  head  in  its  favorite 
direction 

And  the  torrent  of  verse  bursts  the  dams 
of  reflection, 

While,  borne  with  the  rush  of  the  metre 
along, 


A   FABLE   FOR   CRITICS 


The  poet  may  chance  to  go  right  or  go 
wrong, 

Content  with  the  whirl  and  delirium  of 
song; 

Then  his  grammar  's  not  always  correct, 
nor  his  rhymes, 

And  he  's  prone  to  repeat  his  own  lyrics 
sometimes, 

Not  his  best,  though,  for  those  are  struck 
off  at  white-heats 

When  the  heart  in  his  breast  like  a  trip 
hammer  beats, 

And  can  ne'er  be  repeated  again  any  more 

Than  they  could  have  been  carefully  plot 
ted  before: 

Like  old  what  's-his-name  there  at  the  bat 
tle  of  Hastings 

(Who,  however,  gave  more  than  mere 
rhythmical  bastings), 

Our  Quaker  leads  off  metaphorical  fights 

For  reform  and  whatever  they  call  human 
rights, 

Both  singing  and  striking  in  front  of  the 
war, 

And  hitting  his  foes  with  the  mallet  of 
Thor; 

Anne  haec,  one  exclaims,  on  beholding  his 
knocks, 

Vestisfl'd  tui,  O  leather-clad  Fox? 

Can  that  be  thy  son,  in  the  battle's  mid 
din, 

Preaching  brotherly  love  and  then  driving 
it  in 

To  the  brain  of  the  tough  old  Goliath  of 
sin, 

With  the  smoothest  of  pebbles  from  Cas- 
taly's  spring 

Impressed  on  his  hard  moral  sense  with  a 
sling  ? 

"All    honor   and    praise  to   the    right- 
hearted  bard 
Who  was  true  to  The   Voice   when  such 

service  was  hard, 
Who  himself  was  so  free  he  dared  sing  for 

the  slave 
When  to  look  but  a  protest  in  silence  was 

brave; 

All  honor  and  praise  to  the  women  and  men 
Who    spoke    out   for   the   dumb   and   the 

down-trodden  then ! 
It  needs  not  to   name   them,   already   for 

each 
I   see    History  preparing  the   statue   and 

niche; 


They  were  harsh,  but  shall  you  be  so 
shocked  at  hard  words 

Who  have  beaten  your  pruning-hooks  up 
into  swords, 

Whose  rewards  and  hurrahs  men  are  surer 
to  gain 

By  the  reaping  of  men  and  of  women  than 
grain  ? 

Why  should  you  stand  aghast  at  their 
fierce  wordy  war,  if 

You  scalp  one  another  for  Bank  or  for 
Tariff  ? 

Your  calling  them  cut-throats  and  knaves 
all  day  long 

Does  n't  prove  that  the  use  of  hard  lan 
guage  is  wrong; 

While  the  World's  heart  beats  quicker  to 
think  of  such  men 

As  signed  Tyranny's  doom  with  a  bloody 
steel-pen, 

While  on  Fourth-of -Julys  beardless  orators 
fright  one 

With  hints  at  Harmodius  and  Aristogeiton, 

You  need  not  look  shy  at  your  sisters  and 
brothers 

Who  stab  with  sharp  words  for  the  free 
dom  of  others ; — 

No,  a  wreath,  twine  a  wreath  for  the  loyal 
and  true 

Who,  for  sake  of  the  many,  dared  stand 
with  the  few, 

Not  of  blood-spattered  laurel  for  enemies 
braved, 

But  of  broad,  peaceful  oak-leaves  for  citi 
zens  saved ! 

"  Here  comes  Dana,  abstractedly  loiter 
ing  along, 

Involved  in  a  paulo-post-future  of  song, 

Who  '11  be  going  to  write  what  '11  never  be 
written 

Till  the  Muse,  ere  he  think  of  it,  gives  him 
the  mitten,  — 

Who  is  so  well  aware  of  how  things  should 
be  done, 

That  his  own  works  displease  him  before 
they  're  begun,  — 

Who  so  well  all  that  makes  up  good  poetry 
knows, 

That  the  best  of  his  poems  is  written  in 
prose ; 

All  saddled  and  bridled  stood  Pegasus  wait 
ing, 

He  was  booted  and  spurred,  but  he  loitered 
debating  ; 


134 


A   FABLE   FOR   CRITICS 


In  a  very  grave  question  his  soul  was  im 
mersed,  — 
Which  foot  in  the  stirrup  he  ought  to  put 

first; 
And,  while  this  point  and  that  he  judicially 

dwelt  on, 
He,  somehow  or  other,  had  written  Paul 

Felton, 
Whose  beauties  or  faults,  whichsoever  you 

see  there, 
You'll  allow  only  genius  could  hit  upon 

either. 
That  he  once  was  the  Idle  Man  none  will 

deplore, 

But  I  fear  he  will  never  be  anything  more ; 
The  ocean  of  song  heaves  and  glitters  before 

him, 
The  depth  and  the  vastness   and  longing 

sweep  o'er  him, 
He  knows  every  breaker  and  shoal  on  the 

chart, 

He  has  the  Coast  Pilot  and  so  on  by  heart, 
Yet  he  spends  his  whole  life,  like  the  man 

in  the  fable, 
In  learning  to  swim  on  his  library- table. 

"  There  swaggers  John  Neal,   who  has 

wasted  in  Maine 

The  sinews  and  cords  of  his  pugilist  brain, 
Who  might  have  been  poet,  but  that,  in  its 

stead,  he 

Preferred  to  believe  that  he  was  so  already ; 
Too  hasty  to  wait  till  Art's  ripe  fruit  should 

drop, 
He  must  pelt  down  an  unripe  and  colicky 

crop; 
Who  took  to  the  law,  and  had  this  sterling 

plea  for  it, 
It  required  him  to  quarrel,  and  paid  him  a 

fee  for  it; 
A  man  who  's  made  less  than  he  might  have, 

because 
He  always  has  thought  himself  more  than 

he  was,  — 

Who,  with  very  good  natural  gifts  as  a  bard, 
Broke  the  strings  of  his  lyre  out  by  strik 
ing  too  hard, 
And  cracked  half  the  notes  of  a  truly  fine 

voice, 
Because  song  drew  less  instant   attention 

than  noise. 
Ah,  men  do  not  know  how  much  strength  is 

in  poise, 
That   he    goes  the  farthest   who   goes  far 

enough, 


And  that  all  beyond  that  is  just  bother  and 

stuff. 
No  vain  man  matures,  he  makes  too  much 

new  wood; 
His  blooms  are  too  thick  for  the  fruit  to  be 

good; 
'T  is  the  modest  man  ripens,  't  is  he  that 

achieves, 
Just  what 's   needed  of  sunshine  and  shade 

he  receives; 
Grapes,  to  mellow,  require  the  cool  dark  of 

their  leaves; 
Neal  wants  balance;    he  throws  his  mind 

always  too  far, 
Whisking  out  flocks  of  comets,  but  never  a 

star; 
He   has  so  much  muscle,  and  loves  so  to 

show  it, 
That  he  strips  himself  naked  to  prove  he 's 

a  poet, 
And,  to  show  he   could   leap   Art's   wide 

ditch,  if  he  tried, 
Jumps  clean  o'er  it,  and  into  the   hedge 

t'  other  side. 
He  has  strength,  but  there 's  nothing  about 

him  in  keeping; 
One  gets  surelier  onward  by  walking  than 

leaping; 

He  has  used  his  own  sinews  himself  to  dis 
tress, 
And  had  done  vastly   more  had   he   done 

vastly  less; 

In  letters,  too  soon  is  as  bad  as  too  late  ; 
Could  he  only  have  waited  he  might  have 

been  great; 
But  he  plumped  into  Helicon   up   to   the 

waist, 
And  muddied  the  stream  ere  he  took  his 

first  taste. 

"There   is   Hawthorne,   with   genius  so 

shrinking  and  rare 
That  you  hardly  at  first  see  the  strength 

that  is  there ; 

A  frame  so  robust,  with  a  nature  so  sweet, 
So   earnest,   so   graceful,  so   lithe  and  so 

fleet, 

Is  worth  a  descent  from  Olympus  to  meet; 
'T  is  as  if  a  rough  oak  that  for  ages  had 

stood, 
With  his  gnarled  bony  branches  like  ribs  of 

the  wood, 
Should  bloom,  after  cycles  of  struggle  and 

scathe, 
With  a  single  anemone  trembly  and  rathe; 


A   FABLE   FOR   CRITICS 


His  strength  is  so  tender,  his  wildness  so 

meek, 

That  a  suitable  parallel  sets  one  to  seek,  — 
He 's  a  John   Bunyan  Fouque',  a   Puritan 

Tieck; 
When  Nature  was  shaping  him,  clay  was 

not  granted 
For  making   so   full-sized   a  man   as   she 

wanted, 

So,  to  fill  out  her  model,  a  little  she  spared 
From  some  finer-grained  stuff  for  a  woman 

prepared, 
And  she  could  not  have  hit  a  more  excellent 

plan 

For  making  him  fully  and  perfectly  man. 
The  success  of  her  scheme  gave  her  so  much 

delight, 
That  she  tried  it  again,  shortly  after,  in 

D  wight; 
Only,  while  she  was  kneading  and  shaping 

the  clay, 
She  sang  to  her  work  in  her  sweet  childish 

way, 
And  found,  when  she  M  put  the  last  touch 

to  his  soul, 
That  the  music  had  somehow  got  mixed 

with  the  whole. 

"Here's  Cooper,  who's  written  six  vol 
umes  to  show 

He 's  as  good  as  a  lord  :  well,  let 's  grant 
that  he  's  so  ; 

If  a  person  prefer  that  description  of  praise, 

Why,  a  coronet's  certainly  cheaper  than 
bays; 

But  he  need  take  no  pains  to  convince  us 
he 's  not 

(As  his  enemies  say)  the  American  Scott. 

Choose  any  twelve  men,  and  let  C.  read 
aloud 

That  one  of  his  novels  of  which  he 's  most 
proud, 

And  I  'd  lay  any  bet  that,  without  ever 
quitting 

Their  box,  they  'd  be  all,  to  a  man,  for  ac 
quitting. 

He  has  drawn  you  one  character,  though, 
that  is  new, 

One  wildflower  he's  plucked  that  is  wet 
with  the  dew 

Of  this  fresh  Western  world,  and,  the  thing 
not  to  mince, 

He  has  done  naught  but  copy  it  ill  ever 
since; 

His  Indians,  with  proper  respect  be  it  said, 


Are  just  Natty  Bumppo,  daubed  over  with 

red, 
And  his  very  Long  Toms   are   the   same 

useful  Nat, 
Rigged  up  in  duck  pants  and  a  sou'wester 

hat 
(Though  once  in  a  Coffin,  a  good  chance 

was  found 

To  have  slipped  the  old  fellow  away  under 
ground). 
All  his  other  men-figures  are  clothes  upon 

sticks, 

The  derniere  chemise  of  a  man  in  a  fix 
(As  a  captain  besieged,  when  his  garrison 's 

small, 
Sets  up  caps  upon  poles  to  be  seen  o'er  the 

wall) ; 
And  the  women  he  draws  from  one  model 

don't  vary, 

All  sappy  as  maples  and  flat  as  a  prairie. 
When  a  character 's  wanted,  he  goes  to  the 

task 

As  a  cooper  would  do  in  composing  a  cask; 
He  picks  out  the  staves,  of  their  qualities 

heedful, 
Just  hoops  them   together  as   tight  as  is 

needful, 
And,  if  the  best  fortune  should  crown  the 

attempt,  he 
Has  made  at  the  most  something  wooden 

and  empty. 

"Don't  suppose  I  would  underrate 
Cooper's  abilities; 

If  I  thought  you  'd  do  that,  I  should  feel 
very  ill  at  ease; 

The  men  who  have  given  to  one  character  life 

And  objective  existence  are  not  very  rife; 

You  may  number  them  all,  both  prose- 
writers  and  singers, 

Without"  overrunning  the  bounds  of  your 
fingers, 

And  Natty  won't  go  to  oblivion  quicker 

Than  Adams  the  parson  or  Primrose  the 
vicar. 

"  There  is  one  thing  in  Cooper  I  like, 
too,  and  that  is 

That  on  manners  he  lectures  his  country 
men  gratis; 

Not  precisely  so  either,  because,  for  a 
rarity, 

He  is  paid  for  his  tickets  in  unpopularity. 

Now  he  may  overcharge  his  American  pic 
tures, 


136 


A   FABLE   FOR   CRITICS 


But  you  '11   grant  there  's   a  good  deal  of 

truth  in  his  strictures; 

And  I  honor  the  man  who  is  willing  to  sink 
Half  his  present  repute  for  the  freedom  to 

think, 
And,  when   he   has  thought,  be  his  cause 

strong  or  weak, 
Will  risk  t'  other  half  for  the  freedom  to 


Caring   naught    for   what    vengeance    the 

mob  has  in  store, 
Let  that  mob  be  the  upper  ten  thousand  or 

lower. 

"  There  are  truths  you  Americans  need 

to  be  told, 
And  it  never  '11  refute  them   to   swagger 

and  scold; 
John   Bull,    looking   o'er   the  Atlantic,  in 

choler 
At  your  aptness  for  trade,  says  you  worship 

the  dollar; 
But   to   scorn  such    eye-dollar-try 's  what 

very  few  do, 
And  John  goes  to  that  church  as  often  as 

you  do. 
No  matter  what  John  says,  don't  try  to 

outcrow  him, 
'T  is  enough  to  go  quietly  on  and  outgrow 

him; 

Like  most  fathers,  Bull  hates  to  see  Num 
ber  One 

Displacing  himself  in  the  mind  of  his  son, 
And   detests   the   same   faults   in   himself 

he  'd  neglected 
When  he  sees  them   again  in   his   child's 

glass  reflected; 
To  love  one   another  you're   too  like   by 

half; 

If  he  is  a  bull,  you  're  a  pretty  stout  calf, 
And  tear  your  own  pasture  for  naught  but 

to  show 

What  a  nice  pair  of  horns  you're  begin 
ning  to  grow. 

"  There  are  one  or  two  things  I  should 

just  like  to  hint, 
For  you  don't  often  get  the  truth  told  you 

in  print; 
The  most  of  you  (this  is  what  strikes  all 

beholders) 
Have  a  mental  and  physical  stoop   in  the 

shoulders; 
Though  you  ought  to  be  free  as  the  winds 

and  the  waves, 


You  've  the  gait  and  the  manners  of  run 
away  slaves; 
Though  you  brag  of  your  New  World,  you 

don't  half  believe  in  it; 
And  as   much   of  the  Old  as   is  possible 

weave  in  it; 
Your  goddess  of  freedom,  a  tight,  buxom 

girl, 
With  lips  like  a  cherry  and   teeth  like  a 

pearl, 
With  eyes  bold  as  Here's,  and  hair  floating 

free, 

And  full  of  the  sun  as  the  spray  of  the  sea, 
Who  can  sing  at  a  husking  or  romp  at  a 

shearing, 
Who  can   trip   through  the   forests  alone 

without  fearing, 
Who  can  drive  home  the  cows  with  a  song 

through  the  grass, 
Keeps  glancing  aside  into  Europe's  cracked 


Hides  her  red  hands  in  gloves,  pinches  up 
her  lithe  waist, 

And  makes  herself  wretched  with  transma 
rine  taste; 

She  loses  her  fresh  country  charm  when 
she  takes 

Any  mirror  except  her  own  rivers  and 
lakes. 

"You  steal  Englishmen's  books  and 
think  Englishmen's  thought, 

With  their  salt  on  her  tail  your  wild  eagle 
is  caught; 

Your  literature  suits  its  each  whisper  and 
motion 

To  what  will  be  thought  of  it  over  the 
ocean ; 

The  cast  clothes  of  Europe  your  statesman 
ship  tries 

And  mumbles  again  the  old  blarneys  and 
lies;  — 

Forget  Europe  wholly,  your  veins  throb 
with  blood, 

To  which  the  dull  current  in  hers  is  but  mud: 

Let  her  sneer,  let  her  say  your  experiment 
fails, 

In  her  voice  there's  a  tremble  e'en  now 
while  she  rails, 

And  your  shore  will  soon  be  in  the  nature 
of  things 

Covered  thick  with  gilt  drift-wood  of  cast 
away  kings, 

Where  alone,  as  it  were  in  a  Longfellow's 
Waif, 


A   FABLE  FOR   CRITICS 


J37 


Her  fugitive  pieces  will  find  themselves 
safe. 

O  my  friends,  thank  your  god,  if  you  have 
one,  that  he 

'Twixt  the  Old  World  and  you  set  the  gulf 
of  a  sea; 

Be  strong-backed,  brown-handed,  upright 
as  your  pines, 

By  the  scale  of  a  hemisphere  shape  your 
designs, 

Be  true  to  yourselves  and  this  new  nine 
teenth  age, 

As  a  statue  by   Powers,  or  a   picture   by 


Plough,  sail,  forge,  build,  carve,  paint, 
make  all  over  new, 

To  your  own  New- World  instincts  contrive 
to  be  true, 

Keep  your  ears  open  wide  to  the  Future's 
first  call, 

Be  whatever  you  will,  but  yourselves  first 
of  all, 

Stand  fronting  the  dawn  on  Toil's  heaven- 
scaling  peaks, 

And  become  my  new  race  of  more  practi 
cal  Greeks.  — 

Hem  !  your  likeness  at  present,  I  shudder 
to  tell  o't, 

Is  that  you  have  your  slaves,  and  the 
Greek  had  his  helot." 

Here  a  gentleman  present,  who  had  in 

his  attic 
More  pepper  than  brains,  shrieked,  "The 

man  's  a  fanatic, 
I  'm  a  capital  tailor  with  warm   tar   and 

feathers, 
And  will  make  him  a  suit  that  '11  serve  in 

all  weathers; 
But  we  '11  argue  the  point  first,  I  'm  willing 

to  reason  't, 

Palaver  before  condemnation  's  but  decent; 
So,  through  my  humble  person,  Humanity 

begs 
Of  the  friends  of  true  freedom  a  loan  of 

bad  eggs." 
But  Apollo  let  one  such  a  look  of  his  show 

forth 

As  when  ffrc  VVKTI  eWefo,  and  so  forth, 
And  the  gentleman  somehow  slunk  out  of 

the  way, 
But,  as   he  was   going,  gained  courage  to 

say,— 
"  At  slavery  in  the  abstract  my  whole  soul 

rebels, 


I  am  as  strongly  opposed  to  't  as  any  one 

else." 
"  Ay,  no  doubt,   but  whenever  I  've   hap 

pened  to  meet 
With  a  wrong  or  a  crime,  it  is  always  con 

crete," 
Answered  Phcebus  severely;  then  turning 

to  us, 
"  The  mistake  of  such  fellows  as  just  made 

the  fuss 

Is  only  in  taking  a  great  busy  nation 
For  a  part  of  their  pitiful  cotton-planta 

tion.  — 
But  there    comes   Miranda,  Zeus  !  where 

shall  I  flee  to  ? 
She  has  such  a  penchant  for  bothering  me 

too  ! 

She  always  keeps  asking  if  I  don't  observe  a 
Particular  likeness  'twixt  her  and  Minerva  ; 
She  tells  me  my  efforts  in  verse  are  quite 

clever;  — 
She  's   been   travelling  now,   and  will  be 

worse  than  ever; 
One  would  think,  though,  a  sharp-sighted 

noter  she  'd  be 
Of  all  that  's  worth  mentioning   over  the 

sea, 
For  a  woman  must  surely  see  well,  if  she 

try, 

The  whole  of  whose  being  's  a  capital  I: 
She  will  take  an  old  notion,  and  make  it 

her  own, 

By  saying  it  o'er  in  her  Sibylline  tone, 
Or  persuade  you  't  is  something  tremen 

dously  deep, 

By  repeating  it  so  as  to  put  you  to  sleep; 
And  she  well  may  defy  any  mortal  to  see 

through  it, 
When  once  she  has  mixed  up  her  infinite 

me  through  it. 
There  is  one  thing  she  owns  in  her  own 

single  right, 
It    is   native   and   genuine  —  namely,   her 

spite; 
Though,  when  acting  as  censor,  she   pri 

vately  blows 
A  censer  of  vanity  'neath  her  own  nose." 


Here  Miranda  came  up,  and  said,  " 

bus  !  you  know 
That  the  Infinite  Soul  has  its  infinite  woe, 
As  I  ought  to  know,  having  lived  cheek  by 

jowl, 
Since  the  day  I  was  born,  with  the  Infinite 

Soul; 


A   FABLE   FOR    CRITICS 


I  myself  introduced,  I  myself,  I  alone, 

To  my  Land's  better  life  authors  solely  my 
own, 

Who  the  sad  heart  of  earth  on  their  shoul 
ders  have  taken, 

Whose  works  sound  a  depth  by  Life's 
quiet  unshaken, 

Such  as  Shakespeare,  for  instance,  the 
Bible,  and  Bacon, 

Not  to  mention  my  own  works;  Time's 
nadir  is  fleet, 

And,  as  for  myself,  I  'm  quite  out  of  con 
ceit"— 

"  Quite  out  of  conceit !    I  'm  enchanted 

to  hear  it," 
Cried  Apollo  aside.    "  WTio  'd  have  thought 

she  was  near  it  ? 
To  be  sure,  one   is   apt  to   exhaust  those 

commodities 

One  uses  too  fast,  yet  in  this  case  as  odd  it  is 
As  if   Neptune  should   say  to   his   turbots 

and  whitings, 
'  I  'm  as  much  out  of  salt  as  Miranda's  own 

writings  ' 
(Which,  as  she  in  her   own  happy  manner 

has  said, 
Sound  a  depth,  for  't  is  one  of  the  functions 

of  lead). 

She  often  has  asked  me  if  I  could  not  find 
A  place  somewhere  near  me  that  suited  her 

mind ; 

I  know  but  a  single  one  vacant,  which  she, 
With  her  rare  talent  that  way,  would  fit  to 

aT. 

And  it  would  not  imply  any  pause  or  cessa 
tion 

In  the  work  she  esteems  her  peculiar  voca 
tion,  — 
She   may   enter    on    duty   to-day,   if    she 

chooses, 
And  remain  Tiring-woman  for  life  to  the 

Muses." 

Miranda  meanwhile  has  succeeded  in 
driving 

Up  into  a  corner,  in  spite  of  their  striving, 

A  small  flock  of  terrified  victims,  and 
there, 

With  an  I-turn-the-crank-of-the-Universe 
air 

And  a  tone  which,  at  least  to  my  fancy,  ap 
pears 

Not  so  much  to  be  entering  as  boxing  your 
ears, 


Is  unfolding  a  tale  (of  herself,  I  surmise, 
For  't  is  dotted  as  thick  as  a  peacock's  with 

I's). 

Apropos  of  Miranda,  I  '11  rest  on  my  oars 
And  drift  through  a  trifling  digression  on 

bores, 
For,  though  not  wearing  ear-rings  in  more 

majorum, 
Our  ears  are  kept  bored  just  as  if  we  still 

wore  'em. 

There  was  one  feudal  custom  worth  keep 
ing,  at  least, 

Roasted  bores  made  a  part  of  each  well- 
ordered  feast, 

And  of  all  quiet  pleasures  the  very  ne  plus 
Was  in  hunting  wild   bores   as   the   tame 

ones  hunt  us. 
Archseologians,  I  know,  who  have  personal 

fears 
Of  this  wise  application  of  hounds  and  of 

spears, 
Have  tried  to  make  out,  with  a  zeal  more 

than  wonted, 

'T  was  a  kind  of  wild  swine  that  our  ances 
tors  hunted; 
But  I'll  never  believe  that  the  age  which 

has  strewn 
Europe  o'er  with  cathedrals,  and  otherwise 

shown 
That   it  knew   what  was  what,   could   by 

chance  not  have  known 
(Spending,  too,  its  chief  time  with  its  buff 

on,  no  doubt) 
Which  beast   't  would  improve  the   world 

most  to  thin  out. 
I  divide   bores   myself,  in   the  manner  of 

rifles, 

Into  two  great  divisions,  regardless  of  tri 
fles;— 
There  's  your  smooth-bore  and  screw-bore, 

who  do  not  much  vary 
In  the  weight  of  cold  lead  they  respectively 

carry. 
The  smooth-bore  is  one  in  whose  essence 

the  mind 
Not  a  corner  nor  cranny  to  cling  by  can 

find; 
You  feel  as  in  nightmares  sometimes,  when 

you  slip 
Down  a   steep  slated  roof,  where  there 's 

nothing  to  grip; 
You  slide  and  you  slide,  the  blank  horror 

increases,  — 
You  had  rather  by  far  be  at  once  smashed 

to  pieces; 


A   FABLE   FOR   CRITICS 


You   fancy   a  whirlpool  below  white   and 

frothing, 
And  finally  drop  off  and   light  upon  —  no 

thing. 
The   screw-bore   has   twists   in  him,  faint 

predilections 
For  going  just  wrong  in  the  tritest  direc 

tions; 
When  he  's  wrong  he  is   flat,  when  he  's 

right  he  can't  show  it, 
He  '11  tell  you  what  Snooks  said  about  the 

new  poet,1 
Or  how  Fogrum  was  outraged  by  Tenny 

son's  Princess; 
He  has  spent  all  his  spare  time  and  intel 

lect  since  his 

Birth  in  perusing,  on  each  art  and  science, 
Just  the  books  in  which  no  one  puts   any 

reliance, 
And  though  nemo,  we  're  told,  horis  omnibus 


The  rule  will   not   fit  him,   however  you 

shape  it, 

For  he  has  a  perennial  foison  of  sappiness; 
He  has  just  enough  force  to  spoil  half  your 

day's  happiness, 
And  to  make  him  a  sort  of  mosquito  to  be 

with, 
But  just   not  enough  to  dispute  or  agree 

with. 

These  sketches   I  made  (not   to  be  too 

explicit) 
From  two   honest  fellows  who   made   me 

a  visit, 
And  broke,  like  the  tale  of  the  Bear  and 

the  Fiddle, 
My  reflections  on  Halleck  short  off  by  the 

middle  ; 
I  sha'n't   now   go   into   the   subject  more 

deeply, 
For  I  notice  that  some  of  my  readers  look 

sleep'ly; 
I  will  barely  remark  that,  'mongst  civilized 

nations, 
There  's  none  that  displays  more  exemplary 

patience 
Under  all  sorts  of  boring,  at  all  sorts  of 

hours, 
From  all  sorts  of  desperate  persons,  than 

ours. 
Not  to  speak  of  our  papers,  our  State  legis 

latures, 

1  (If  you  call  Snooks  an  owl,  he  will  show  by  his  looks 
That  he  's  morally  certain  you  're  jealous  of  Snooks.) 


And  other  such  trials  for  sensitive  na 
tures, 

Just  look  for  a  moment  at  Congress,  • —  ap 
palled, 

My  fancy  shrinks  back  from  the  phantom 
it  called; 

Why,  there  's  scarcely  a  member  unworthy 
to  frown 

'Neath  what  Fourier  nicknames  the  Boreal 
crown; 

Only  think  what  that  infinite  bore-pow'r 
could  do 

If  applied  with  a  utilitarian  view; 

Suppose,  for  example,  we  shipped  it  with 
care 

To  Sahara's  great  desert  and  let  it  bore 
there; 

If  they  held  one  short  session  and  did  no 
thing  else, 

They  'd  fill  the  whole  waste  with  Artesian 
wells. 

But  't  is  time  now  with  pen  phonographic 
to  follow 

Through  some  more  of  his  sketches  our 
laughing  Apollo:  — 

"  There  comes  Harry  Franco,  and,  as  he 

draws  near, 
You  find  that 's  a  smile  which  you  took  for 

a  sneer; 
One  half  of  him  contradicts  t'  other;  his 

wont 
Is  to  say  very  sharp  things  and   do  very 

blunt; 
His  manner 's  as  hard  as  his  feelings   are 

tender, 
And  a  sortie  he  '11  make  when  he  means  to 

surrender; 
He  's  in  joke  half  the  time  when  he  seems 

to  be  sternest, 
When  he  seems  to  be  joking,  be  sure  he  's 

in  earnest; 

He  has  common  sense  in  a  way  that 's  un 
common, 
Hates  humbug  and  cant,  loves  his  friends 

like  a  woman, 

Builds  his  dislikes  of  cards  and  his  friend 
ships  of  oak, 
Loves  a  prejudice  better  than  aught  but  a 

joke, 
Is   half   upright   Quaker,   half  downright 

Gome-outer, 
Loves  Freedom  too  well  to  go  stark  mad 

about  her, 
Quite  artless  himself,  is  a  lover  of  Art, 


140 


A   FABLE   FOR   CRITICS 


Shuts  you  out  of  his  secrets  and  into  his 
heart, 

And  though  not  a  poet,  yet  all  must  ad 
mire 

In  his  letters  of  Pinto  his  skill  on  the  liar. 

"  There  comes  Poe,  with  his  raven,  like 

Barnaby  Rudge, 
Three  fifths  of  him  genius  and  two  fifths 

sheer  fudge, 

Who  talks  like  a  book  of  iambs  and  penta 
meters, 
In  a  way  to  make  people  of  common  sense 

damn  metres, 
Who  has   written    some   things  quite   the 

best  of  their  kind, 
But  the  heart  somehow  seems  all  squeezed 

out  by  the  mind, 
Who—     But    hey-day!      What's   this? 

Messieurs  Mathews  and  Poe, 
You  must  n't  fling  mud-balls  at  Longfellow 

so, 

Does  it  make  a  man  worse  that  his  charac 
ter  's  such 
As  to  make  his  friends  love  him  (as   you 

think)  too  much? 
Why,  there  is  not  a  bard  at  this  moment 

alive 
More  willing  than  he  that  his  fellows  should 

thrive; 

While  you  are  abusing  him  thus,  even  now 
He  would  help  either  one  of  you  out  of  a 

slough; 
You  may  say  that  he 's  smooth  and  all  that 

till  you  're  hoarse, 

But  remember  that  elegance  also  is  force ; 
After  polishing  granite  as  much  as  you  will, 
The  heart  keeps  its  tough  old  persistency 

still; 
Deduct  all  you  can,  that  still  keeps  you  at 

bay; 
Why,  he  '11  live  till  men  weary  of  Collins 

and  Gray. 

I  'm  not  over-fond  of  Greek  metres  in  Eng 
lish, 
To  me  rhyme  's  a  gain,  so  it  be  not  too  jin- 

glish, 
And  your  modern  hexameter  verses  are  no 

more 
Like  Greek  ones  than  sleek  Mr.   Pope   is 

like  Homer; 
As  the  roar  of  the  sea  to  the  coo  of  a  pigeon 

is, 
So,  compared  to  your  moderns,  sounds  old 

Melesigenes; 


I  may  be  too  partial,  the  reason,  perhaps, 
o't  is 

That  I  've  heard  the  old  blind  man  recite 
his  own  rhapsodies, 

And  my  ear  with  that  music  impregnate 
may  be, 

Like  the  poor  exiled  shell  with  the  soul  of 
the  sea, 

Or  as  one  can't  bear  Strauss  when  his  na 
ture  is  cloven 

To  its  deeps  within  deeps  by  the  stroke  of 
Beethoven; 

But,  set  that  aside,  and  't  is  truth  that  I 


Had   Theocritus    written   in   English,   not 

Greek, 
I   believe   that   his  exquisite  sense   would 

scarce  change  a  line 
In  that   rare,  tender,  virgin-like   pastoral 

Evangeline. 
That 's  not  ancient  nor  modern,  its  place  is 

apart 
Where  time  has  no  sway,  in  the  realm  of 

pure  Art, 
'T  is   a   shrine   of   retreat   from    Earth's 

hubbub  and  strife 
As  quiet  and  chaste  as  the  author's  own  life. 

"There  comes  Philothea,   her  face  all 

aglow, 

She  has  just  been  dividing  some  poor  crea 
ture's  woe, 
And  can't  tell  which  pleases  her  most,  to 

relieve 

His  want,  or  his  story  to  hear  and  believe ; 
No  doubt  against   many  deep  griefs   she 

prevails, 

For  her  ear  is  the  refuge  of  destitute  tales; 
She  knows  well  that  silence  is  sorrow's  best 

food, 
And  that  talking  draws  off  from  the  heart 

its  black  blood, 
So  she  '11  listen  with  patience  and  let  you 

unfold 
Your  bundle  of  rags  as  't  were  pure  cloth 

of  gold, 
Which,  indeed,  it  all  turns  to  as  soon  as  she  Js 

touched  it, 
And  (to  borrow  a  phrase  from  the  nursery) 

mucked  it; 

She  has  such  a  musical  taste,  she  will  go 
Any  distance  to  hear  one  who  draws  a  long 

bow; 
She  will  swallow  a  wonder  by  mere  might 

and  main, 


A   FABLE   FOR   CRITICS 


141 


And  thinks  it  Geometry's  fault  if  she 's  fain 
To  consider  things  flat,  inasmuch  as  they  're 

plain; 

Facts  with  her  are  accomplished,  as  French 
men  would  say  — 
They  will  prove   all   she   wishes  them   to 

either  way,  — 
And,  as  fact  lies  on  this  side  or  that,  we 

must  try, 
If  we  're  seeking  the  truth,  to  find  where  it 

don't  lie; 

I  was  telling  her  once  of  a  marvellous  aloe 
That  for  thousands  of   years    had   looked 

spindling  and  sallow, 
And,   though   nursed    by   the    fruitfullest 

powers  of  mud, 
Had  never  vouchsafed  e'en  so  much  as  a 

bud, 
Till  its  owner  remarked  (as  a  sailor,  you 

know, 
Often  will  in  a  calm)  that  it  never  would 

blow, 

For  he  wished  to  exhibit  the  plant,  and  de 
signed 
That  its  blowing  should  help  him  in  raising 

the  wind; 
At  last  it  was  told  him  that  if  he  should 

water 
Its  roots  with  the  blood  of  his  unmarried 

daughter 
(Who  was  born,  as  her  mother,  a  Calvinist, 

said, 
With  William  Law's  serious  caul  on  her 

head), 
It  would  blow  as  the  obstinate  breeze  did 

when  by  a 

Like  decree  of  her  father  died  Iphigenia; 
At  first  he  declared  he  himself  would  be 

blowed 
Ere  his  conscience  with  such  a  foul  crime 

he  would  load, 
But  the  thought,  coming  oft,  grew  less  dark 

than  before, 
And  he  mused,  as  each  creditor  knocked  at 

his  door, 
If  this  were  but  done  they  would  dun  me  no 

more; 

I  told  Philothea  his  struggles  and  doubts, 
And  how  he  considered  the  ins  and  the  outs 
Of  the  visions  he  had,  and   the   dreadful 

dyspepsy, 
How  he  went  to  the  seer  that  lives  at  Po'- 

keepsie, 
How  the  seer  advised  him  to  sleep  on  it 

first, 


And  to  read  his  big  volume  in  case  of  the 

worst, 
And  further  advised  he  should  pay  him  five 

dollars 
For  writing  $um,  tyum,  on  his  wristbands 

and  collars; 
Three  years  and  ten  days  these  dark  words 

he  had  studied 
When  the  daughter  was  missed,  and  the 

aloe  had  budded; 
I  told  how  he  watched  it  grow  large  and 

more  large, 
And  wondered  how  much  for  the  show  he 

should  charge,  — 
She  had  listened  with  utter  indifference  to 

this,  till 
I  told  how  it  bloomed,  and,  discharging  its 

pistil 

With  an  aim  the  Eumenides  dictated,  shot 
The  botanical  filicide  dead  on  the  spot; 
It  had  blown,  but  he  reaped  not  his  horrible 

gains, 
For  it  blew  with  such  force  as  to  blow  out 

his  brains, 
And  the  crime  was  blown  also,  because  on 

the  wad, 
Which  was  paper,  was  writ  '  Visitation  of 

God,' 

As  well  as  a  thrilling  account  of  the  deed 
Which  the  coroner   kindly  allowed  me  to 

read. 

"  Well,  my  friend  took  this  story  up 
just,  to  be  sure, 

As  one  might  a  poor  foundling  that  's  laid 
at  one's  door; 

She  combed  it  and  washed  it  and  clothed  it 
and  fed  it, 

And  as  if  't  were  her  own  child  most  ten 
derly  bred  it, 

Laid  the  scene  (of  the  legend,  I  mean)  far 
away  a- 

-mong  the  green  vales  underneath  Hima 
laya, 

And  by  artist-like  touches,  laid  on  here 
and  there, 

Made  the  whole  thing  so  touching,  I 
frankly  declare 

I  have  read  it  all  thrice,  and,  perhaps  I  am 
weak, 

But  I  found  every  time  there  were  tears  on 
my  cheek. 

"  The  pole,  science  tells  us,  the  magnet 
controls, 


142 


A   FABLE   FOR   CRITICS 


But  she  is  a  magnet  to  emigrant  Poles, 

And  folks  with  a  mission  that  nobody 
knows 

Throng  thickly  about  her  as  bees  round  a 
rose; 

She  can  fill  up  the  carets  in  such,  make 
their  scope 

Converge  to  some  focus  of  rational  hope, 

And,  with  sympathies  fresh  as  the  morn 
ing,  their  gall 

Can  transmute  into  honey,  —  but  this  is 
not  all; 

Not  only  for  those  she  has  solace,  oh 
say, 

Vice's  desperate  nursling  adrift  in  Broad 
way, 

Who  clingest,  with  all  that  is  left  of  thee 
human, 

To  the  last  slender  spar  from  the  wreck  of 
the  woman, 

Hast  thou  not  found  one  shore  where  those 
tired  drooping  feet 

Could  reach  firm  mother-earth,  one  full 
heart  on  whose  beat 

The  soothed  head  in  silence  reposing  could 
hear 

The  chimes  of  far  childhood  throb  back  on 
the  ear  ? 

Ah,  there  's  many  a  beam  from  the  foun 
tain  of  day 

That,  to  reach  us  unclouded,  must  pass,  on 
its  way, 

Through  the  soul  of  a  woman,  and  hers  is 
wide  ope 

To  the  influence  of  Heaven  as  the  blue 
eyes  of  Hope; 

Yes,  a  great  heart  is  hers,  one  that  dares 
to  go  in 

To  the  prison,  the  slave-hut,  the  alleys  of 
sin, 

And  to  bring  into  each,  or  to  find  there, 
some  line 

Of  the  never  completely  out-trampled  di 
vine; 

If  her  heart  at  high  floods  swamps  her 
brain  now  and  then, 

'T  is  but  richer  for  that  when  the  tide  ebbs 
agen, 

As,  after  old  Nile  has  subsided,  his  plain 

Overflows  with  a  second  broad  deluge  of 
grain; 

What  a  wealth  would  it  bring  to  the  nar 
row  and  sour 

Could  they  be  as  a  Child  but  for  one  little 
hour ! 


"  What  !  Irving  ?  thrice  welcome,  warm 
heart  and  fine  brain, 

You  bring  back  the  happiest  spirit  from 
Spain, 

And  the  gravest  sweet  humor,  that  ever 
were  there 

Since  Cervantes  met  death  in  his  gentle 
despair; 

Nay,  don't  be  embarrassed,  nor  look  so  be 
seeching, 

I  sha'n't  run  directly  against  my  own 
preaching, 

And,  having  just  laughed  at  their  Raphaels 
and  Dantes, 

Go  to  setting  you  up  beside  matchless  Cer 
vantes  ; 

But  allow  me  to  speak  what  I  honestly 
feel,  — 

To  a  true  poet-heart  add  the  fun  of  Dick 
Steele, 

Throw  in  all  of  Addison,  minus  the  chill, 

With  the  whole  of  that  partnership's  stock 
and  good-will, 

Mix  well,  and  while  stirring,  hum  o'er,  as 
a  spell, 

The  fine  old  English  Gentleman,  simmer  it 
well, 

Sweeten  just  to  your  own  private  liking, 
then  strain, 

That  only  the  finest  and  clearest  remain, 

Let  it  stand  out  of  doors  till  a  soul  it  re 
ceives 

From  the  warm  lazy  sun  loitering  down 
through  green  leaves, 

And  you  '11  find  a  choice  nature,  not  wholly 
deserving 

A  name  either  English  or  Yankee,  —  just 
Irving. 

"There  goes,  —  but  stet  nominis  umbra. 

—  his  name 
You  '11  be  glad  enough,  some  day  or  other, 

to  claim, 
And  will  all  crowd  about   him   and  swear 

that  you  knew  him 
If  some  English  critic  should  chance  to  re~ 

view  him. 

The  old  porcos  ante  ne  projiciatis 
MARGARITAS,   for  him  you  have  verified 

gratis; 
What  matters  his  name  ?     Why,  it  may  be 

Sylvester, 

Judd,  Junior,  or  Junius,  Ulysses,  or  Nestor, 
For  aught  /  know   or  care;   't  is  enough 

that  I  look 


A   FABLE   FOR   CRITICS 


On    the    author   of   'Margaret/   the   first 

Yankee  book 
With  the  soul  of  Down  East  in 't,  and  things 

farther  East, 
As  far   as   the  threshold   of   morning,   at 

least, 
Where  awaits  the  fair  dawn  of  the  simple 

and  true, 
Of  the  day  that  conies  slowly  to  make  all 

things  new. 
*T  has  a  smack  of  pine  woods,  of  bare  field 

and  bleak  hill, 
Such  as  only  the  breed  of  the  Mayflower 

could  till; 
The   Puritan  's  shown  in  it,  tough   to    the 

core, 
Such  as  prayed,  smiting  Agag  on  red  Mar- 

ston  Moor: 
With  an  unwilling  humor,  half  choked  by 

the  drouth 
In   brown   hollows   about  the  inhospitable 

mouth; 
With  a  soul  full  of  poetry,  though  it  has 

qualms 
About   finding   a    happiness    out    of    the 

Psalms; 
Full  of  tenderness,  too,  though  it  shrinks 

in  the  dark, 
Hamadryad-like,  under  the  coarse,  shaggy 

bark; 
That  sees  visions,  knows  wrestlings  of  God 

with  the  Will, 
And  has   its   own  Sinais  and  thunderingfs 

still." 

Here,  "Forgive  me,    Apollo,"  I   cried, 

"  while  I  pour 
My  heart  out  to  my  birthplace:  O   loved 

more  and  more 
Dear    Baystate,  from  whose  rocky  bosom 

thy  sons 
Should  suck  milk,  strong- will-giving,  brave, 

such  as  runs 
In  the  veins  of  old  Greylock  —  who  is  it 

that  dares 

Call  thee  pedler,  a  soul  wrapped   in  bank 
books  and  shares  ? 
It  is  false  !     She 's  a  Poet  !     I  see,  as  I 

write, 
Along   the   far   railroad   the    steam-snake 

glide  white, 
The   cataract-throb   of   her    mill-hearts    I 

hear, 
The  swift  strokes  of  trip-hammers  weary 

my  ear, 


Sledges  ring  upon  anvils,  through  logs  the 

saw  screams, 
Blocks  swing  to  their  place,  beetles  drive 

home  the  beams :  — 
It  is  songs  such  as  these  that  she  croons  to 

the  din 
Of  her  fast-flying  shuttles,  year  out  and 

year  in, 
While  from  earth's  farthest  corner  there 

comes  not  a  breeze 

But  wafts  her  the  buzz  of  her  gold-glean 
ing  bees: 
What  though  those  horn  hands  have  as  yet 

found  small  time 
For  painting  and  sculpture  and  music  and 

rhyme  ? 
These  will  come   in   due   order;  the   need 

that  pressed  sorest 
Was  to  vanquish  the  seasons,  the  ocean, 

the  forest, 

To  bridle  and  harness  the  rivers,  the  steam, 
Making  those  whirl  her  mill-wheels,  this 

tug  in  her  team, 

To  vassalize  old  tyrant  Winter,  and  make 
Him  delve    surlily   for  her   on  river  and 

lake;  — 
When   this   New   World   was  parted,  she 

strove  not  to  shirk 
Her  lot  in  the  heirdom,  the  tough,  silent 

Work, 

The  hero-share  ever  from  Herakles  down 
To   Odin,   the    Earth's    iron   sceptre    and 

crown : 
Yes,   thou    dear,   noble    Mother  !   if  ever 

men's  praise 

Could  be  claimed  for  creating  heroical  lays, 
Thou  hast  won  it;  if  ever  the  laurel  divine 
Crowned  the  Maker  and  Builder,  that  glory 

is  thine  ! 
Thy  songs  are  right  epic,  they  tell  how  this 

rude 
Rock-rib  of  our  earth  here  was  tamed  and 

subdued; 
Thou  hast  written  them  plain  on  the  face 

of  the  planet 
In   brave,   deathless    letters   of   iron   and 

granite ; 
Thou  hast  printed  them  deep  for  all  time ; 

they  are  set 

From   the  same  runic  type-fount   and  al 
phabet 
With   thy    stout    Berkshire   hills  and  the 

arms  of  thy  Bay,  — 

They  are  staves  from  the  burly  old  May 
flower  lay. 


144 


A   FABLE   FOR   CRITICS 


If  the  drones  of  the  Old  World,  in  queru 
lous  ease, 

Ask  thy  Art  and  thy  Letters,  point  proudly 
to  these, 

Or,  if  they  deny  these  are  Letters  and  Art, 

Toil  on  with  the  same  old  invincible  heart; 

Thou  art  rearing  the  pedestal  broad-based 
and  grand 

Whereon  the  fair  shapes  of  the  Artist  shall 
stand, 

And  creating,  through  labors  undaunted 
and  long, 

The  theme  for  all  Sculpture  and  Painting 
and  Song ! 

"  But  my  good  mother  Baystate  wants 

no  praise  of  mine, 

She  learned  from  her  mother  a  precept  di 
vine 
About  something  that  butters  no  parsnips, 

her  forte 

In  another  direction  lies,  work  is  her  sport 
(Though   she  '11   curtsey  and   set   her   cap 

straight,  that  she  will, 
If  you   talk    about    Plymouth    and    red 

Bunker's  hill). 
Dear,  notable  goodwife  !  by  this  time  of 

night, 

Her  hearth  is  swept  neatly,  her  fire  burn 
ing  bright, 
And  she  sits  in  a  chair  (of  home  plan  and 

make)  rocking, 
Musing  much,  all  the  while,  as  she  darns 

on  a  stocking, 
Whether   turkeys  will   come   pretty  high 

next  Thanksgiving, 
Whether  flour  '11  be  so  dear,  for,  as  sure  as 

she  's  living, 
She  will  use  rye-and-injun  then,  whether 

the  pig 

By  this  time  ain't  got  pretty  tolerable  big, 
And  whether   to   sell   it   outright  will  be 

best, 
Or  to  smoke  hams  and  shoulders  and  salt 

down  the  rest,  — 
At  this  minute,  she  'd  swop  all  my  verses, 

ah,  cruel  ! 
For  the  last  patent  stove  that  is  saving  of 

fuel; 

So  I  '11  just  let  Apollo  go  on,  for  his  phiz 
Shows  I  've  kept  him  awaiting  too  long  as 

it  is." 

"  If  our  friend,  there,  who  seems  a  re 
porter,  is  done 


With  his  burst  of  emotion,  why,  /  will  go 

on," 
Said  Apollo;  some  smiled,  and,  indeed,  I 

must  own 
There  was  something  sarcastic,  perhaps,  in 

his  tone ;  — 

"There's     Holmes,    who    is   matchless 

among  you  for  wit; 
A   Leyden-jar   always   full-charged,   from 

which  flit 

The  electrical  tingles  of  hit  after  hit; 
In  long  poems  't  is  painful  sometimes,  and 

invites 
A  thought  of  the  way  the   new  Telegraph 

writes, 
Which  pricks  down  its  little  sharp  sentences 

spitefully 
As   if  you  got   more  than  you  'd  title  to 

rightfully, 
And   you   find   yourself    hoping    its    wild 

father  Lightning 
Would  flame  in  for  a  second  and  give  you 

a  fright'ning. 
He  has  perfect  sway  of  what  I  call  a  sham 

metre, 

But  many  admire  it,  the  English  pentame 
ter, 

And  Campbell,  I  think,  wrote  most  com 
monly  worse, 
With  less   nerve,   swing,    and  fire  in   the 

same  kind -of  verse, 
Nor  e'er  achieved  aught  in  't  so  worthy  of 

praise 
As  the   tribute   of   Holmes   to   the  grand 

Marseillaise. 
You  went   crazy   last  year  over  Bulwer's 

New  Timon ;  — 
Why,  if  B-,  to  the  day  of  his  dying,  should 

rhyme  on, 
Heaping  verses  on  verses  and  tomes  upon 

tomes, 
He   could   ne'er  reach  the  best  point  and 

vigor  of  Holmes. 
His  are  just  the  fine  hands,  too,  to  weave 

you  a  lyric 
Full  of  fancy,  fun,  feeling,  or  spiced  with 

satiric 
In  a  measure  so  kindly,  you  doubt  if  the 

toes 
That  are  trodden  upon  are  your  own  or  your 

foes'. 

"  There  is  Lowell,  who 's  striving  Par 
nassus  to  climb 


A   FABLE  FOR   CRITICS 


'45 


With  a  whole   bale  of  isms  tied   together 

with  rhyme, 
He  might  get  on  alone,  spite  of  brambles 

and  boulders, 
But  he  can't  with  that  bundle  he  has  on  his 

shoulders, 
The  top  of  the  hill  he  will  ne'er  come  nigh 

reaching 
Till  he  learns  the  distinction  'twixt  singing 

and  preaching; 
His  lyre  has  some  chords  that  would  ring 

pretty  well, 
But  he  'd  rather  by  half  make  a  drum  of 

the  shell, 

And  rattle  away  till  he 's  old  as  Methusalem, 
At  the  head  of  a  march  to  the  last   new 

Jerusalem. 

"  There  goes  Halleck,  whose  Fanny 's  a 

pseudo  Don  Juan, 
With  the  wickedness  out  that  gave  salt  to 

the  true  one, 
He 's  a  wit,  though,  I  hear,  of  the  very  first 

order, 
And  once  made  a  pun  on  the  words   soft 

Recorder; 
More  than  this,  he 's  a  very  great  poet,  I  'm 

told, 
And  has  had  his  works  published  in  crimson 

and  gold, 
With  something  they  call   'Illustrations,' 

to  wit, 
Like  those  with  which  Chapman  obscured 

Holy  Writ,1 
Which  are  said  to  illustrate,  because,  as  I 

view  it, 

Like  lucus  a  non,  they  precisely  don't  do  it ; 
Let  a  man    who   can  write  what   himself 

understands 
Keep  clear,  if  he  can,  of  designing  men's 

hands, 
Who  bury  the  sense,  if  there 's  any  worth 

having, 

And  then  very  honestly  call  it  engraving. 
But,  to  quit  badinage,   which   there   is  n't 

much  wit  in, 
Halleck  's  better,  I  doubt  not,  than  all  he 

has  written; 

In  his  verse  a  clear  glimpse  you  will  fre 
quently  find, 

If  not  of  a  great,  of  a  fortunate  mind, 
Which  contrives  to  be  true  to  its  natural 

loves 

1  (Cuts  rightly  called  wooden,  as  all  must  admit.) 


In  a  world  of  back-offices,   ledgers,    and 

stoves. 
When   his   heart   breaks   away    from   the 

brokers  and  banks, 
And  kneels  in  his  own  private  shrine  to  give 

thanks, 
There 's   a  genial  manliness  in  him  that 

earns 
Our  sincerest  respect   (read,  for  instance, 

his  « Burns '), 
And  we  can't  but  regret  (seek  excuse  where 

we  may) 
That  so  much  of  a  man  has  been  peddled 

away. 

"But   what's    that?   a   mass-meeting? 

No,  there  come  in  lots 
The    American    Bulwers,    Disraelis,    and 

Scotts, 

And  in  short  the  American  everything  elses, 
Each  charging  the  others  with  envies  and 

jealousies;  — 
By  the  way,  't  is  a  fact  that  displays  what 

profusions 

Of  all  kinds  of  greatness  bless  free  institu 
tions, 
That  while  the  Old  World  has  produced 

barely  eight 

Of  such  poets  as  all  men  agree  to  call  great, 
And   of   other   great   characters  hardly  a 

score 
(One  might  safely  say  less  than  that  rather 

than  more), 

With  you  every  year  a  whole  crop  is  be 
gotten, 
They  're  as  much  of  a  staple  as  corn  is,  or 

cotton; 
Why,  there  's  scarcely  a  huddle  of  log-huts 

and  shanties 
That  has  not  brought  forth  its  own  Miltons 

and  Dantes; 
I  myself  know  ten  Byrons,  one  Coleridge, 

three  Shelley  s, 
Two  Raphaels,  six  Titians  (I  think),  one 

Apelles, 

Leonardos  and  Rubenses  plenty  as  lichens, 
One    (but   that   one   is   plenty)  American 

Dickens, 
A  whole  flock  of  Lambs,  any  number   of 

Tennysons,  — 
In  short,  if  a  man  has  the  luck  to  have  any 

sons, 
He  may  feel  pretty  certain  that  one  out  of 

twain 
Will  be  some  very  great  person  over  again. 


146 


A   FABLE   FOR   CRITICS 


There  is  one  inconvenience  in  all  this,  which 
lies 

In  the  fact  that  by  contrast  we  estimate 
size,1 

And,  where  there  are  none  except  Titans, 
great  stature 

Is  only  the  normal  proceeding  of  nature. 

What  puff  the  strained  sails  of  your  praise 
will  you  furl  at,  if 

The  calmest  degree  that  you  know  is  super 
lative  ? 

At  Rome,  all  whom  Charon  took  into  his 
wherry  must, 

As  a  matter  of  course,  be  well  issimust  and 
errimust, 

A  Greek,  too,  could  feel,  while  in  that  fa 
mous  boat  he  tost, 

That  his  friends  would  take  care  he  was 
KTTost  and  twroTost, 

And  formerly  we,  as  through  graveyards 
we  past, 

Thought  the  world  went  from  bad  to  worst 
fearfully  fast; 

Let  us  glance  for  a  moment,  't  is  well  worth 
the  pains, 

And  note  what  an  average  graveyard  con 
tains  ; 

There  lie  levellers  levelled,  duns  done  up 
themselves, 

There  are  booksellers  finally  laid  on  their 
shelves, 

Horizontally  there  lie  upright  politicians, 

Dose-a-dose  with  their  patients  sleep  fault 
less  physicians, 

There  are  slave-drivers  quietly  whipped 
under  ground, 

There  bookbinders,  done  up  in  boards,  are 
fast  bound, 

There  card-players  wait  till  the  last  trump 
be  played, 

There  all  the  choice  spirits  get  finally  laid, 

There  the  babe  that 's  unborn  is  supplied 
with  a  berth, 

There  men  without  legs  get  their  six  feet 
of  earth, 

There  lawyers  repose,  each  wrapped  up  in 
his  case, 

There  seekers  of  office  are  sure  of  a  place, 

There  defendant  and  plaintiff  get  equally 
•cast, 

There  shoemakers  quietly  stick  to  the  last, 

1  That  is  in  most  cases  we  do,  but  not  all, 
Past  a  doubt,  there  are  men  who  are  innately  small, 
Such  as  Blank,  who,  without  being  'minished  a  tittle, 
Might  stand  for  a  type  of  the  Absolute  Little. 


There  brokers  at  length  become  silent  as 
stocks, 

There  stage-drivers  sleep  without  quitting 
their  box, 

And  so  forth  and  so  forth  and  so  forth  and 
so  on, 

With  this  kind  of  stuff  one  might  endlessly 
go  on; 

To  come  to  the  point,  I  may  safely  assert 
you 

Will  find  in  each  yard  every  cardinal  vir 
tue;1 

Each  has  six  truest  patriots:  four  discov 
erers  of  ether, 

Who  never  had  thought  on  't  nor  mentioned 
it  either; 

Ten  poets,  the  greatest  who  ever  wrote 
rhyme : 

Two  hundred  and  forty  first  men  of  their 
time: 

One  person  whose  portrait  just  gave  the 
least  hint 

Its  original  had  a  most  horrible  squint: 

One  critic,  most  (what  do  they  call  it?)  re 
flective, 

Who  never  had  used  the  phrase  ob-  or  sub 
jective  : 

Forty  fathers  of  Freedom,  of  whom  twenty 
bred 

Their  sons  for  the  rice-swamps,  at  so  much 
a  head, 

And  their  daughters  for  —  faugh  !  thirty 
mothers  of  Gracchi: 

Non-resistants  who  gave  many  a  spiritual 
blackeye : 

Eight  true  friends  of  their  kind,  one  of 
whom  was  a  jailer: 

Four  captains  almost  as  astounding  as 
Taylor: 

Two  dozen  of  Italy's  exiles  who  shoot  us  his 

Kaisership  daily,  stern  pen-and-ink  Bru- 
tuses, 

Who,  in  Yankee  back-parlors,  with  cruci 
fied  smile,2 

Mount  serenely  their  country's  funereal 
pile: 

Ninety-nine  Irish  heroes,  ferocious  rebel- 
lers 

'Gainst  the  Saxon  in  cis-marine  garrets  and 
cellars, 

Who  shake  their  dread  fists  o'er  the  sea 
and  all  that,  — 

1  (And  at  this  just  conclusion  will  surely  arrive, 

That  the  goodness  of  earth  is  more  dead  than  alive.) 
*  Not  forgetting  their  tea  and  their  toast,  though,  the 
while. 


A  FABLE   FOR   CRITICS 


147 


As  long  as  a  copper  drops  into  the  hat: 
Nine  hundred  Teutonic  republicans  stark 
From  Vaterland's  battle  just  won  —  in  the 

Park, 
Who   the  happy  profession  of  martyrdom 

take 
Whenever  it   gives   them   a   chance   at   a 

steak: 
Sixty-two    second   Washingtons  :   two    or 

three  Jacksons  : 
And  so  many  everythings-else  that  it  racks 

one's 
Poor   memory   too  much   to  continue  the 

list, 

Especially  now  they  no  longer  exist;  — 
I  would  merely  observe  that  you  've  taken 

to  giving 
The  puffs  that  belong  to  the  dead  to  the 

living, 
And  that  somehow  your  trump-of-contem- 

porary-doom's  tones 

Is  tuned  after   old   dedications  and  tomb 
stones." 

Here  the  critic  came  in  and  a  thistle  pre 
sented  — l 
From  a  frown  to  a  smile  the  god's  features 

relented, 
As  he  stared  at  his  envoy,  who,  swelling 

with  pride, 
To  the  god's  asking  look,  nothing  daunted, 

replied,  — 
"  You  're  surprised,  I  suppose,  I  was  absent 

so  long, 
But  your  godship  respecting  the  lilies  was 

wrong; 
I  hunted   the   garden    from    one    end  to 

t'  other, 

And  got  no  reward  but  vexation  and  bother, 
Till,  tossed  out  with  weeds  in  a  corner  to 

wither, 
This  one  lily  I  found   and  made  haste  to 

bring  hither." 

"  Did  he  think  I  had  given  him  a  book  to 

review  ? 
I  ought  to  have  known  what  the  fellow 

would  do," 
Muttered  Phoebus  aside,  "  for  a  thistle  will 

pass 
Beyond  doubt  for  the  queen  of  all  flowers 

with  an  ass; 

1  Turn  back  now  to  page  —  goodness  only  knows 

what, 
And  take  a  fresh  hold  on  the  thread  of  my  plot. 


He  has  chosen  in  just  the  same  way  as  he  'd 

choose 

His  specimens  out  of  the  books  he  reviews; 
And  now,  as  this  offers  an  excellent  text, 
I  '11  give  'em  some  brief  hints  on  criticism 

next." 
So,  musing  a   moment,   he  turned  to  the 

crowd, 
And,  clearing   his  voice,  spoke  as  follows 

aloud:  — 

"  My  friends,  in  the  happier  days  of  the 

muse, 
We  were  luckily  free  from  such  things  as 

reviews; 
Then  naught  came  between  with  its  fog  to 

make  clearer 

The  heart  of  the  poet  to  that  of  his  hearer; 
Then  the  poet  brought  heaven  to  the  peo 
ple,  and  they 
Felt  that  they,  too,  were  poets  in  hearing 

his  lay; 
Then  the  poet  was  prophet,  the  past  in  his 

soul 
Procreated  the  future,  both  parts  of  one 

whole; 
Then  for  him  there  was  nothing  too  great 

or  too  small, 

For  one  natural  deity  sanctified  all; 
Then  the  bard  owned  no  clipper  and  meter 

of  moods 
Save  the  spirit  of  silence  that  hovers  and 

broods 
O'er  the  seas  and  the  mountains,  the  rivers 

and  woods; 
He  asked  not  earth's  verdict,  forgetting  the 

clods, 
His  soul  soared  and  sang  to  an  audience  of 

gods; 
'T  was  for   them   that   he   measured  the 

thought  and  the  line, 
And  shaped   for   their   vision   the  perfect 

design, 
With  as  glorious  a  foresight,  a  balance  as 

true, 

As  swung  out  the  worlds  in  the  infinite  blue ; 
Then  a  glory  and  greatness  invested  man's 

heart, 
The  universal,  which  now  stands  estranged 

and  apart, 

In  the  free  individual  moulded,  was  Art; 
Then  the   forms    of    the    Artist    seemed 

thrilled  with  desire 
For   something  as   yet  unattained,  fuller, 

higher, 


A   FABLE  FOR  CRITICS 


As  once  with  her  lips,  lifted  hands,  and 
eyes  listening, 

And  her  whole  upward  soul  in  her  counte 
nance  glistening, 

Eurydice  stood  —  like  a  beacon  unfi red, 

Which,  once  touched  with  flame,  will  leap 
heav'nward  inspired  — 

And  waited  with  answering  kindle  to  mark 

The  first  gleam  of  Orpheus  that  pained  the 
red  Dark. 

Then  painting,  song,  sculpture  did  more 
than  relieve 

The  need  that  men  feel  to  create  and  be 
lieve, 

And  as,  in  all  beauty,  who  listens  with  love 

Hears  these  words  oft  repeated  — c  beyond 
and  above,' 

So  these  seemed  to  be  but  the  visible  sign 

Of  the  grasp  of  the  soul  after  things  more 
divine; 

They  were  ladders  the  Artist  erected  to 
climb 

O'er  the  narrow  horizon  of  space  and  of 
time, 

And  we  see  there  the  footsteps  by  which 
men  had  gained 

To  the  one  rapturous  glimpse  of  the  never- 
attained, 

As  shepherds  could  erst  sometimes  trace  in 
the  sod 

The  last  spurning  print  of  a  sky-cleaving 
god. 

"  But  now,  on   the    poet's   dis-privacied 

moods 
With  do  this  and  do   that  the   pert  critic 

intrudes ; 
While  he  thinks  he  's  been  barely  fulfilling 

his  duty 
To  interpret  'twixt  men  and  their  own  sense 

of  beauty, 
And  has  striven,  while  others  sought  honor 

or  pelf, 

To  make  his  kind  happy  as  he  was  him 
self, 

He  finds  he's  been  guilty  of  horrid  offences 
In  all  kinds  of  moods,  numbers,  genders, 

and  tenses; 
He 's  been  ob  and  sw&jective,  what  Kettle 

calls  Pot, 

Precisely,  at  all  events,  what  he  ought  not, 
You  have  done  this,  says  one  judge;  done 

that,  says  another; 
You  should  have  done  this,  grumbles  one ;  that, 

says  t'other; 


Never  mind  what  he  touches,  one  shrieks 

out  Taboo! 

And  while  he  is  wondering  what  he  shall  do, 
Since   each   suggests    opposite    topics   for 

song, 
They  all    shout  together  you  're  right !  and 

you're  wrong! 

"  Nature  fits  all  her  children  with  some 
thing  to  do, 

He  who  would  write  and  can't  write  can 
surely  review, 

Can  set  up  a  small  booth  as  critic  and  sell 
us  his 

Petty  conceit  and  his  pettier  jealousies; 

Thus  a  lawyer's  apprentice,  just  out  of  his 
teens, 

Will  do  for  the  Jeffrey  of  six  magazines; 

Having  read  Johnson's  lives  of  the  poets 
half  through, 

There 's  nothing  on  earth  he 's  not  compe 
tent  to; 

He  reviews  with  as  much  nonchalance  as  he 
whistles,  — 

He  goes  through  a  book  and  just  picks  out 
the  thistles; 

It  matters  not  whether  he  blame  or  com 
mend, 

If  he  's  bad  as  a  foe,  he 's  far  worse  as  a 
friend : 

Let  an  author  but  write  what 's  above  his 
poor  scope, 

He  goes  to  work  gravely  and  twists  up  a 
rope, 

And,  inviting  the  world  to  see  punishment 
done, 

Hangs  himself  up  to  bleach  in  the  wind  and 
the  sun; 

'T  is  delightful  to  see,  when  a  man  comes 
along 

Who  has  anything  in  him  peculiar  and 
strong, 

Every  cockboat  that  swims  clear  its  fierce 
(pop)  gundeck  at  him, 

And  make  as  he  passes  its  ludicrous  Peck 
at  him — " 

Here  Miranda  came  up  and  began,   "  As 

to  that  —  " 
Apollo  at  once  seized  his  gloves,  cane,  and 

hat, 
And,    seeing    the    place    getting    rapidly 

cleared, 
I   too  snatched   my  notes   and   forthwith 

disappeared. 


THE  UNHAPPY   LOT   OF   MR.   KNOTT 


149 


THE   UNHAPPY    LOT   OF    MR.    KNOTT 


PART    I 

SHOWING  HOW  HE  BUILT  HIS  HOUSE  AND 
HIS   WIFE   MOVED   INTO   IT 

MY  worthy  friend,  A.  Gordon  Knott, 
From  business  snug  withdrawn, 

Was  much  contented  with  a  lot 

That  would  contain  a  Tudor  cot 

'Twixt  twelve  feet  square  of  garden-plot, 
And  twelve  feet  more  of  lawn. 

He  had  laid  business  on  the  shelf 

To  give  his  taste  expansion, 
And,  since  no  man,  retired  with  pelf, 

The  building  mania  can  shun, 
Knott,  being  middle-aged  himself, 
Resolved  to  build  (unhappy  elf!) 

A  mediaeval  mansion. 

He  called  an  architect  in  counsel; 

"  I    want,"    said    he,    "a  —  you    know 

what, 

(You  are  a  builder,  I  am  Knott,) 
A  thing  complete  from  chimney-pot 

Down  to  the  very  grounsel; 

Here  's  a  hal  f-acre  of  good  land ; 

Just  have  it  nicely  mapped  and  planned 

And  make  your  workmen  drive  on; 
Meadow  there  is,  and  upland  too, 
And  I  should  like  a  water-view, 

D'  you  think  you  could  contrive  one  ? 
(Perhaps  the   pump   and   trough  would 

do, 

If  painted  a  judicious  blue  ?) 
The  woodland  I've  attended  to;" 
[He  meant  three  pines  stuck  up  askew, 

Two  dead  ones  and  a  live  one.] 

"  A  pocket-full  of  rocks  't  would  take 

To  build  a  house  of  freestone, 
But  then  it  is  not  hard  to  make 

What  nowadays  is  the  stone; 
The  cunning  painter  in  a  trice 
Your  house's  outside  petrifies, 
And  people  think  it  very  gneiss 

Without  inquiring  deeper; 

My  money  never  shall  be  thrown 
Away  on  such  a  deal  of  stone, 

When  stone  of  deal  is  cheaper." 


And  so  the  greenest  of  antiques 

Was  reared  for  Knott  to  dwell  in: 
The  architect  worked  hard  for  weeks 
In  venting  all  his  private  peaks 
Upon  the  roof,  whose  crop  of  leaks 

Had  satisfied  Fluellen; 
Whatever  anybody  had 
Out  of  the  common,  good  or  bad, 

Knott  had  it  all  worked  well  in; 
A  donjon-keep,  where  clothes  might  dry, 
A  porter's  lodge  that  was  a  sty, 
A  campanile  slim  and  high, 

Too  small  to  hang  a  bell  in; 
All  up  and  down  and  here  and  there, 
With     Lord-knows- whats    of    round    and 

square 

Stuck  on  at  random  everywhere,  — 
It  was  a  house  to  make  one  stare, 

All  corners  and  all  gables; 
Like  dogs  let  loose  upon  a  bear, 
Ten  emulous  styles  staboyed  with  care, 
The  whole  among  them  seemed  to  tear, 
And  all  the  oddities  to  spare 

Were  set  upon  the  stables. 

Knott  was  delighted  with  a  pile 

Approved  by  fashion's  leaders: 
(Only  he  made  the  builder  smile, 
By  asking  every  little  while, 
Why  that  was  called  the  Twodoor  style, 

Which  certainly  had  three  doors  ?) 
Yet  better  for  this  luckless  man 
If  he  had  put  a  downright  ban 

Upon  the  thing  in  limine; 
For,  though  to  quit  affairs  his  plan, 
Ere  many  days,  poor  Knott  began 
Perforce  accepting  draughts,  that  ran 

All  ways  —  except  np  chimney; 
The  house,  though  painted  stone  to  mock, 
With  nice  white  lines  round  every  block, 

Some  trepidation  stood  in, 
When  tempests  (with  petrific  shock, 
So  to  speak,)  made  it  really  rock, 

Though  not  a  whit  less  wooden; 
And  painted  stone,  howe'er  well  done, 
Will  not  take  in  the  prodigal  sun 
Whose  beams  are  never  quite  at  one 

With  our  terrestrial  lumber; 
So  the  wood  shrank  around  the  knots, 


THE   UNHAPPY  LOT   OF    MR.    KNOTT 


And  gaped  in  disconcerting  spots, 
And  there  were  lots  of  dots  and  rots 

And  crannies  without  number, 
Wherethrough,  as  you  may  well  presume, 
The  wind,  like  water  through  a  flume, 

Came  rushing  in  ecstatic, 
Leaving,  in  all  three  floors,  no  room 

That  was  not  a  rheumatic; 
And,  what  with  points   and   squares  and 
rounds 

Grown  shaky  on  their  poises, 
The  house  at  nights  was  full  of  pounds, 
Thumps,  bumps,  creaks,  scratchings,  raps  — 

till— "Zounds!" 

Cried  Knott,  "  this  goes  beyond  all  bounds; 
I  do  not  deal  in  tongues  and  sounds, 
Nor  have  I  let  my  house  and  grounds 

To  a  family  of  Noyeses! " 

But,  though  Knott's    house  was    full  of 
airs, 

He  had  but  one,  —  a  daughter; 
And,  as  he  owned  much  stocks  and  shares, 
Many  who  wished  to  render  theirs 
Such  vain,  unsatisfying  cares, 
And  needed  wives  to  sew  their  tears, 

In  matrimony  sought  her; 
They  vowed  her  gold  they  wanted  not, 

Their  faith  would  never  falter, 
They  longed  to  tie  this  single  Knott 

In  the  Hymeneal  halter; 
So  daily  at  the  door  they  rang, 

Cards  for  the  belle  delivering, 
Or  in  the  choir  at  her  they  sang, 
Achieving  such  a  rapturous  twang 

As  set  her  nerves  ashivering. 

Now  Knott  had  quite  made  up  his  mind 

That  Colonel  Jones  should  have  her; 
No  beauty  he,  but  oft  we  find 
Sweet  kernels  'neath  a  roughish  rind, 
So  hoped  his  Jenny  'd  be  resigned 

And  make  no  more  palaver ; 
Glanced  at  the  fact  that  love  was  blind, 
That  girls  were  ratherish  inclined 

To  pet  their  little  crosses, 
Then  nosologically  defined 
The  rate  at  which  the  system  pined 
In  those  unfortunates  who  dined 
Upon  that  metaphoric  kind 

Of  dish  —  their  own  proboscis. 

But  she,  with  many  tears  and  moans, 

Besought  him  not  to  mock  her, 
Said  't  was  too  much  for  flesh  and  bones 


To  marry  mortgages  and  loans, 

That  fathers'  hearts  were  stocks  and  stones, 

And  that  she  'd  go,  when  Mrs.  Jones, 

To  Davy  Jones's  locker; 
Then  gave  her  head  a  little  toss 
That  said  as  plain  as  ever  was, 
If  men  are  always  at  a  loss 

Mere  womankind  to  bridle  — 
To  try  the  thing  on  woman  cross 

Were  fifty  times  as  idle; 
For  she  a  strict  resolve  had  made 

And  registered  in  private, 
That  either  she  would  die  a  maid, 
Or  else  be  Mrs.  Doctor  Slade, 

If  woman  could  contrive  it; 
And,  though  the  wedding-day  was  set, 

Jenny  was  more  so,  rather, 
Declaring,  in  a  pretty  pet, 
That,  howsoe'er  they  spread  their  net, 
She  would  out-Jennyral  them  yet, 

The  colonel  and  her  father. 

Just  at  this  time  the  Public's  eyes 

Were  keenly  on  the  watch,  a  stir 
Beginning  slowly  to  arise 
About  those  questions  and  replies, 
Those  raps  that  unwrapped  mysteries 

So  rapidly  at  Rochester, 
And  Knott,  already  nervous  grown 
By  lying  much  awake  alone, 
And  listening,  sometimes  to  a  moan, 

And  sometimes  to  a  clatter, 
Whene'er  the  wind  at  night  would  rouse 
The  gingerbread-work  on  his  house, 
Or  when  some  hasty-tempered  mouse, 
Behind  the  plastering,  made  a  towse 

About  a  family  matter, 
Began  to  wonder  if  his  wife, 
A  paralytic  half  her  life, 

Which  made  it  more  surprising, 
Might  not  to  rule  him  from  her  urn, 
Have  taken  a  peripatetic  turn 

For  want  of  exorcising. 

This  thought,  once  nestled  in  his  head. 
Erelong  contagious  grew,  and  spread 
Infecting  all  his  mind  with  dread, 
Until  at  last  he  lay  in  bed 
And  heard  his  wife,  with  well-known  tread, 
Entering  the  kitchen  through  the  shed, 

(Or  was  't  his  fancy,  mocking  ?) 
Opening  the  pantry,  cutting  bread, 
And   then    (she  'd   been   some    ten   years 
dead) 

Closets  and  drawers  unlocking; 


THE   UNHAPPY   LOT   OF   MR.    KNOTT 


Or,  in  his  room  (his  breath  grew  thick) 
He  heard  the  long-familiar  click 
Of  slender  needles  flying  quick, 

As  if  she  knit  a  stocking; 
For  whom  ?  —  he  prayed  that  years  might 
flit 

With  pains  rheumatic  shooting, 
Before  those  ghostly  things  she  knit 
Upon  his  unfleshed  sole  might  fit, 
He  did  not  fancy  it  a  bit, 

To  stand  upon  that  footing; 
At  other  times,  his  frightened  hairs 

Above  the  bedclothes  trusting, 
He  heard  her,  full  of  household  cares, 
(No  dream  entrapped  in  supper's  snares, 
The  foal  of  horrible  nightmares, 
But  broad  awake,  as  he  declares,) 
Go  bustling  up  and  down  the  stairs, 
Or  setting  back  last  evening's  chairs, 

Or  with  the  poker  thrusting 
The  raked-up  sea-coal's  hardened  crust  — 
And  —  what  !  impossible  !  it  must  ! 
He  knew  she  had  returned  to  dust, 
And  yet  could  scarce  his  senses  trust, 
Hearing  her  as  she  poked  and  fussed 

About  the  parlor,  dusting  ! 

Night  after  night  he  strove  to  sleep 

And  take  his  ease  in  spite  of  it; 
But  still  his  flesh  would  chill  and  creep, 
And,   though  two    night-lamps   he   might 
keep, 

He  could  not  so  make  light  of  it. 
At  last,  quite  desperate,  he  goes 
And  tells  his  neighbors  all  his  woes, 

Which  did  but  their  amount  enhance; 
They  made  such  mockery  of  his  fears 
That  soon  his  days  were  of  all  jeers, 

His  nights  of  the  rueful  countenance; 
"I   thought    most    folks,"    one    neighbor 

said, 
"  Gave    up    the    ghost  when   they    were 

dead  ?  " 
Another  gravely  shook  his  head, 

Adding,  "  From  all  we  hear,  it 's 
Quite  plain  poor  Knott  is  going  mad  — 
For  how  can  he  at  once  be  sad 

And  think  he  's  full  of  spirits  ?  " 
A  third  declared  he  knew  a  knife 

Would  cut  this  Knott  much  quicker, 
"  The  surest  way  to  end  all  strife, 
And  lay  the  spirit  of  a  wife, 

Is  just  to  take  and  lick  her  ! " 
A  temperance  man  caught  up  the  word, 
"  Ah  yes,"  he  groaned,  "  I  've  always  heard 


Our  poor  friend  somewhat  slanted 
Tow'rd  taking  liquor  overmuch; 
I  fear  these  spirits  may  be  Dutch, 
(A  sort  of  gins,  or  something  such,) 

With  which  his  house  is  haunted; 
I  see  the  thing  as  clear  as  light,  — 
If  Knott  would  give  up  getting  tight, 

Naught  farther  would  be  wanted:  " 
So  all  his  neighbors  stood  aloof 
And,  that  the  spirits  'neath  his  roof 
Were  not  entirely  up  to  proof, 

Unanimously  granted. 

Knott  knew  that  cocks  and  sprites  were 

foes, 

And  so  bought  up,  Heaven  only  knows 
How  many,  for  he  wanted  crows 
To  give  ghosts  caws,  as  I  suppose, 

To  think  that  day  was  breaking; 
Moreover  what  he  called  his  park, 
He  turned  into  a  kind  of  ark 
For  dogs,  because  a  little  bark 
Is  a  good  tonic  in  the  dark, 

If  one  is  given  to  waking; 
But  things  went  on  from  bad  to  worse, 
His  curs  were  nothing  but  a  curse, 

And,  what  was  still  more  shocking, 
Foul  ghosts  of  living  fowl  made  scoff 
And  would  not  think  of  going  off 

In  spite  of  all  his  cocking. 

Shanghais,  Bucks-counties,  Dominiques, 
Malays  (that  did  n't  lay  for  weeks,) 

Polanders,  Bantams,  Dorkings, 
(Waiving  the  cost,  no  trifling  ill, 
Since  each  brought  in  his  little  bill,) 
By  day  or  night  were  never  still, 
But  every  thought  of  rest  would  kill 

With  cacklings  and  with  quorkings; 
Henry  the  Eighth  of  wives  got  free 

By  a  way  he  had  of  axing; 
But  poor  Knott's  Tudor  henery 
Was  not  so  fortunate,  and  he 

Still  found  his  trouble  waxing; 
As  for  the  dogs,  the  rows  they  made, 
And  how  they  howled,  snarled,  barked  and 
bayed, 

Beyond  all  human  knowledge  is; 
All  night,  as  wide  awake  as  gnats, 
The  terriers  rumpused  after  rats, 
Or,  just  for  practice,  taught  their  brats 
To  worry  cast-off  shoes  and  hats, 
The  bull-dogs  settled  private  spats, 
All  chased  imaginary  cats, 
Or  raved  behind  the  fence's  slats 


THE   UNHAPPY   LOT   OF   MR.   KNOTT 


At  real  ones,  or,  from  their  mats, 
With  friends,  miles  off,  held  pleasant  chats, 
Or,  like  some  folks  in  white  cravats, 
Contemptuous  of  sharps  and  flats, 

Sat  up  and  sang  dogsologies. 
Meanwhile  the  cats  set  up  a  squall, 
And,  safe  upon  the  garden-wall, 

All  night  kept  cat-a- walling, 
As  if  the  feline  race  were  all, 
In  one  wild  cataleptic  sprawl, 

Into  love's  tortures  falling. 


PART   II 

SHOWING    WHAT    IS    MEANT   BY   A  FLOW 
OF   SPIRITS 

At  first  the  ghosts  were  somewhat  shy, 
Coming  when  none  but  Knott  was  nigh, 
And  people  said  't  was  all  their  eye, 
(Or  rather  his)  a  flam,  the  sly 

Digestion's  machination: 
Some  recommended  a  wet  sheet, 
Some  a  nice  broth  of  pounded  peat, 
Some  a  cold  flat-iron  to  the  feet, 
Some  a  decoction  of  lamb's-bleat, 
Some  a  southwesterly  grain  of  wheat; 
Meat  was  by  some  pronounced  unmeet, 
Others  thought  fish  most  indiscreet, 
And  that 't  was  worse  than  all  to  eat 
Of  vegetables,  sour  or  sweet, 
(Except,  perhaps,  the  skin  of  beet,) 

In  such  a  concatenation: 
One  quack  his  button  gently  plucks 
And  murmurs,  "  Biliary  ducks  !  " 

Says  Knott,  "  I  never  ate  one ;  " 
But  all,  though  brimming  full  of  wrath, 
Homceo,  Allo,  Hydropath, 
Concurred  in  this  —  that  t'  other's  path 

To  death's  door  was  the  straight  one. 
Still,  spite  of  medical  advice, 
The  ghosts  came  thicker,  and  a  spice 

Of  mischief  grew  apparent; 
Nor  did  they  only  come  at  night, 
But  seemed  to  fancy  broad  daylight, 
Till  Knott,  in  horror  and  affright, 

His  unoffending  hair  rent; 
Whene'er  with  handkerchief  on  lap, 
He  made  his  elbow-chair  a  trap, 
To  catch  an  after-dinner  nap, 
The  spirits,  always  on  the  tap, 
Would  make  a  sudden  rap,  rap,  rap, 
The  half-spun  cord  of  sleep  to  snap, 


(And  what  is  life  without  its  nap 

But  threadbareness  and  mere  mishap  ?) 

As 't  were  with  a  percussion  cap 

The  trouble's  climax  capping; 
It  seemed  a  party  dried  and  grim 
Of  mummies  had  come  to  visit  him, 
Each  getting  off  from  every  limb 

Its  multitudinous  wrapping; 
Scratchings  sometimes  the  walls  ran  round, 
The  merest  penny-weights  of  sound; 
Sometimes  't  was  only  by  the  pound 

They  carried  on  their  dealing, 
A  thumping  'neath  the  parlor  floor, 
Thump-bump-thump-bumping  o'er  and  o'er, 
As  if  the  vegetables  in  store 
(Quiet  and  orderly  before) 

Were  all  together  peeling; 
You   would   have   thought  the   thing  was 

done 
By  the  spirit  of  some  son  of  a  gun, 

And  that  a  forty-two-pounder, 
Or  that  the  ghost  which  made  such  sounds 
Could  be  none  other  than  John  Pounds, 

Of  Ragged  Schools  the  founder. 
Through  three  gradations  of  affright, 
The  awful  noises  reached  their  height ; 

At  first  they  knocked  nocturnally, 
Then,  for  some  reason,  changing  quite, 
(As  mourners,  after  six  months'  flight, 
Turn  suddenly  from  dark  to  light,) 

Began  to  knock  diurnally, 
And  last,  combining  all  their  stocks, 

(Scotland  was  ne'er  so  full  of  Knox,) 
Into  one  Chaos  (father  of  Nox,) 
Node  pluit  —  they  showered  knocks, 

And  knocked,  knocked,  knocked,  eter 
nally; 

Ever  upon  the  go,  like  buoys, 
(Wooden  sea-urchins,)  all  Knott's  joys, 
They  turned  to  troubles  and  a  noise 

That  preyed  on  him  internally. 

Soon  they  grew  wider  in  their  scope; 
Whenever  Knott  a  door  would  ope, 
It  would  ope  not,  or  else  elope 
And  fly  back  (curbless  as  a  trope 
Once  started  down  a  stanza's  slope 
By  a  bard  that  gave  it  too  much  rope  — ) 

Like  a  clap  of  thunder  slamming; 
And,  when  kind  Jenny  brought  his  hat, 
(She  always,  when  he  walked,  did  that,) 
Just  as  upon  his  head  it  sat, 
Submitting  to  his  settling  pat, 
Some  unseen  hand  would  jam  it  flat, 
Or  give  it  such  a  furious  bat 


THE   UNHAPPY   LOT   OF   MR.    KNOTT 


'53 


That  eyes  and  nose  went  cramming 
Up  out  of  sight,  and  consequently, 
As  when  in  life  it  paddled  free, 

His  beaver  caused  much  damning; 
If  these  things  seem  o'erstrained  to  be, 
Read  the  account  of  Doctor  Dee, 
'T  is  in  our  college  library; 
Read  Wesley's  circumstantial  plea, 
And  Mrs.  Crowe,  more  like  a  bee, 
Sucking  the  nightshade's  honeyed  fee, 
And  Stilling's  Pneumatology; 
Consult  Scot,  Glanvil,  grave  Wie- 
rus,  and  both  Mathers;  further  see, 
Webster,  Casaubon,  James  First's  trea 
tise,  a  right  royal  Q.  E.  D. 
Writ  with  the  moon  in  perigee, 
Bodin  de  la  Demonomanie  — 
(Accent  that  last  line  gingerly) 
All  full  of  learning  as  the  sea 
Of  fishes,  and  all  disagree, 
Save  in  Sathanas  apage  ! 
Or,  what  will  surely  put  a  flea 
In  unbelieving  ears  —  with  glee, 
Out  of  a  paper  (sent  to  me 
By  some  friend  who  forgot  to  P... 
A...  Y...  —  I  use  cryptography 
Lest  I  his  vengeful  pen  should  dree  — 
HisP...O...S...T...A...G...E...) 

Things  to  the  same  effect  I  cut, 
About  the  tantrums  of  a  ghost, 
Not  more  than  three  weeks  since,  at  most, 

Near  Stratford,  in  Connecticut. 
Knott's  Upas  daily  spread  its  roots, 
Sent  up  on  all  sides  livelier  shoots, 
And  bore  more  pestilential  fruits; 
The  ghosts  behaved  like  downright  brutes, 
They  snipped  holes  in  his  Sunday  suits, 
Practised  all  night  on  octave  flutes, 
Put  peas  (not  peace)  into  his  boots, 

Whereof  grew  corns  in  season, 
They  scotched  his  sheets,  and,  what  was 

worse, 

Stuck  his  silk  nightcap  full  of  burrs, 
Till  he,  in  language  plain  and  terse, 
(But  much  unlike  a  Bible  verse,) 

Swore  he  should  lose  his  reason. 

The  tables  took  to  spinning,  too, 
Perpetual  yarns,  and  arm-chairs  grew 

To  prophets  and  apostles; 
One  footstool  vowed  that  only  he 
Of  law  and  gospel  held  the  key, 
That  teachers  of  whate'er  degree 
To  whom  opinion  bows  the  knee 


Were  n't  fit  to  teach  Truth's  a  6  c, 
And  were  (the  whole  lot)  to  a  T 

Mere  fogies  all  and  fossils; 
A  teapoy,  late  the  property 

Of  Kuox's  Aunt  Keziah, 
(Whom  Jenny  most  irreverently 
Had  nicknamed  her  aunt-tipathy) 
With  tips  emphatic  claimed  to  be 

The  prophet  Jeremiah ; 
The  tins  upon  the  kitchen-wall, 
Turned  tintiunabulators  all, 
And  things  that  used  to  come  at  call 

For  simple  household  services 
Began  to  hop  and  whirl  and  prance, 
Fit  to  put  out  of  countenance 
The  Commis  and  Grisettes  of  France 

Or  Turkey's  dancing  Dervises. 

Of  course  such  doings,  far  and  wide, 
With  rumors  filled  the  country-side, 
And  (as  it  is  our  nation's  pride 
To  think  a  Truth  not  verified 
Till  with  majorities  allied) 
Parties  sprung  up,  affirmed,  denied, 
And  candidates  with  questions  plied, 
Who,  like  the  circus-riders,  tried 
At  once  both  hobbies  to  bestride, 
And  each  with  his  opponent  vied 

In  being  inexplicit. 
Earnest  inquirers  multiplied; 
Folks,  whose  tenth  cousins  lately  died, 
Wrote  letters  long,  and  Knott  replied; 
All  who  could  either  walk  or  ride 
Gathered  to  wonder  or  deride, 

And  paid  the  house  a  visit; 
Horses  were  to  his  pine-trees  tied, 
Mourners  in  every  corner  sighed, 
Widows  brought  children  there  that  cried, 
Swarms  of  lean  Seekers,  eager-eyed, 
(People  Knott  never  could  abide,) 
Into  each  hole  and  cranny  pried 
With  strings  of  questions  cut  and  dried 
From  the  Devout  Inquirer's  Guide, 
For  the  wise  spirits  to  decide  — 

As,  for  example,  is  it 

True  that  the  damned  are  fried  or  boiled  ? 
Was  the  Earth's  axis  greased  or  oiled  ? 
Who  cleaned  the  moon  when  it  was  soiled  ? 
How  baldness  might  be  cured  or  foiled  ? 

How  heal  diseased  potatoes  ? 
Did  spirits  have  the  sense  of  smell  ? 
Where  would  departed  spinsters  dwell  ? 
If  the  late  Zenas  Smith  were  well  ? 
If  Earth  were  solid  or  a  shell  ? 


THE   UNHAPPY   LOT   OF   MR.    KNOTT 


Were  spirits  fond  of  Doctor  Fell  ? 
Did  the  bull  toll  Cock-Robin's  knell  ? 
What  remedy  would  bugs  expel  ? 
If  Paine's  invention  were  a  sell  ? 
Did  spirits  by  Webster's  system  spell  ? 
Was  it  a  sin  to  be  a  belle  ? 
Did  dancing  sentence  folks  to  hell  ? 
If  so,  then  where  most  torture  felt  ? 

On  little  toes  or  great  toes  ? 
If  life's  true  seat  were  in  the  brain  ? 
Did  Ensign  mean  to  marry  Jane  ? 
By  whom,  in  fact,  was  Morgan  slain? 
Could  matter  ever  suffer  pain  ? 
What  would  take  out  a  cherry-stain  ? 
Who  picked  the  pocket  of  Seth  Crane, 
Of  Waldo  precinct,  State  of  Maine  ? 
Was  Sir  John  Franklin  sought  in  vain  ? 
Did  primitive  Christians  ever  train  ? 
What  was  the  family-name  of  Cain  ? 
Them  spoons,  were  they  by  Betty  ta'en  ? 
Would  earth-worm  poultice  cure  a  sprain  ? 
Was  Socrates  so  dreadful  plain  ? 
What  teamster  guided  Charles's  wain  ? 
Was  Uncle  Ethan  mad  or  sane, 
And  could  his  will  in  force  remain  ? 
If  not,  what  counsel  to  retain  ? 
Did  Le  Sage  steal  Gil  Bias  from  Spain  ? 
Was  Junius  writ  by  Thomas  Paine  ? 
Were  ducks  discomforted  by  rain  ? 
How  did  Britannia  rule  the  main  ? 
Was  Jonas  coming  back  again  ? 
Was  vital  truth  upon  the  wane  ? 
Did  ghosts,  to  scare  folks,  drag  a  chain  ? 
Who  was  our  Huldah's  chosen  swain  ? 
Did  none  have  teeth  pulled  without  payin', 

Ere  ether  was  invented  ? 
Whether  mankind  would  not  agree, 
If  the  universe  were  tuned  in  C  ? 
What  was  it  ailed  Lucindy's  knee  ? 
Whether  folks  eat  folks  in  Feejee  ? 
Whether  his  name  would  end  with  T  ? 
If  Saturn's  rings  were  two  or  three, 
And  what  bump  in  Phrenology 

They  truly  represented  ? 
These  problems  dark,  wherein  they  groped, 
Wherewith  man's  reason  vainly  coped, 
Now  that  the  spirit-world  was  oped, 
In  all  humility  they  hoped 

Would  be  resolved  instanter; 
Each  of  the  miscellaneous  rout 
Brought  his,  or  her,  own  little  doubt, 
And  wished  to  pump  the  spirits  out, 
Through  his  or  her  own  private  spout, 

Into  his  or  her  decanter. 


PART   III 

WHEREIN  IT  IS  SHOWN  THAT  THE  MOST 
ARDENT  SPIRITS  ARE  MORE  ORNA 
MENTAL  THAN  USEFUL 

Many  a  speculating  wight 
Came  by  express-trains,  day  and  night, 
To  see  if  Kuott  would  "  sell  his  right," 
Meaning  to  make  the  ghosts  a  sight  — 

What  they  call  a  "  meenaygerie ; " 
One  threatened,  if  he  would  not  "  trade," 
His  run  of  custom  to  invade, 
(He  could  not  these  sharp  folks  persuade 
That  he  was  not,  in  some  way,  paid,) 

And  stamp  him  as  a  plagiary, 
By  coming  down,  at  one  fell  swoop, 
With  THE  ORIGINAL  KNOCKING  TROUPE, 

Come  recently  from  Hades, 
Who  (for  a  quarter-dollar  heard) 
Would  ne'er  rap  out  a  hasty  word 
Whence  any  blame  might  be  incurred 

From  the  most  fastidious  ladies; 
The  late  lamented  Jesse  Soule, 
To  stir  the  ghosts  up  with  a  pole 
And  be  director  of  the  whole, 

Who  was  engaged  the  rather 
For  the  rare  merits  he  'd  combine, 
Having  been  in  the  spirit  line, 
Which  trade  he  only  did  resign, 
With  general  applause,  to  shine, 
Awful  in  mail  of  cotton  fine, 

As  ghost  of  Hamlet's  father  ! 
Another  a  fair  plan  reveals 
Never  yet  hit  on,  which,  he  feels, 
To  Knott's  religious  sense  appeals  — 
"  We  '11  have  your  house  set  up  on  wheels, 

A  speculation  pious; 
For  music,  we  can  shortly  find 
A  barrel-organ  that  will  grind 
Psalm-tunes  —  an  instrument  designed 
For  the  New  England  tour  —  refined 
From  secular  drosses,  and  inclined 
To  an  unworldly  turn,  (combined 

With  no  sectarian  bias;) 
Then,  travelling  by  stages  slow, 
Under  the  style  of  Knott  &  Co., 
I  would  accompany  the  show 
As  moral  lecturer,  the  foe 
Of  Rationalism;  while  you  could  throw 
The  rappings  in,  and  make  them  go 
Strict  Puritan  principles,  you  know, 
(How  do  you  make  'em  ?  with  your  toe  ?) 


THE   UNHAPPY   LOT   OF   MR.    KNOTT 


And    the     receipts    which    thence    might 
flow, 

We  could  divide  between  us; 
Still  more  attractions  to  combine, 
Beside  these  services  of  mine, 
I  will  throw  in  a  very  fine 
{It  would  do  nicely  for  a  sign) 

Original  Titian's  Venus." 
Another  offered  handsome  fees 
If  Knott  would  get  Demosthenes 
(Nay,  his  mere  knuckles,  for  more  ease) 
To  rap  a  few  short  sentences; 
Or  if,  for  want  of  proper  keys, 

His  Greek  might  make  confusion, 
Then  just  to  get  a  rap  from  Burke, 
To  recommend  a  little  work 

On  Public  Elocution. 
Meanwhile,  the  spirits  made  replies 
To  all  the  reverent  whats  and  ivhys, 
Resolving  doubts  of  every  size, 
And  giving  seekers  grave  and  wise, 
Who  came  to  know  their  destinies, 

A  rap-turous  reception; 
When  unbelievers  void  of  grace 
Came  to  investigate  the  place, 
(Creatures  of  Sadducistic  race, 
With  grovelling  intellects  and  base,) 
They  could  not  find  the  slightest  trace 

To  indicate  deception; 
Indeed,  it  is  declared  by  some 
That  spirits  (of  this  sort)  are  glum, 
Almost,  or  wholly,  deaf  and  dumb, 
And  (out  of  self-respect)  quite  mum 
To  skeptic  natures  cold  and  numb, 
Who  of  this  kind  of  Kingdom  Come 

Have  not  a  just  conception: 
True,  there  were  people  who  demurred 
That,  though  the  raps  no  doubt  were  heard 

Both  under  them  and  o'er  them, 
Yet,  somehow,  when  a  search  they  made, 
They  found  Miss  Jenny  sore  afraid, 
Or  Jenny's  lover,  Doctor  Slade, 
Equally  awestruck  and  dismayed, 
Or  Deborah,  the  chambermaid, 
Whose  terrors  not  to  be  gainsaid 
In  laughs  hysteric  were  displayed, 

Was  always  there  before  them; 
This  had  its  due  effect  with  some 
Who  straight  departed,  muttering,  Hum! 

Transparent  hoax!    and  Gammon! 
But  these  were  few:  believing  souls, 
Came,  day  by  day,  in  larger  shoals, 
As  the  ancients  to  the  windy  holes 
'Neath  Delphi's  tripod  brought  their  doles, 

Or  to  the  shrine  of  Ammon. 


The  spirits  seemed  exceeding  tame, 
Call  whom  you  fancied,  and  he  came; 
The  shades  august  of  eldest  fame 

You  summoned  with  an  awful  ease; 
As  grosser  spirits  gurgled  out 
From  chair  and  table  with  a  spout, 
In  Auerbach's  cellar  once,  to  flout 
The  senses  of  the  rabble  rout, 
Where'er  the  gimlet  twirled  about 

Of  cunning  Mephistopheles, 
So  did  these  spirits  seem  in  store, 
Behind  the  wainscot  or  the  door, 
Ready  to  thrill  the  being's  core 
Of  every  enterprising  bore 

With  their  astounding  glamour; 
Whatever  ghost  one  wished  to  hear, 
By  strange  coincidence,  was  near 
To  make  the  past  or  future  clear 

(Sometimes  in  shocking  grammar) 
By  raps  and  taps,  now  there,  now  here  — 
It  seemed  as  if  the  spirit  queer 
Of  some  departed  auctioneer 
Were  doomed  to  practise  by  the  year 

With  the  spirit  of  his  hammer: 
Whate'er  you  asked  was  answered,  yet 
One  could  not  very  deeply  get 
Into  the  obliging  spirits'  debt, 
Because  they  used  the  alphabet 

In  all  communications, 
And  new  revealings  (though  sublime) 
Rapped  out,  one  letter  at  a  time, 

With  boggles,  hesitations, 
Stoppings,  beginnings  o'er  again, 
And  getting  matters  into  train, 
Could  hardly  overload  the  brain 

With  too  excessive  rations, 
Since  just  to  ask  if'two  and  two 
Really  make  four  ?  or,  How  d"  ye  do  f 
And  get  the  fit  replies  thereto 
In  the  tramundane  rat-tat-too, 

Might  ask  a  whole  day's  patience. 

'T  was  strange  ('mongst  other  things)   to 

find 
In  what  odd  sets  the  ghosts  combined, 

Happy  forthwith  to  thump  any 
Piece  of  intelligence  inspired, 
The  truth  whereof  had  been  inquired 

By  some  one  of  the  company; 
For  instance,  Fielding,  Mirabeau, 
Orator  Henley,  Cicero, 
Paley,  John  Ziska,  Marivaux, 
Melancthon,  Robertson,  Junot, 
Scaliger,  Chesterfield,  Rousseau, 
Hakluyt,  Boccaccio,  South,  De  Foe, 


156 


THE   UNHAPPY   LOT   OF   MR.    KNOTT 


Diaz,  Josephus,  Richard  Roe, 

Odin,  Armiiiius,  Charles  le  gros, 

Tiresias,  the  late  James  Crow, 

Casabiauca,  Grose,  Prideaux, 

Old  Grimes,  Young  Norval,  Swift,  Brissot, 

Maimonides,  the  Chevalier  D'O, 

Socrates,  Fe'uelon,  Job,  Stow, 

The  inventor  of  Elixir  pro, 

Euripides,  Spinoza,  Poe, 

Confucius,  Hiram  Smith,  and  Fo, 

Came  (as  it  seemed,  somewhat  de  trap) 

With  a  disembodied  Esquimaux, 

To  say  that  it  was  so  and  so, 

With  Franklin's  expedition; 
One  testified  to  ice  and  snow, 
One  that  the  mercury  was  low, 
One  that  his  progress  was  quite  slow, 
One  that  he  much  desired  to  go, 
One  that  the  cook  had  frozen  his  toe, 
(Dissented  from  by  Dandolo, 
Wordsworth,  Cynaegirus,  Boileau, 
La  Hontan,  and  Sir  Thomas  Roe,) 
One  saw  twelve  white  bears  in  a  row, 
One  saw  eleven  and  a  crow, 
With  other  things  we  could  not  know 
(Of  great  statistic  value,  though,) 

By  our  mere  mortal  vision. 

Sometimes  the  spirits  made  mistakes, 
And  seemed  to  play  at  ducks  and  drakes 
With  bold  inquiry's  heaviest  stakes 

In  science  or  in  mystery; 
They  knew  so  little  (and  that  wrong) 
Yet  rapped  it  out  so  bold  and  strong, 
One    would   have    said    the    unnumbered 
throng 

Had  been  Professors  of  History; 
What  made  it  odder  was,  that  those 
Who,  you  would  naturally  suppose, 
Could  solve  a  question,  if  they  chose, 
As  easily  as  count  their  toes, 

Were  just  the  ones  that  blundered; 
One  day,  Ulysses  happening  down, 
A  reader  of  Sir  Thomas  Browne 

And  who  (with  him)  had  wondered 
What  song  it  was  the  Sirens  sang, 
Asked  the  shrewd  Ithacan  —  bang!  bang ! 
With  this  response  the  chamber  rang, 

"  I  guess  it  was  Old  Hundred." 
And  Franklin,  being  asked  to  name 
The  reason  why  the  lightning  came, 

Replied,  "  Because  it  thundered." 

On  one  sole  point  the  ghosts  agreed, 
One  fearful  point,  than  which,  indeed, 


Nothing  could  seem  absurder; 
Poor  Colonel  Jones  they  all  abused 
And  finally  downright  accused 

The  poor  old  man  of  murder; 
'T  was  thus;  by  dreadful  raps  was  shown 
Some  spirit's  longing  to  make  known 
A  bloody  fact,  which  he  alone 
Was  privy  to,  (such  ghosts  more  prone 

In  Earth's  affairs  to  meddle  are;) 
Who  are  you  f  with  awe-stricken  looks, 
All  ask:  his  airy  knuckles  he  crooks, 
And  raps,  "  I  was  Eliab  Snooks, 

That  used  to  be  a  pedler; 
Some  on  ye  still  are  on  my  books  ! " 
Whereat,  to  inconspicuous  nooks; 
(More  fearing  this  than  common  spooks,) 

Shrank  each  indebted  meddler; 
Further  the  vengeful  ghost  declared 
That  while  his  earthly  life  was  spared, 
About  the  country  he  had  fared, 

A  duly  licensed  follower 
Of    that     much  -  wandering    trade     that 

wins 
Slow  profit  from  the  sale  of  tins 

And  various  kinds  of  hollow- ware; 
That  Colonel  Jones  enticed  him  in, 
Pretending  that  he  wanted  tin, 
There  slew  him  with  a  rolliug-pin, 
Hid  him  in  a  potato-bin, 

And  (the  same  night)  him  ferried 
Across  Great  Pond  to  t'  other  shore, 
And  there,  on  land  of  Widow  Moore, 
Just  where  you  turn  to  Larkin's  store, 

Under  a  rock  him  buried ; 
Some  friends  (who  happened  to  be  by) 
He  called  upon  to  testify 
That  what  he  said  was  not  a  lie, 

And  that  he  did  not  stir  this 
Foul  matter,  out  of  any  spite 
But  from  a  simple  love  of  right;  — 

Which  statements  the  Nine  Worthies, 
Rabbi  Akiba,  Charlemagne, 
Seth,  Colley  Gibber,  General  Wayne, 
Cambyses,  Tasso,  Tubal-Cain, 
The  owner  of  a  castle  in  Spain, 
Jehanghire,  and  the  Widow  of  Nain, 
(The  friends  aforesaid,)  made  more  plain 

And  by  loud  raps  attested; 
To  the  same  purport  testified 
Plato,  John  Wilkes,  and  Colonel  Pride 
Who  knew  said  Snooks  before  he  died. 

Had  in  his  wares  invested, 
Thought  him  entitled  to  belief 
And  freely  could  concur,  in  brief, 

In  everything  the  rest  did. 


THE   UNHAPPY   LOT   OF   MR.    KNOTT 


T57 


Eiiab  this  occasion  seized, 
(Distinctly  here  the  spirit  sneezed,) 
To  say  that  he  should  ne'er  be  eased 
Till  Jenny  married  whom  she  pleased, 

Free  from  all  checks  and  urgm's, 
(This  spirit  dropt  his  final  g's) 
And  that,  unless  Knott  quickly  sees 
This  done,  the  spirits  to  appease, 
They  would  come  back  his  life  to  tease, 
As  thick  as  mites  in  ancient  cheese, 
And  let  his  house  on  an  endless  lease 
To  the  ghosts  (terrific  rappers  these 
And  veritable  Eumenides) 

Of  the  Eleven  Thousand  Virgins  ! 

Knott  was  perplexed  and  shook  his  head, 
He  did  not  wish  his  child  to  wed 

With  a  suspected  murderer, 
(For,  true  or  false,  the  rumor  spread,) 
But  as  for  this  roiled  life  he  led, 
"  It  would  not  answer,"  so  he  said, 

"  To  have  it  go  no  f  urderer." 
At  last,  scarce  knowing  what  it  meant, 
Reluctantly  he  gave  consent 
That  Jenny,  since  't  was  evident 
That  she  would  follow  her  own  bent, 

Should  make  her  own  election; 
For  that  appeared  the  only  way 
These  frightful  noises  to  allay 
Which  had  already  turned  him  gray 

And  plunged  him  in  dejection. 

Accordingly,  this  artless  maid 

Her  father's  ordinance  obeyed, 

And,  all  in  whitest  crape  arrayed, 

(Miss  Pnlsifer  the  dresses  made 

And  wishes  here  the  fact  displayed 

That  she  still  carries  on  the  trade, 

The  third  door  south  from  Bagg's  Arcade,) 

A  very  faint  "  I  do  "  essayed 

And  gave  her  hand  to  Hiram  Slade, 

From  which  time   forth,  the  ghosts  were 

laid, 

And  ne'er  gave  trouble  after; 
But  the  Selectmen,  be  it  known, 
Dug  underneath  the  aforesaid  stone, 
Where     the     poor     pedler's    corpse    was 

thrown, 

And  found  thereunder  a  jaw-bone, 
Though,  when  the  crowner  sat  thereon, 
He  nothing  hatched,  except  alone 
Successive  broods  of  laughter; 
It  was  a  frail  and  dingy  thing, 
In  which  a  grinder  or  two  did  cling, 


In  color  like  molasses, 
Which  surgeons,  called  from  far  and  wide, 
Upon  the  horror  to  decide, 

Having  put  on  their  glasses, 
Reported  thus:  "  To  judge  by  looks, 
These   bones,   by    some    queer    hooks   or 

crooks, 

May  have  belonged  to  Mr.  Snooks, 
But,  as  men  deepest-read  in  books 

Are  perfectly  aware,  bones, 
If  buried  fifty  years  or  so, 
Lose  their  identity  and  grow 

From  human  bones  to  bare  bones." 

Still,  if  to  Jaalam  you  go  down, 
You  '11  find  two  parties  in  the  town, 
One  headed  by  Benaiah  Brown, 

And  one  by  Perez  Tinkham; 
The  first  believe  the  ghosts  all  through 
And  vow  that  they  shall  never  rue 
The  happy  chance  by  which  they  knew 
That  people  in  Jupiter  are  blue, 
And  very  fond  of  Irish  stew, 
Two  curious  facts  which  Prince  Lee  Boo 
Rapped  clearly  to  a  chosen  few  — 

Whereas  the  others  think  'em 
A  trick  got  up  by  Doctor  Slade 
With  Deborah  the  chambermaid 

And  that  sly  cretur  Jinny. 
That  all  the  revelations  wise, 
At  which  the  Brownites  made  big  eyes, 
Might  have  been  given  by  Jared  Keyes, 

A  natural  fool  and  ninny, 
And,  last  week,  did  n't  Eliab  Snooks 
Come  back  with  never  better  looks, 
As  sharp  as  new-bought  mackerel  hooks, 

And  bright  as  a  new  pin,  eh? 
Good  Parson  Wilbur,  too,  avers 
(Though  to  be  mixed  in  parish  stirs 
Is  worse  than  handling  chestnut-burrs) 
That  no  case  to  his  mind  occurs 
Where  spirits  ever  did  converse, 
Save  in  a  kind  of  guttural  Erse, 

(So  say  the  best  authorities;) 
And  that  a  charge  by  raps  conveyed 
Should  be  most  scrupulously  weighed 

And  searched  into,  before  it  is 
Made  public,  since  it  may  give  pain 
That  cannot  soon  be  cured  again, 
And  one  word  may  infix  a  stain 

Which  ten  cannot  gloss  over, 
Though  speaking  for  his  private  part, 
He  is  rejoiced  with  all  his  heart 

Miss  Knott  missed  not  her  lover. 


'5* 


FRAGMENTS   OF   AN   UNFINISHED   POEM 


FRAGMENTS  OF   AN   UNFINISHED  POEM 

IN  the  note  introducing-  Fitz  Adam's  Story,  infra  p.  411,  will  be  found  a  brief  account  of  the 
unfinished  poem  of  which  this  is  a  fragment. 


I  AM  a  man  of  forty,  sirs,  a  native  of  East 
Haddam, 

And  have  some  reason  to  surmise  that  I 
descend  from  Adam ; 

But  what 's  my  pedigree  to  you  ?  That  I 
will  soon  unravel; 

I  've  sucked  my  Haddam-Eden  dry,  there 
fore  desire  to  travel, 

And,  as  a  natural  consequence,  presume  I 
need  n't  say, 

I  wish  to  write  some  letters  home  and  have 
those  letters  p — 

[I  spare  the  word  suggestive  of  those  grim 
Next  Morns  that  mount 

Clump,  Clump,  the  stairways  of  the  brain 
with  —  "  Sir,  my  small  account," 

And,  after  every  good  we  gain  —  Love, 
Fame,  Wealth,  Wisdom  —  still, 

As  punctual  as  a  cuckoo  clock,  hold  up  their 
little  bill, 

The  garcons  in  our  Cafe*  of  Life,  by  dream 
ing  us  forgot  — 

Sitting,  like  Homer's  heroes,  full  and  mus 
ing  God  knows  what,  — 

Till  they  say,  bowing,  S'U  vous  plait,  voila, 
Messieurs,  la  note!~\ 

I  would  not  hint  at  this  so  soon,  but  in  our 
callous  day, 

The  tollman  Debt,  who  drops  his  bar  across 
the  world's  highway, 

Great  Caesar  in  mid-march  would  stop,  if 
Csesar  could  not  pay; 

Pilgriming  's  dearer  than  it  was :  men 
cannot  travel  now 

Scot-free  from  Dan  to  Beersheba  upon  a 
simple  vow; 

Nay,  as  long  back  as  Bess's  time,  when 
Walsingham  went  over 

Ambassador  to  Cousin  France,  at  Canter 
bury  and  Dover 

He  was  so  fleeced  by  innkeepers  that,  ere 
he  quitted  land, 

He  wrote  to  the  Prime  Minister  to  take  the 
knaves  in  hand. 

If  I  with  staff  and  scallop-shell  should  try 
my  way  to  win, 

Would  Bonifaces  quarrel  as  to  who  should 
take  me  in  ? 


Or  would  my  pilgrim's  progress  end  where 

Bunyan  started  his  on, 
And  my  grand  tour  be  round  and  round  the 

backyard  of  a  prison  ? 
I  give  you  here  a  saying  deep  and  therefore, 

haply  true; 
'T  is  out  of  Merlin's  prophecies,  but  quite 

as  good  as  new: 
$l)e  question  boaty  for  men  anb  meateS  longe 

botyageS  l)t  beginne 
2t>e8  in  a  nott^ell,  rather  Saije  tye8  in  a  ca8e 

of  tinne. 
But,  though  men  may  not  travel  now,  as  in 

the  Middle  Ages, 

With  self-sustaining  retinues  of  little  gilt- 
edged  pages, 
Yet  one  may  manage  pleasantly,  where'er 

he  likes  to  roam, 
By  sending  his  small  pages  (at  so  much  per 

small  page)  home; 
And  if  a  staff  and  scallop-shell  won't  serve 

so  well  as  then, 
Our  outlay  is  about  as  small  —  just  paper, 

ink,  and  pen. 
Be  thankful !    Humbugs  never  die,  more 

than  the  wandering  Jew; 
Bankrupt,  they  publish  their  own  deaths, 

slink  for  a  while  from  view, 
Then  take  an  alias,  change  the  sign,  and  the 

old  trade  renew; 
Indeed,  't  is   wondrous     how    each   Age, 

though  laughing  at  the  Past, 
Insists  on  having  its  tight  shoe  made  on  the 

same  old  last; 
How  it  is  sure  its  system  would  break  up 

at  once  without 
The  bunion  which  it  will  believe  hereditary 

gout; 
How  it  takes  all  its  swans  for  geese,  nay, 

stranger  yet  and  sadder, 
Sees  in  its  treadmill's  fruitless  jog  a  heaven 
ward  Jacob 's-ladder, 
Shouts,  Lo,  the  Shining  Heights  are  reached  ! 

One  moment  more  aspire  I 
Trots  into  cramps  its  poor,  dear  legs,  gets 

never  an  inch  the  higher, 
And  like  the  others,  ends  with  pipe  and 

mug  beside  the  fire. 


FRAGMENTS   OF   AN   UNFINISHED   POEM 


There,  'tween  each  doze,  it  whiffs  and  sips 

and  watches  with  a  sneer 
The  green  recruits  that  trudge  and  sweat 

where  it  had  swinked  whilere, 
And    sighs  to  think  this  soon  spent  zeal 

should  be  in  simple  truth 
The  only  interval  between  old  Fogyhood 

and  Youth: 
«  Well,"  thus  it  muses,  "  well,  what  odds  ? 

'T  is  not  for  us  to  warn; 
'T  will  be  the  same  when  we  are  dead,  and 

was  ere  we  were  born; 
Without  the  Treadmill,  too,  how  grind  our 

store  of  winter's  corn  ? 
Had  we  no  stock,  nor  twelve  per  cent,  re 
ceived  from  Treadmill  shares, 
We  might  .  .  .  but   these   poor  devils  at 

last  will  get  our  easy-chairs. 
High  aims  and  hopes  have  great  rewards, 

they,  too,  serene  and  snug, 
Shall  one  day  have  their  soothing  pipe  and 

their  enlivening  mug; 
From   Adam,   empty-handed   Youth  hath 

always  heard  the  hum 
Of  Good  Times  Coming,  and  will  hear  un 
til  the  last  day  come; 
Young  ears   hear  forward,  old  ones  back, 

and,  while  the  earth  rolls  on, 
Full-handed  Eld  shall  hear  recede  the  steps 

of  Good  Times  Gone; 
Ah  what  a  cackle  we  set  up  whene'er  an 

egg  was  laid  ! 
Cack-cack-cack-cackle !    rang    around,   the 

scratch  for  worms  was  stayed, 
Cut-cut-ca-dah-cut !  from  this  egg  the  com 
ing  cock  shall  stalk  ! 
The  great   New   Era  dawns,   the   age   of 

Deeds  and  not  of  Talk  ! 
And  every  stupid  hen  of  us  hugged  close 

his  egg  of  chalk, 
Thought,  —  sure,  I   feel   life   stir   within, 

each  day  with  greater  strength, 
When  lo,  the  chick  !  from  former  chicks 

he  differed  not  a  jot, 
But   grew   and   crew   and    scratched   and 

went,  like  those  before,  to  pot  !  " 
So  muse   the  dim  Emeriti,  and,  mournful 

though  it  be, 
I  must   confess   a   kindred   thought  hath 

sometimes  come  to  me, 
Who,  though  but  just  of  forty  turned,  have 

heard  the  rumorous  fame 
Of  nine   and   ninety  Coming   Men,   all  — 

coming  till  they  came. 


Pure  Mephistopheles  all  this  ?  the  vulgar 

nature  jeers  ? 
Good   friend,  while  I  was  writing  it,  my 

eyes  were  dim  with  tears; 
Thrice  happy  he  who   cannot  see,  or  who 

his  eyes  can  shut, 
Life's  deepest  sorrow  is  contained  in  that 

small  word  there  —  But ! 

We  're   pretty    nearly    crazy    here    with 

change  and  go  ahead, 
With  flinging  our  caught   bird    away  for 

two  i'  th'  bush  instead, 
With  butting   'gainst  the  wall   which  we 

declare  shall  be  a  portal, 
And  questioning  Deeps  that  never  yet  have 

oped  their  lips  to  mortal; 
We  're  growing  pale  and  hollow-eyed,  and 

out  of  all  condition, 
With  mediums  and  prophetic  chairs,   and 

crickets  with  a  mission, 
(The    most   astounding   oracles   since  Ba 
laam's  donkey  spoke,  — 
'T  would  seem  our   furniture   was  all  of 

Dodonean  oak.) 
Make  but  the  public  laugh,  be  sure  't  will 

take  you  to  be  somebody; 
'T  will  wrench  its  button  from  your  clutch, 

my  densely  earnest  glum  body; 
'T  is  good,  this  noble  earnestness,  good  in 

its  place,  but  why 
Make   great   Achilles'  shield   the   pan   to 

bake  a  penny  pie  ? 
Why,  when  we  have  a  kitchen-range,  insist 

that  we  shall  stop, 
And  bore  clear  down  to  central  fires   to 

broil  our  daily  chop  ? 
Excalibur  and   Durandart  are   swords  of 

price,  but  then 
Why  draw  them  sternly  when  you  wish  to 

trim  your  nails  or  pen  ? 
Small  gulf  between  the  ape  and  man;  you 

bridge  it  with  your  staff; 
But  it  will  be  impassable  until  the  ape  can 

laugh;  — 

No,  no,  be  common  now  and  then,  be  sen 
sible,  be  funny, 
And,  as  Siberians  bait  their  traps  for  bears 

with  pots  of  honey, 
From   which   ere   they  '11   withdraw  their 

snouts,  they'll  suffer  many  a  club- 
lick, 
So  bait  your  moral  figure-of -fours  to  catch 

the  Orson  public- 


i6o 


FRAGMENTS   OF   AN    UNFINISHED    POEM 


Look  how  the  dead  leaves  melt  their  way 
down  through  deep-drifted  snow ; 

They  take  the  sun- warmth  down  with  them 
—  pearls  could  not  conquer  so ; 

There  is  a  moral  here,  you  see;  if  you 
would  preach,  you  must 

Steep  all  your  truths  iu  sunshine  would 
you  have  them  pierce  the  crust; 

Brave  Jeremiah,  you  are  grand  and  ter 
rible,  a  sign 

And  wonder,  but  were  never  quite  a  popu 
lar  divine ; 

Fancy  the  figure  you  would  cut  among  the 
nuts  and  wine  ! 

I,  on  occasion,  too,  could  preach,  but  hold 
it  wiser  far 

To  give  the  public  sermons  it  will  take  with 
its  cigar, 

And  morals  fugitive,  and  vague  as  are 
these  smoke-wreaths  light 

In  which  ...  I  trace  ...  a  ...  let  me 
see  —  bless  me  !  't  is  out  of  sight. 

There  are  some  goodish  things  at  sea;  for 

instance,  one  can  feel 
A  grandeur  in  the  silent  man  forever  at  the 

wheel, 

That  bit  of  two-legged  intellect,  that  par 
ticle  of  drill, 
Who  the  huge  floundering  hulk  inspires  with 

reason,  brain,  and  will, 
And  makes  the  ship,  though  skies  are  black 

and  headwinds  whistle  loud, 
Obey  her  conscience  there  which  feels  the 

loadstar  through  the  cloud; 
And  when  by  lusty  western  gales  the  full- 
sailed  barque  is  hurled, 
Towards  the  great  moon  which,  setting  on 

the  silent  underworld, 
Rounds  luridly  up  to  look  on  ours,   and 

shoots  a  broadening  line, 
Of  palpitant  light  from  crest  to  crest  across 

the  ridgy  brine, 
Then  from  the  bows  look  back  and  feel  a 

thrill  that  never  stales, 
In  that  full-bosomed,  swan-white  pomp  of 

onward-yearning  sails; 
Ah,  when  dear  cousin  Bull  laments  that 

you  can't  make  a  poem, 
Take    him   aboard  a  clipper  -  ship,  young 

Jonathan,  arid  show  him 
A  work  of  art  that  in  its  grace  and  grandeur 

may  compare 
With  any  thing  that  any  race  has  fashioned 

any  where; 


'T  is  not  a  statue,  grumbles  John;  nay.    if 

you  come  to  that, 

We  think  of  Hyde  Park  Corner,  and  con 
cede  you  beat  us  flat 
With  your  equestrian  statue  to  a  Nose  and 

a  Cocked  hat; 
But 't  is  not  a  cathedral;  well,  e'en  that  we 

will  allow, 

Both  statues  and  cathedrals  are  anachro 
nistic  now; 
Your  minsters,  coz,  the  monuments  of  men 

who  conquered  you, 
You  'd  sell  a  bargain,  if  we  'd  take  the  deans 

and  chapters  too; 
No;  mortal  men  build  nowadays,  as  always 

heretofore, 
Good  temples  to  the  gods  which  they  in 

very  truth  adore ; 
The  shepherds  of  this  Broker  Age,  with  all 

their  willing  flocks, 
Although  they  bow  to  stones  no  more,  do 

bend  the  knee  to  stocks, 
And   churches   can't   be   beautiful  though 

crowded,  floor  and  gallery, 
If  people  worship  preacher,  and  if  preacher 

worship  salary; 
'T  is  well  to  look  things  in  the  face,  the  god 

o'  the  modern  universe, 
Hermes,  cares  naught  for  halls  of  art  and 

libraries  of  puny  verse, 
If  they  don't  sell,  he  notes  them  thus  upon 

his  ledger  —  say,  per 
Contra  to  a  loss  of  so  much  stone,  best 

Russia  duck  and  paper; 
And,  after  all,  about  this  Art  men  talk  a 

deal  of  fudge, 
Each  nation  has  its  path  marked  out,  from 

which  it  must  not  budge; 
The  Romans  had  as  little  art  as  Noah  in  his 

ark, 
Yet   somehow  on  this  globe  contrived  to 

make  an  epic  mark ; 
Religion,   painting,   sculpture,  song  —  for 

these  they  ran  up  jolly  ticks 
With  Greece  and  Egypt,  but  they  were  great 

artists  in  their  politics, 
And  if  we  make  no  minsters,  John,   nor 

epics,  yet  the  Fates 
Are  not  entirely  deaf  to  men  who  can  build 

ships  and  states; 
The  arts  are  never  pioneers,  but  men  have 

strength  and  health 
Who,  called  on  suddenly,  can  improvise  a 

commonwealth, 


AN   ORIENTAL   APOLOGUE 


161 


Nay,  can  more  easily  go  ou  and  frame  them 

by  the  dozen, 
Than  you  can  make  a  dinner-speech,  dear 

sympathizing  cousin: 
And,  though  our  restless  Jonathan  have  not 

your  graver  bent,  sure  he 
Does  represent  this   hand-to-mouth,  pert, 

rapid,  nineteenth  century; 
This  is  the  Age  of  Scramble;  men  move 

faster  than  they  did 
When   they  pried  up  the  imperial  Past's 

deep-dusted  coffin-lid, 
Searching  for  scrolls  of  precedent;  the  wire- 
leashed  lightning  now 
Replaces   Delphos —  men  don't  leave  the 

steamer  for  the  scow; 
What  public,  were  they  new  to-day,  would 

ever  stop  to  read 
The  Iliad,  the  Shanameh,  or  the  Nibelun- 

genlied  ? 


Their  public  's  gone,  the  artist  Greek,  the 

lettered  Shah,  the  hairy  Graf  — 
Folio  and  plesiosaur  sleep  well;  we  weary 

o'er  a  paragraph; 
The   mind  moves  planet-like  no  more,  it 

fizzes,  cracks,  and  bustles; 
From  end  to  end  with  journals  dry  the  land 

o'ershadowed  rustles, 
As  with  dead  leaves  a  winter-beech,  and, 

with  their  breath-roused  jars 
Amused,  we  care  not  if  they  hide  the  eternal 

skies  and  stars; 
Down  to  the  general  level  of  the  Board  of 

Brokers  sinking, 
The  Age  takes  in  the  newspapers,  or,  to  say 

sooth  unshrinking, 
The    newspapers    take    in   the    Age,   and 

stocks  do  all  the  thinking. 


AN   ORIENTAL  APOLOGUE 


SOMEWHERE  in  India,  upon  a  time, 
(Read  it  not  Injah,  or  you  spoil  the  verse,) 
There  dwelt  two  saints  whose  privilege 

sublime 
It  was   to  sit  and  watch   the  world  grow 

worse, 

Their  only  care  (in  that  delicious  clime) 
At  proper  intervals  to  pray  and  curse; 
Pracrit  the  dialect  each  prudent  brother 
Used    for  himself,    Damnonian  for  the 
other. 

One  half  the  time  of  each  was  spent  in 

praying 

For  blessings  on  his  own  unworthy  head, 
The  other  half  in  fearfully  portraying 
Where  certain  folks  would  go  when  they 

were  dead; 
This  system  of  exchanges  —  there  's  no 

saying 

To  what  more  solid  barter 't  would  have  led, 
But   that   a  river,  vext  with  boils  and 

swellings 

At  rainy  times,  kept  peace  between  their 
dwellings. 

So  they  two  played  at  wordy  battledore 
And  kept  a  curse  forever  in  the  air, 

Flying  this  way  or  that  from  shore  to 
shore; 


Nor  other  labor  did  this  holy  pair, 

Clothed  and  supported  from  the  lavish 

store 
Which    crowds   lanigerous    brought   with 

daily  care; 
They  toiled   not,  neither  did  they  spin; 

their  bias 

Was   tow'rd  the   harder  task  of  being 
pious. 

Each  from  his  hut  rushed  six  score  times 

a  day, 

Like  a  great  canon   of  the  Church  full- 
rammed 

With  cartridge  theologic,  (so  to  say,) 
Touched  himself  off,   and  then,  recoiling, 

slammed 

His  hovel's  door  behind  him  in  a  way 
That  to   his   foe  said  plainly,  —  you  'II  be 

damned ; 

And  so  like  Potts  and  Wainwright,  shrill 
and  strong 

The  two  D D'd  each  other  all  day 

long. 

One  was  a  dancing  Dervise,  a  Moham 
medan, 
The  other  was  a  Hindoo,  a  gymnosophist; 

One  kept  his  whatd'yecallit  and  his  Ram 
adan, 


162 


AN    ORIENTAL   APOLOGUE 


Laughing  to  scorn  the  sacred  rites  and  laws 

of  his 
Transfluvial  rival,   who,   in  turn,  called 

Ahmed  an 
Old  top,  and,  as  a  clincher,  shook  across  a 

fist 
With   nails  six  inches   long,  yet  lifted 

not 
His  eyes  from  off  his  navel's  mystic  knot. 

"Who  whirls   not    round   six   thousand 

times  an  hour 
Will  go,"  screamed  Ahmed,  "  to  the   evil 

place; 
May  he  eat  dirt,  and  may  the  dog  and 

Giaour 

Defile  the  graves  of  him  and  all  his  race; 
Allah  loves  faithful  souls  and  gives  them 

power 

To  spin  till  they  are  purple  in  the  face; 
Some  folks  get  you  know  what,  but  he 

that  pure  is 

Earns  Paradise  and  ninety  thousand  hou- 
ries." 

"  Upon  the   silver   mountain,  South  by 

East, 

Sits  Brahma  fed  upon  the  sacred  bean; 
He  loves  those  men  whose  nails  are  still 

increased, 
Who  all  their  lives  keep  ugly,  foul,  and 

lean; 

'Tis  of  his  grace  that  not  a  bird  or  beast 
Adorned  with  claws   like  mine  was  ever 

seen; 
The     suns     and     stars     are    Brahma's 

thoughts  divine, 
Even  as  these  trees  I  seem  to  see  are 


"  Thou  seem'st  to  see,  indeed  ! "  roared 

Ahmed  back; 
"Were   I   but    once    across    this    plaguy 

stream, 
With  a  stout  sapling  in  my  hand,  one 

whack 
On  those  lank  ribs  would  rid  thee  of  that 

dream  ! 

Thy  Brahma-blasphemy  is  ipecac 
To  my  soul's  stomach;  couldst  thou  grasp 

the  scheme 
Of  true  redemption,  thou  wouldst  know 

that  Deity 
Whirls  by  a  kind  of  blessed  spontaneity. 


"And  this  it  is  which  keeps  our  earth 

here  going 
With    all   the    stars."  — «  Oh,   vile  !   but 

there 's  a  place 
Prepared  for  such;  to  think  of  Brahma 

throwing 

Worlds  like  a  juggler's  balls  up  into  Space  ! 
Why,  not   so   much  as  a  smooth   lotos 

blowing 
Is  e'er  allowed  that  silence  to  efface 

Which  broods  round  Brahma,  and  our 

earth,  't  is  known, 

Rests  on    a   tortoise,   moveless   as   this 
stone." 

So  they  kept  up  their  banning  amrebsean, 
When  suddenly  came  floating  down  the 

stream 
A  youth  whose  face  like   an  incarnate 

pasan 
Glowed,  't  was  so  full  of  grandeur  and  of 

gleam; 
"  If  there  be  gods,  then,  doubtless,  this 

must  be  one," 
Thought  both  at  once,  and  then  began  to 

scream, 
"  Surely,  whate'er  immortals  know,  thou 

knowest, 
Decide  between  us  twain  before  thou 

goest!" 

The  youth  was  drifting  in  a  slim  canoe 
Most  like  a  huge  white  water-lily's  petal, 

But  neither  of  our  theologians  knew 
Whereof  't  was  made  ;  whether  of  heav 
enly  metal 

Seldseen,  or  of  a  vast  pearl  split  in  two 
And  hollowed,  was  a  point  they  could  not 

settle; 
'T  was   good   debate-seed,  though,  and 

bore  large  fruit 
In  after  years  of  many  a  tart  dispute. 

There  were  no  wings  upon  the  stranger's 

shoulders, 

And  yet  he  seemed  so  capable  of  rising 
That,  had   he   soared  like   thistledown, 

beholders 

Had  thought  the  circumstance  noways  sur 
prising; 
Enough  that  he  remained,  and,  when  the 

scolders 

Hailed  him  as  umpire  in  their  vocal  prize- 
ring, 


AN   ORIENTAL   APOLOGUE 


163 


The  painter  of  his  boat  he  lightly  threw 
Around  a  lotos-stem,  and  brought  her  to. 

The  strange  youth  had  a  look  as  if  he 

might 

Have  trod  far  planets  where  the  atmosphere 
(Of  nobler  temper)  steeps  the  face  with 

light, 
Just  as  our  skins  are  tanned  and  freckled 

here; 

His  air  was  that  of  a  cosmopolite 
In  the  wide  universe  from  sphere  to  sphere ; 
Perhaps  he  was  (his  face  had  such  grave 

beauty) 
An  officer  of  Saturn's  guards  off  duty. 

Both  saints  began  to  unfold  their  tales  at 

once, 
Both  wished  their  tales,  like  simial  ones, 

prehensile, 
That    they   might   seize   his   ear;  fool ! 

knave  !  and  dunce  ! 
Flew  zigzag  back  and  forth,  like  strokes  of 

pencil 

In  a  child's  fingers;  voluble  as  duns, 
They    jabbered    like    the  stones  on  that 

immense  hill 

In  the  Arabian  Nights;  until  the  stranger 
Began  to  think  his  ear-drums  in  some 
danger. 

In  general  those  who  nothing  have  to  say 
Contrive  to  spend  the  longest  time  in  doing 

it; 

They  turn  and  vary  it  in  every  way, 
Hashing  it,  stewing  it,  mincing  it,  ragouting 

it; 

Sometimes  they  keep  it  purposely  at  bay, 
Then  let  it  slip  to  be  again  pursuing  it; 
They  drone  it,  groan  it,  whisper  it  and 

shout  it, 

Refute  it,  flout  it,  swear  to 't,  prove  it, 
doubt  it. 

Our  saints  had  practised  for  some  thirty 

years; 

Their  talk,  beginning  with  a  single  stem, 
Spread  like  a  banyan,  sending  down  live 

piers, 
Colonies  of  digression,  and,  in  them, 

Germs  of  yet  new  dispersion;  once  by  the 

ears, 

They  could  convey  damnation  in  a  hem, 
And  blow  the  pinch  of  premise-priming  off 
Long  syllogistic  batteries,  with  a  cough. 


Each  had  a  theory  that  the  human  ear 
A  providential  tunnel  was,  which  led 
To  a  huge  vacuum  (and  surely  here 
They  showed  some  knowledge  of  the  gen 
eral  head,) 

For  cant  to  be  decanted  through,  a  mere 
Auricular  canal  or  mill-race  fed 

All  day  and   night,  in  sunshine  and  in 

shower, 

From  their  vast  heads  of  milk-and-water- 
power. 

The  present  being  a  peculiar  case, 
Each  with  unwonted  zeal  the  other  scouted, 
Put  his  spurred  hobby  through  its  every 

pace, 
Pished,  pshawed,  poohed,  horribled,  bahed, 

jeered,  sneered,  flouted, 
Sniffed,  nonsensed,  infideled,  fudged,  with 

his  face 
Looked    scorn    too    nicely    shaded  to  be 

shouted, 
And,  with  each  inch  of  person   and  of 

vesture, 

Contrived  to  hint  some  most  disdainful 
gesture. 

At  length,  when  their  breath's  end  was 

come  about, 
And  both   could  now  and  then  just   gasp 

"  impostor  ! " 
Holding  their  heads  thrust  menacingly 

out, 
As  staggering  cocks  keep  up  their  fighting 

posture, 
The  stranger  smiled  and  said,  "  Beyond  a 

doubt 
'T  is  fortunate,  my  friends,  that  you  have 

lost  your 

United  parts  of  speech,  or  it  had  been 
Impossible  for  me  to  get  between. 

"  Produce !  says  Nature,  —  what  have  you 

produced  ? 

A  new  strait- waistcoat  for  the  human  mind ; 
Are   you   not    limbed,   nerved,    jointed, 

arteried,  juiced, 
As    other    men  ?    yet,   faithless    to    your 

kind, 

Rather  like  noxious  insects  you  are  used 
To  puncture  life's  fair  fruit,  beneath  the 

rind 
Laying  your  creed-eggs,  whence  in  time 

there  spring 
Consumers  new  to  eat  and  buzz  and  sting. 


164 


AN   ORIENTAL   APOLOGUE 


"  Work!   you  have   no   conception   how 

't  will  sweeten 
Your  views  of  Life  and  Nature,  God  and 

Man; 
Had  you  been  forced  to  earn  what  you 

have  eaten, 
Your  heaven  had  shown  a  less  dyspeptic 

plan; 
At  present  your  whole  function  is  to  eat 

ten 

And  talk  ten  times  as  rapidly  as  you  can; 
Were  your  shape  true  to  cosmogonic  laws, 
You  would  be  nothing  but  a  pair  of  jaws. 

"  Of  all  the  useless  beings  in  creation 
The   earth    could   spare   most    easily  you 

bakers 
Of  little  clay  gods,  formed  in  shape  and 

fashion 

Precisely  in  the  image  of  their  makers ; 
Why,  it  would  almost  move  a  saint  to 

passion, 
To  see  these   blind  and  deaf,  the  hourly 

breakers 
Of   God's  own  image    in  their  brother 

men, 

Set  themselves  up  to  tell  the  how,  where, 
when, 

"Of  God's  existence;   one's   digestion's 

worse  — 
So  makes  a  god  of  vengeance  and  of  blood ; 

Another,  —  but  no  matter,  they  reverse 
Creation's  plan,  out  of  their  own  vile  mud 
Pat  up  a  god,  and  burn,  drown,  hang,  or 

curse 

Whoever  worships  not;  each  keeps  his  stud 
Of  texts  which  wait  with  saddle  on  and 

bridle 
To  hunt  down  atheists  to  their  ugly  idol. 

"  This,  I  perceive,  has  been  your  occupa 
tion; 

You  should  have  been  more  usefully  em 
ployed  ; 
All  men  are  bound  to  earn   their  daily 

ration, 
Where  States  make  not  that  primal  contract 

void 

By  cramps  and  limits;  simple  devastation 
Is  the  worm's  task,  and  what  he  has  de 
stroyed 

His  monument;   creating  is  man's  work 
And  that,  too,  something  more  than  mist 
and  murk." 


So  having  said,  the  youth  was  seen  no 

more, 
And  straightway  our  sage  Brahmin,  the 

philosopher, 
Cried,   "  That  was  aimed  at  thee,  thou 

endless  bore, 

Idle  and  useless  as  the  growth  of  moss  over 
A  rotting  tree-trunk! "   "I  would  square 

that  score 
Full  soon,"  replied  the  Dervise,    "  could  I 

cross  over 
And  catch  thee  by  the  beard.   Thy  nails 

I  'd  trim 
And  make  thee  work,  as  was  advised  by 

him." 

"  Work  ?    Am  I  not  at  work  from  morn 

till  night 

Sounding  the  deeps  of  oracles  umbilical 
Which  for  man's  guidance  never  come  to 

light, 
With  all  their  various  aptitudes,  until   I 

call?" 

"  And  I,  do  I  not  twirl  from  left  to  right 
For  conscience'  sake  ?     Is  that  no  work  ? 

Thou  silly  gull, 

He  had  thee  in  his  eye ;  't  was  Gabriel 
Sent  to  reward  my  faith,  I  know   him 
well." 

« 'T  was   Vishnu,  thou  vile  whirligig! " 

and  so 

The  good  old  quarrel  was  begun  anew; 
One  would  have  sworn  the  sky  was  black 

as  sloe, 

Had  but  the  other  dared  to  call  it  blue; 
Nor  were  the  followers  who  fed  them 

slow 

To  treat  each  other  with  their  curses,  too, 
Each  hating  t'  other  (moves  it  tears  or 

laughter  ?) 

Because  he  thought  him  sure  of  hell  here 
after. 

At  last  some  genius  built  a  bridge  of  boats 
Over  the  stream,  and  Ahmed's  zealots  filed 

Across,  upon  a  mission  to  (cut  throats 
And)  spread  religion  pure  and  undented; 
They  sowed  the  propagandist's  wildest 

oats, 

Cutting  off  all,  down  to  the  smallest  child, 
And  came  back,  giving  thanks  for  such 

fat  mercies, 

To  find  their  harvest  gone  past  prayers 
or  curses. 


THE  BIGLOW   PAPERS 


'65 


All  gone  except  their  saint's   religious 

hops, 
Which  he  kept  up  with  more  than  common 

flourish; 

But  these,  however  satisfying  crops 
For  the  inner  man,   were   not  enough  to 

nourish 

The  body  politic,  which  quickly  drops 
Reserve  in  such  sad  junctures,  and  turns 

currish; 
So  Ahmed  soon  got  cursed  for  all   the 

famine 

Where'er  the  popular  voice  could  edge  a 
damn  in. 

At  first  he  pledged  a  miracle  quite  boldly, 
And,  for  a  day  or  two,  they  growled  and 

waited ; 
But,   finding  that  this   kind   of  manna 

coldly 

Sat  on  their  stomachs,  they  erelong  berated 
The  saint  for  still  persisting  in  that  old 

lie, 
Till  soon  the  whole  machine  of  saintship 

grated, 

Ran  slow,  creaked,  stopped,  and,  wishing 
him  in  Tophet, 


They  gathered  strength  enough  to  stone 
the  prophet. 

Some  stronger  ones  contrived  (by  eating 

leather, 
Their  weaker  friends,   and  one   thing  or 

another) 

The  winter  months  of  scarcity  to  weather ; 
Among  these  was  the  late  saint's  younger 

brother, 

Who,  in  the  spring,  collecting  them  to 
gether, 

Persuaded  them  that  Ahmed's  holy  pother 
Had  wrought  in  their  behalf,  and  that 

the  place 
Of  Saint  should  be  continued  to  his  race. 

Accordingly,  't  was  settled  on  the  spot 
That  Allah  favored  that  peculiar  breed; 

Beside,  as  all  were  satisfied,  't  would  not 
Be  quite  respectable  to  have  the  need 

Of  public  spiritual  food  forgot; 
And  so  the  tribe,  with  proper  forms,  de 
creed 

That  he,  and,  failing  him,  his  next  of 
kin, 

Forever  for  the  people's  good  should  spin. 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


FIRST   SERIES 


IN  a  letter,  June  16,  1846,  to  Mr.  Sydney 
Howard  Gay,  then  editor  of  the  Anti-Slavery 
Standard,  Lowell  wrote :  "  I  mean  to  send  all 
the  poems  I  write  (on  whatever  subject)  first  to 
the  Standard,  except  such  arrows  as  I  may 
deem  it  better  to  shoot  from  the  ambushment 
of  the  Courier,  because  the  old  enemy  offers 
me  a  fairer  mark  from  that  quarter.  .  .  .  You 
will  find  a  squib  of  mine  in  this  week's  Courier. 
I  wish  it  to  continue  anonymous,  for  I  wish 
slavery  to  think  it  has  as  many  enemies  as  pos 
sible.  If  I  may  judge  from  the  number  of 
persons  who  have  asked  me  if  I  wrote  it,  I 
nave  struck  the  old  hulk  of  the  Public  between 
wind  and  water."  This  was  the  first  of  the 
Biglow  Papers.  The  scheme  of  anonymity 
was  preserved  tlirough  the  first  series,  and  as 
Lowell  wrote  forty  years  later  to  Thomas 
Hughes  (Letters,  II.  334)  :  "  I  had  great  fun  out 
of  it.  I  have  often  wished  that  I  could  have 


had  a  literary  nom  de  guerre,  and  kept  my 
to  myself.    I  should  n't  have  cared  a  doit ' 


own 
doit  what 


happened  to  him."  But  as  appears  from  the 
letter  given  above,  the  satire  was  readily  fa 
thered  on  Lowell,  and  many  of  the  subsequent 
papers  were  published  in  the  Standard.  "  As 
for  Hosea,"  he  wrote  to  his  friend  Mr.  Charles 
F.  Briggs,  November  13,  1847,  "I  am  sorry 
that  I  began  by  making  him  such  a  detestable 
speller.  There  is  no  fun  in  bad  spelling  of 
itself,  but  only  where  the  misspelling  suggests 
something  else  which  is  droll  per  se.  You  see 
I  am  getting  him  out  of  it  gradually.  I  mean 
to  altogether.  Parson  Wilbur  is  about  to  pro 
pose  a  subscription  for  fitting  him  for  college, 
and  bas  already  commenced  his  education. 
Perhaps  you  like  the  last  best,  because  it  is 
more  personal  and  has  therefore  more  direct 
ness  of  purpose.  But  I  confess  I  think  that 
Birdofredom's  attempt  to  explain  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  theory  is  the  best  thing  yet,  except 
Parson  Wilbur's  letter  in  the  Courier  of  last 
Saturday."  The  series  ran  at  intervals  for 
about  eighteen  months,  when  the  papers  were 


i66 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS 


collected  into  a  volume.  Lowell's  letters,  writ 
ten  when  he  was  busy  over  the  equipment  of 
the  book,  show  him  in  high  spirits  over  his 
jeu  d? esprit.  "  I  am  going,"  he  writes  to  Mr. 
Briggs,  "  to  indulge  aU  my  fun  in  a  volume  of 
H.  Biglow's  verses  which  I  am  preparing,  and 
which  I  shall  edit  under  the  character  of  the 
Rev.  Mr.  Wilbur.  I  hope  you  saw  Mr.  B.'s 
last  production,  which  I  consider  his  best 
hitherto.  I  am  going  to  include  in  the  volume 
an  essay  of  the  reverend  gentleman  on  the 
Yankee  dialect,  and  on  dialects  in  general,  and 
on  everything  else,  and  also  an  attempt  at  a 
complete  natural  history  of  the  Humbug  — 
which  I  think  I  shall  write  in  Latin.  The 
book  will  purport  to  be  published  at  Jaalam 
(Mr.  B.'s  native  place),  and  will  be  printed  on 
brownish  paper,  with  those  little  head  and  tail 
pieces  which  used  to  adorn  our  earlier  publica 
tions —  such  as  hives,  scrolls,  urns,  and  the 
like." 

This  was  written  on  the  last  day  of  the 
year  1847,  but  it  was  not  until  September  of 
the  next  year  that  the  actual  volume  got  un 
der  way ;  for  meanwhile  Lowell's  original  de 
sign  had  been  modified,  and  he  turned  the 
fun  he  had  been  devising  for  the  volume  of 
mock  poetry  into  the  collection  of  his  Biglow 
Papers.  The  essay  on  the  Yankee  dialect  by 
Mr.  Wilbur  was  included,  but  it  was  not  till 
the  second  series  was  published,  nearly  twenty 
years  later,  that  there  appeared  the  scholarly 
introduction,  not  now  as  a  piece  of  affected 
pedantry,  but  as  the  serious  and  delightful 
study  of  the  author  delivered  in  his  own  voice. 

At  the  beginning  of  September,  1848,  Lowell 
wrote  to  Mr.  Gay :  "I  am  as  busy  as  I  can 
be  with  Mr.  Biglow's  poems,  of  which  I  have 
got  between  twenty  and  thirty  pages  already 
printed.  It  is  the  hardest  book  to  print  that 
ever  I  had  anything  to  do  with,  and  what  with 
corrections  and  Mr.  Wilbur's  annotations, 
keeps  me  more  employed  than  I  care  to  be." 
Later  in  the  same  month  he  wrote  to  the  same 
correspondent  that  he  was  "  wearied  out  with 
Mr.  Biglow  and  his  tiresome  (though  wholly 
respectable)  friend  Mr.  Wilbur."  His  notes 
continue  to  show  the  pressure  under  which  he 
worked  until  the  book  was  published,  the 
middle  of  November.  The  first  edition  (1500) 
was  gone  in  a  week,  and  the  book  and  its  au 
thor  became  famous. 

A  little  more  than  ten  years  afterward  an 
English  edition  was  to  appear,  and  Thomas 
Hughes,  who  had  it  in  charge,  wrote  to  Lowell 
asking  for  a  new  preface.  The  answer,  a  por 
tion  of  which  is  here  given,  is  interesting  as 
showing  how  the  book  appeared  as  a  whole  to 
its  author  when  he  was  in  the  midst  of  his  Uni 
versity  service  and  had  made  a  name  for  him 
self  as  scholar  and  critic  as  well  as  poet. 


CAMBRIDGE,  MASS.,  Sept.  13,  1859. 
MY  DEAR  SIB  :  —  I  have  put  off  from  time 
to  time  writing  to  you,  because  I  hardly  knew 
what  to  write.  To  say  simply  that  I  liked 
your  writings  would  have  been  pleasant  enough 
(though  that  would  have  given  me  no  claim 
upon  you  that  was  not  shared  by  all  the  world), 
but  I  find  it  particularly  hard  to  write  any 
thing  about  a  book  of  my  own.  It  has  been  a 
particular  satisfaction  to  me  to  hear,  now  and 
then,  some  friendly  voice  from  the  old  mother- 
island  say  "  Well  done  "  of  the  Biglow  Papers  ; 
for,  to  say  the  truth,  I  like  them  myself,  and 
when  I  was  reading  them  over  for  a  new  edi 
tion,  a  year  or  two  ago,  could  not  help  laugh 
ing.  But  then  as  I  laughed  I  found  myself 
asking,  "Are  these  yours?  How  did  you 
make  them?"  Friendly  people  say  to  me 
sometimes,  "Write  us  more  Biglow  Papers" 
and  I  have  even  been  simple  enough  to  try, 
only  to  find  that  I  could  not.  This  has  helped 
to  persuade  me  that  the  book  was  a  genuine 
growth,  and  not  a  manufacture,  and  that,  there 
fore,  I  had  an  honest  right  to  be  pleased  with 
out  blushing  if  people  liked  it.  But  then,  this 
very  fact  makes  it  rather  hard  to  write  an  in 
troduction  to  it.  All  I  can  say  is  that  the  book 
was  thar  ;  how  it  came  is  more  than  I  can  tell. 
I  cannot,  like  the  great  Goethe,  deliberately 
imagine  what  would  have  been  a  proper  Ent- 
stehungsweise  for  my  book,  and  then  assume  it 
as  a  fact.  And  as  for  an  historical  preface,  I 
find  that  quite  as  hard  after  now  twelve  years 
of  more  cloistered  interests  and  studies  that 
have  alienated  me  very  much  from  contempo 
rary  politics.  I  only  know  that  I  believed  our 
war  with  Mexico  (though  we  had  as  just  ground 
for  it  as  a  strong  nation  ever  has  against  a 
weak  one)  to  be  essentially  a  war  of  false  pre 
tences,  and  that  it  would  result  in  widening 
the  boundaries  and  so  prolonging  the  life  of 
slavery.  Believing  that  it  is  the  manifest  des 
tiny  of  the  English  race  to  occupy  this  whole 
continent,  and  to  display  there  that  practical 
understanding  in  matters  of  government  and 
colonization  which  no  other  race  has  given  such 
proof  of  possessing  since  the  Eomans,  I  hated 
to  see  a  noble  hope  evaporated  into  a  lying 
phrase  to  sweeten  the  foul  breath  of  dema 
gogues.  Leaving  the  sin  of  it  to  God,  I  be 
lieved,  and  still  believe,  that  slavery  is  the 
Achilles-heel  of  our  polity  ;  that  it  is  a  tempo 
rary  and  false  supremacy  of  the  white  races, 
sure  to  destroy  that  supremacy  at  last,  because 
an  enslaved  people  always  prove  themselves 
of  more  enduring  fibre  than  their  enslavers, 
as  not  suffering  from  the  social  vices  sure  to 
be  engendered  by  oppression  in  the  governing 
class.  Against  these  and  many  other  things  I 
thought  all  honest  men  should  protest.  I  was 
born  and  bred  in  the  country,  and  the  dialect 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


167 


•was  homely  to  me.  I  tried  my  first  Biglow 
paper  in  a  newspaper,  and  found  that  it  had  a 
great  run.  So  I  wrote  the  others  from  time  to 
time  during  the  year  which  followed,  always 
very  rapidly,  and  sometimes  (as  with  "  What 
Mr.  Robinson  thinks  " )  at  one  sitting. 

When  I  came  to  collect  them  and  publish 
them  in  a  volume,  I  conceived  my  parson-editor, 
with  his  pedantry  and  verbosity,  his  amiable 
vanity  and  superiority  to  the  verses  he  was 
editing,  as  a  fitting  artistic  background  and 
foil.  It  gave  me  the  chance,  too,  of  glan 
cing  obliquely  at  many  things  which  were  be 
yond  the  horizon  of  my  other  characters.  I 
was  told  afterwards  that  my  Parson  Wilbur 
was  only  Jedediah  Cleishbotham  over  again, 
and  I  dare  say  it  may  be  so ;  but  I  drew  him 
from  the  life  as  well  as  I  could,  and  for  the 
authentic  reasons  I  have  mentioned.  I  confess 
that  I  am  proud  of  the  recognition  the  book 
has  received  in  England,  because  it  seems  to 
prove  that,  despite  its  intense  provincialism, 
there  is  a  general  truth  to  human  nature  in  it 
which  justifies  its  having  been  written. 


But  life  is  too  short  to  write  about  one's 
self  in,  and  you  see  that  I  cannot  make  a  suit 
able  preface.  I  would  rather  have  something 
of  this  kind :  "  It  could  not  but  be  gratifying 
to  the  writer  of  the  Biglow  Papers  that  Mr. 
Trubner  should  deem  it  worth  his  while  to 
publish  an  edition  of  them  in  England.  It 
gives  him  a  particular  pleasure  that  the  au 
thor  of  Tom  Brown's  School  Days  should 
have  consented  to  see  the  work  through  the 
press,  for  the  remarkable  favor  with  which  that 
work  was  received  on  both  sides  of  the  At 
lantic  proved  that  all  speakers  of  the  English 
tongue,  however  differing  in  other  respects, 
agree  wholly  in  their  admiration  for  sound 
ness  of  head  and  heart  and  manliness  of  char 
acter." 

Now  do  not  think  this  is  "  Buncombe." 

The  first  series  as  here  given  retains  the 
elaborate  apparatus  attached  to  the  poem,  in 
the  order  given  in  the  book  when  first  pub 
lished  by  George  Nichols,  Cambridge. 


NOTICES   OF  AN   INDEPENDENT 
PRESS 

[I  HAVE  observed,  reader  (bene-  or  male 
volent,  as  it  may  happen),  that  it  is  customary 
to  append  to  the  second  editions  of  books,  and 
to  the  second  works  of  authors,  short  sentences 
commendatory  of  the  first,  under  the  title  of 
Notices  of  the  Press.  These,  I  have  been  given 
to  understand,  are  procurable  at  certain  estab 
lished  rates,  payment  being  made  either  in 
money  or  advertising  patronage  by  the  pub 
lisher,  or  by  an  adequate  outlay  of  servility 
on  the  part  of  the  author.  Considering  these 
things  with  myself,  and  also  that  such  notices 
are  neither  intended,  nor  generally  believed,  to 
convey  any  real  opinions,  being  a  purely  cere 
monial  accompaniment  of  literature,  and  re 
sembling  certificates  to  the  virtues  of  various 
morbiferal  panaceas,  I  conceived  that  it  would 
be  not  only  more  economical  to  prepare  a 
sufficient  number  of  such  myself,  but  also 
more  immediately  subservient  to  the  end  in 
view  to  prefix  them  to  this  our  primary  edition 
rather  than  to  await  the  contingency  of  a 
second,  when  they  would  seem  to  be  of  small 
utility.  To  delay  attaching  the  bobs  until  the 
second  attempt  at  flying  the  kite  would  indi 
cate  but  a  slender  experience  in  that  useful 
art.  Neither  has  it  escaped  my  notice,  nor 
failed  to  afford  me  matter  of  reflection,  that, 
when  a  circus  or  a  caravan  is  about  to  visit 
Jaalam,  the  initial  step  is  to  send  forward 
large  and  highly  ornamented  bills  of  per 
formance,  to  be  hung  in  the  bar-room  and  the 


post-office.  These  having  been  sufficiently 
gazed  at,  and  beginning  to  lose  their  attrac 
tiveness  except  for  the  flies,  and,  truly,  the 
boys  also  (in  whom  I  find  it  impossible  to  re 
press,  even  during  school-hours,  certain  oral 
and  telegraphic  communications  concerning 
the  expected  show),  upon  some  fine  morning 
the  band  enters  in  a  gayly  painted  wagon,  or 
triumphal  chariot,  and  with  noisy  advertise 
ment,  by  means  of  brass,  wood,  and  sheepskin, 
makes  the  circuit  of  our  startled  village 
streets.  Then,  as  the  exciting  sounds  draw 
nearer  and  nearer,  do  I  desiderate  those  eyes 
of  Aristarchus,  "  whose  looks  were  as  a  breech 
ing  to  a  boy."  Then  do  I  perceive,  with  vain 
regret  of  wasted  opportunities,  the  advantage 
of  a  pancratic  or  pantechnic  education,  since 
he  is  most  reverenced  by  my  little  subjects 
who  can  throw  the  cleanest  summerset  or  walk 
most  securely  upon  the  revolving  cask.  The 
story  of  the  Pied  Piper  becomes  for  the  first 
time  credible  to  me  (albeit  confirmed  by  the 
Hameliners  dating  their  legal  instruments  from 
the  period  of  his  exit),  as  I  behold  how  those 
strains,  without  pretence  of  magical  potency, 
bewitch  the  pupillary  legs,  nor  leave  to  the 
pedagogic  an  entire  self-control.  For  these 
reasons,  lest  my  kingly  prerogative  should 
suffer  diminution,  I  prorogue  my  restless  com 
mons,  whom  I  follow  into  the  street,  chiefly 
lest  some  mischief  may  chance  befall  them. 
After  the  manner  of  such  a  band,  I  send  for 
ward  the  following  notices  of  domestic  manu 
facture,  to  make  brazen  proclamation,  not  un 
conscious  of  the  advantage  which  will  accrue, 


i68 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


if  our  little  craft,  cymbula  sutilis,  shall  seem  to 
leave  port  with  a  clipping  breeze,  and  to  carry, 
in  nautical  phrase,  a  bone  in  her  mouth. 
Nevertheless,  I  have  chosen,  as  being  more 
equitable,  to  prepare  some  also  sufficiently 
objurgatory,  that  readers  of  every  taste  may 
find  a  dish  to  their  palate.  I  have  modelled 
them  upon  actually  existing  specimens,  pre 
served  in  my  own  cabinet  of  natural  curiosities. 
One,  in  particular,  I  had  copied  with  tolerable 
exactness  from  a  notice  of  one  of  my  own  dis 
courses,  which,  from  its  superior  tone  and  ap 
pearance  of  vast  experience,  I  concluded  to 
have  been  written  by  a  man  at  least  three 
hundred  years  of  age,  though  I  recollected  no 
existing  instance  of  such  antediluvian  long 
evity.  Nevertheless,  I  afterwards  discovered 
the  author  to  be  a  young  gentleman  preparing 
for  the  ministry  under  the  direction  of  one  of 
my  brethren  in  a  neighboring  town,  and  whom 
I  had  once  instinctively  corrected  in  a  Latin 
quantity.  But  this  I  have  been  forced  to  omit, 
from  its  too  great  length.  —  H.  W.  ] 


From  the  Universal  Littery  Universe. 

Full  of  passages  which  rivet  the  attention  of 
the  reader.  .  .  .  Under  a  rustic  garb,  senti 
ments  are  conveyed  which  should  be  committed 
to  the  memory  and  engraven  on  the  heart  of 
every  moral  and  social  being.  .  .  .  We  consider 
this  a  unique  performance.  .  .  .  We  hope  to  see 
it  soon  introduced  into  our  common  schools.  .  .  . 
Mr.  Wilbur  has  performed  his  duties  as  editor 
with  excellent  taste  and  judgment.  .  .  .  This 
is  a  vein  which  we  hope  to  see  successfully 
prosecuted.  .  .  .  We  hail  the  appearance  of 
this  work  as  a  long  stride  toward  the  formation 
of  a  purely  aboriginal,  indigenous,  native,  and 
American  literature.  We  rejoice  to  meet  with 
an  author  national  enough  to  break  away  from 
the  slavish  deference,  too  common  among1  us, 
to  English  grammar  and  orthography.  .  .  . 
Where  all  is  so  good,  we  are  at  a  loss  how  to 
make  extracts.  .  .  .  On  the  whole,  we  may  call 
it  a  volume  which  no  library,  pretending  to  en 
tire  completeness,  should  fail  to  place  upon  its 
shelves. 


From  the  Higginbottomopolis  Snapping-turtle. 
A  collection  of  the  merest  balderdash  and 
doggerel  that  it,  was  ever  our  bad  fortune  to 
lay  eyes  on.  The  author  is  a  vulgar  buffoon, 
and  the  editor  a  talkative,  tedious  old  fool. 
We  use  strong  language,  but  should  any  of  our 
readers  peruse  the  book,  (from  which  calamity 
Heaven  preserve  them  !)  they  will  find  reasons 
for  it  thick  as  the  leaves  of  Vallumbrozer,  or, 
to  use  a  still  more  expressive  comparison,  as 
the  combined  heads  of  author  and  editor.  The 
work  is  wretchedly  gt>t  up.  .  .  .  We  should 
like  to  know  how  much  firitish  gold  was 
pocketed  by  this  libeller  of  our  country  and  her 
purest  patriots. 


From  the  Oldfogrummlle  Mentor. 

We  have  not  had  time  to  do  more  than  glance 
through  this  handsomely  printed  volume,  but 
the  name  of  its  respectable  editor,  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Wilbur,  of  Jaalam,  will  afford  a  sufficient 
guaranty  for  the  worth  of  its  contents.  .  .  . 
The  paper  is  white,  the  type  clear,  and  the  vol 
ume  of  a  convenient  and  attractive  size.  .  .  . 
In  reading  this  elegantly  executed  work,  it  has 
seemed  to  us  that  a  passage  or  two  might  have 
been  retrenched  with  advantage,  and  that  the 
general  style  of  diction  was  susceptible  of  a 
higher  polish.  .  .  .  On  the  whole,  we  may 
safely  leave  the  ungrateful  task  of  criticism  to 
the  reader.  We  will  barely  suggest,  that  in 
volumes  intended,  as  this  is,  for  the  illustration 
of  a  provincial  dialect  and  turns  of  expression, 
a  dash  of  humor  or  satire  might  be  thrown  in 
with  advantage.  .  .  .  The  work  is  admirably 
got  up.  .  .  .  This  work  will  form  an  appropri 
ate  ornament  to  the  centre-table.  It  is  beauti 
fully  printed,  on  paper  of  an  excellent  quality. 


From  the  Dekay  Bulwark. 

We  should  be  wanting  in  our  duty  as  the 
conductor  of  that  tremendous  engine,  a  public 
press,  as  an  American,  and  as  a  man,  did  we 
allow  such  an  opportunity  as  is  presented  to  us 
by  "The  Biglow  Papers"  to  pass  by  without 
entering  our  earnest  protest  against  such  at 
tempts  (now,  alas  !  too  common)  at  demoraliz 
ing  the  public  sentiment.  Under  a  wretched 
mask  of  stupid  drollery,  slavery,  war,  the  social 
glass,  and,  in  short,  all  the  valuable  and  time- 
honored  institutions  justly  dear  to  our  common 
humanity  and  especially  to  republicans,  are 
made  the  butt  of  coarse  and  senseless  ribaldry 
by  this  low-minded  scribbler.  It  is  time  that 
the  respectable  and  religious  portion  of  our 
community  should  be  aroused  to  the  alarming 
inroads  of  foreign  Jacobinism,  sansculottism, 
and  infidelity.  It  is  a  fearful  proof  of  the 
wide-spread  nature  of  this  contagion,  that  these 
secret  stabs  at  religion  and  virtue  are  given 
from  under  the  cloak  (credite,  posterity  of  a 
clergyman.  It  is  a  mournful  spectacle  indeed 
to  the  patriot  and  Christian  to  see  liberality 
and  new  ideas  (falsely  so  called,  —  they  are  as 
old  as  Eden)  invading  the  sacred  precincts  of 
the  pulpit.  ...  On  the  whole,  we  consider 
this  volume  as  one  of  the  first  shocking  results 
which  we  predicted  would  spring  out  of  the 
late  French  "  Revolution"  (!). 


From  the  Bungtown  Copper  and  Comprehensive 

Tocsin  (a  tryweakly  family  journal) . 
Altogether  an  admirable  work.  .  . .  Full  of  hu 
mor,  boisterous,  but  delicate,  —  of  wit  withering 
and  scorching,  yet  combined  with  a  pathos  cool 
as  morning  dew,  —  of  satire  ponderous  as  the 
mace  of  Richard,  yet  keen  as  the  scymitar  of 
Saladin.  .  .  .  A  work  full  of  "mountain-mirth," 
mischievous  as  Puck,  and  lightsome  as  Ariel. 
.  .  .  We  know  not  whether  to  admire  most  the 
genial,  fresh,  and  discursive  concinnity  of  the 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


169 


author,  or  his  playful  fancy,  weird  imagination, 
and  compass  of  style,  at  once  both  objective  and 
subjective.  .  .  .  We  might  indulge  in  some  crit 
icisms,  but,  were  the  author  other  than  he  is, 
he  would  be  a  different  being.  As  it  is,  he  has 
a  wonderful  pose,  which  flits  from  flower  to 
flower,  and  bears  the  reader  irresistibly  along 
on  its  eagle  pinions  (like  Ganymede)  to  the 
"  highest  heaven  of  invention."  .  .  .  We  love  a 
book  so  purely  objective.  .  .  .  Many  of  his  pic 
tures  of  natural  scenery  have  an  extraordinary 
subjective  clearness  and  fidelity.  ...  In  fine,  we 
consider  this  as  one  of  the  most  extraordinary 
volumes  of  this  or  any  age.  We  know  of  no 
English  author  who  could  have  written  it.  It 
is  a  work  to  which  the  proud  genius  of  our 
country,  standing  with  one  foot  on  the  Aroos- 
took  and  the  other  on  the  Rio  Grande,  and 
holding  up  the  star-spangled  banner  amid  the 
wreck  of  matter  and  the  crush  of  worlds,  may 
point  with  bewildering  scorn  of  the  punier 
efforts  of  enslaved  Europe.  .  .  .  We  hope  soon 
to  encounter  our  author  among  those  higher 
walks  of  literature  in  which  he  is  evidently  ca 
pable  of  achieving  enduring  fame.  Already  we 
should  be  inclined  to  assign  him  a  high  position 
in  the  bright  galaxy  of  our  American  bards. 


From  the  Saltriver  Pilot  and  Flag  of  Freedom. 

A  volume  in  bad  grammar  and  worse  taste. 
.  .  .  While  the  pieces  here  collected  were  con 
fined  to  their  appropriate  sphere  in  the  corners 
of  obscure  newspapers,  we  considered  them 
wholly  beneath  contempt,  but,  as  the  author 
has  chosen  to  come  forward  in  this  public  man 
ner,  he  must  expect  the  lash  he  so  richly  merits. 
.  .  .  Contemptible  slanders.  .  .  .  Vilest  Billings 
gate.  .  .  .  Has  raked  all  the  gutters  of  our 
language.  .  .  .  The  most  pure,  upright,  and 
consistent  politicians  not  safe  from  his  malignant 
venom.  .  .  .  General  Gushing  comes  in  for  a 
share  of  his  vile  calumnies.  .  .  .  The  Reverend 
Homer  Wilbur  is  a  disgrace  to  his  cloth.  .  .  . 


From  the  World-Harmonic-^iEolian-Attachment. 

Speech  is  silver :  silence  is  golden.  No  utter 
ance  more  Orphic  than  this.  While,  therefore, 
as  highest  author,  we  reverence  him  whose 
works  continue  heroically  unwritten,  we  have 
also  our  hopeful  word  for  those  who  with  pen 
(from  wing  of  goose  loud-cackling,  or  seraph 
God-commissioned)  record  the  thing  that  is  re 
vealed.  .  .  .  Under  mask  of  quaintest  irony,  we 
detect  here  the  deep,  storm-tost  (nigh  ship- 
wracked)  soul,  thunder-scarred,  semi-articulate, 
but  ever  climbing  hopefully  toward  thepeacef  ul 
summits  of  an  Infinite  Sorrow.  .  .  .  1  es,  tlioti 
poor,  forlorn  Hosea,  with  Hebrew  fire-flaming 
soul  in  thee,  for  thee  also  this  life  of  ours  has 
not  been  without  its  aspects  of  heavenliest  pity 
and  laughingest  mirth.  Conceivable  enough ! 
Through  coarse  Thersites-cloak,  we  have  reve 
lation  of  the  heart,  wild-glowing,  world-clasping, 


that  is  in  him.  Bravely  he  grapples  with  the 
life-problem  as  it  presents  itself  to  him,  un 
combed,  shaggy,  careless  of  the  *4  nicer  proprie 
ties,"  inexpert  of  "elegant  diction,"  yet  with 
voice  audible  enough  to  whoso  hath  ears,  up 
there  on  the  gravelly  side-hills,  or  down  on  the 
splashy,  indiarubber-hke  salt-marshes  of  native 
Jaalam.  To  this  soul  also  the  Necessity  of  Creat 
ing  somewhat  has  unveiled  its  awful  front.  If 
not  (Edipuses  and  Electras  and  Alcestises,  then 
in  God's  name  Birdofredum  Sawins  !  These  also 
shall  get  born  into  the  world,  and  filch  (if  so 
need)  a  Zingali  subsistence  therein,  these  lank, 
omnivorous  Yankees  of  his.  He  shall  paint  the 
Seen,  since  the  Unseen  will  not  sit  to  him .  Yet 
in  him  also  are  Nibelungen-lays,  and  Iliads,  and 
Ulysses-wanderings,  and  Divine  Comedies,  —  if 
only  once  he  could  come  at  them  !  Therein  lies 
much,  nay  all ;  for  what  truly  is  this  which  we 
name  A  //,  but  that  which  we  do  not  possess  ? . . . 
Glimpses  also  are  given  us  of  an  old  father  Eze- 
kiel,  not  without  paternal  pride,  as  is  the  wont 
of  such.  A  brown,  parchment-hided  old  man  of 
the  geoponic  or  bucolic  species,  gray-eyed,  we 
fancy,  queued  perhaps,  with  much  weather- 
cunning  and  plentiful  September-gale  memories, 
bidding  fair  in  good  time  to  become  the  Oldest 
Inhabitant.  After  such  hasty  apparition,  he 
vanishes  and  is  seen  no  more.  ...  Of  "Rev. 
Homer  Wilbur,  A.  M.,  Pastor  of  the  First 
Church  in  Jaalam,"  we  have  small  care  to 
speak  here.  Spare  touch  in  him  of  his  Melesi- 
genes  namesake,  save,  haply,  the  —  blindness  I 
A  tolerably  caliginose,  nephelegeretous  elderly 
gentleman,  with  infinite  faculty  of  sermonizing, 
muscularized  by  long  practice  and  excellent  di 
gestive  apparatus,  and,  for  the  rest,  well-mean 
ing  enough,  and  with  small  private  illumina 
tions  (somewhat  tallowy,  it  is  to  be  feared)  of 
his  own.  To  him,  there,  "  Pastor  of  the  First 
Church  in  Jaalam,"  our  Hosea  presents  himself 
as  a  quite  inexplicable  Sphinx-riddle.  A  rich 
poverty  of  Latin  and  Greek,  —  so  far  is  clear 
enough,  even  to  eyes  peering  myopic  through 
horn-lensed  editorial  spectacles,  —  but  naught 
farther?  O  purblind,  well-meaning,  altogether 
fuscous  Melesigenea- Wilbur,  there  are  things  in 
him  incommunicable  by  stroke  of  birch  I  Did 
it  ever  enter  that  old  bewildered  head  of  thine 
that  there  was  the  Possibility  of  the  Infinite  in 
him  ?  To  thee,  quite  wingless  (and  even  feather- 
less)  biped,  has  not  so  much  even  as  a  dream  of 
wings  ever  come  ?  u  Talented  young  parish 
ioner  "  ?  Among  the  Arts  whereof  thou  art  Ma- 
e'ster,  does  that  of  seeing  happen  to  be  one? 
nhappy  Artium  Magister  !  Somehow  a  Ne- 
mean  lion,  fulvous,  torrid-eyed,  dry-nnrsed  in 
broad-howling  sand-wildernesses  of  a  sufficiently 
rare  spirit-Libya  (it  may  be  supposed)  has  got 
whelped  among  the  sheep.  Already  he  stands 
wild-glaring,  with  feet  clutching  the  ground  as 
with  oak-roots,  gathering  for  a  Remus-spring 
over  the  walls  of  thy  little  fold.  In  Heaven's 
name,  go  not  near  him  with  that  fly  bite  crook 
of  thine  !  In  good  time,  thou  painful  preacher, 
thou  wilt  go  to  the  appointed  place  of  departed 
Artillery -Election  Sermons,  Right -Hands  of 


170 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


Fellowship,  and  Results  of  Councils,  gathered 
to  thy  spiritual  fathers  with  much  Latin  of  the 
Epitaphial  sort ;  thou,  too,  shalt  have  thy  re 
ward  ;  but  on  him  the  Eumenides  have  looked, 
not  Xantippes  of  the  pit,  snake-tressed,  finger- 
threatening,  but  radiantly  calm  as  on  antique 
gems ;  for  him  paws  impatient  the  winged 
courser  of  the  gods,  champing  unwelcome  bit ; 
him  the  starry  deeps,  the  empyrean  glooms,  and 
far-flashing  splendors  await. 


From  the  Onion  Grove  Phoenix. 

A  talented  young  townsman  of  ours,  recently 
returned  from  a  Continental  tour,  and  who  is 
already  favorably  known  to  our  readers  by  his 
sprightly  letters  from  abroad  which  have  graced 
our  columns,  called  at  our  office  yesterday.  We 
learn  from  him,  that,  having  enjoyed  the  distin 
guished  privilege,  while  in  Germany,  of  an  in 
troduction  to  the  celebrated  Von  Humbug,  he 
took  the  opportunity  to  present  that  eminent 
man  with  a  copy  of  the  "  Biglow  Papers."  The 
next  morning  he  received  the  following  note, 
which  he  has  kindly  furnished  us  for  publica 
tion.  We  prefer  to  print  it  verbatim,  knowing 
that  our  readers  will  readily  forgive  the  few 
errors  into  which  the  illustrious  writer  has 
fallen,  through  ignorance  of  our  language. 

"  HIGH- WORTHY  MISTER  ! 

"  I  shall  also  now  especially  happy  starve,  be 
cause  I  have  more  or  less  a  work  one  those  abo 
riginal  Red-Men  seen  in  which  have  I  so  deaf 
an  interest  ever  taken  full-worthy  on  the  self 
shelf  with  our  Gottsched  to  be  upset. 

"Pardon  my  in  the  English-speech  un-prac- 
tice !  VON  HUMBUG." 

He  also  sent  with  the  above  note  a  copy  of  his 
famous  work  on  "Cosmetics,"  to  be  presented 
to  Mr.  Biglow;  but  this  was  taken  from  our 
friend  by  the  English  custom-house  officers, 
probably  through  a  petty  national  spite.  No 
doubt,  it  has  by  this  time  found  its  way  into  the 
British  Museum.  We  trust  this  outrage  will  be 
exposed  in  all  our  American  papers.  We  shall 
do  our  best  to  bring  it  to  the  notice  of  the  State 
Department.  Our  numerous  readers  will  share 
in  the  pleasure  we  experience  at  seeing  our 
young  and  vigorous  national  literature  thus 
encouragingly  patted  on  the  head  by  this  vener 
able  and  world-renowned  German.  We  love  to 
see  these  reciprocations  of  good-feeling  between 
the  different  branches  of  the  great  Anglo-Saxon 
race. 

[The  following  genuine  "  notice "  having 
met  my  eye,  I  gladly  insert  a  portion  of  it  here, 
the  more  especially  as  it  contains  one  of  Mr. 
Biglow's  poems  not  elsewhere  printed. — H.  W.] 

From  the  Jaalam  Independent  Blunderbuss. 

.  .  .  But,  while  we  lament  to  see  our  young 
townsman  thus  mingling  in  the  heated  contests 
of  party  politics,  we  think  we  detect  in  him  the 


presence  of  talents  which,  if  properly  directed, 
might  give  an  innocent  pleasure  to  many.  As 
a  proof  that  he  is  competent  to  the  production 
of  other  kinds  of  poetry,  we  copy  for  our  read 
ers  a  short  fragment  of  a  pastoral  by  him,  the 
manuscript  of  which  was  loaned  us  by  a  friend. 
The  title  of  it  is  "  The  Courtin'." 

ZEKLE  crep'  up,  quite  unbeknown, 
An'  peeked  in  thru  the  winder, 

An'  there  sot  Huldy  all  alone, 
'ith  no  one  nigh  to  hender. 

Agin'  the  chimbly  crooknecks  hung, 

An'  in  amongst  'em  rusted 
The  ole  queen's-arm  thet  gran'ther  Young 

Fetched  back  frum  Concord  busted. 

The  wannut  logs  shot  sparkles  out 
Towards  the  pootiest,  bless  her  1 

An'  leetle  fires  danced  all  about 
The  chiny  on  the  dresser. 

The  very  room,  coz  she  wuz  in, 
Looked  warm  frum  floor  to  ceilin', 

An'  she  looked  full  ez  rosy  agin 
Ez  th'  apples  she  wuz  peelin'. 

She  heerd  a  foot  an'  knowed  it,  tu, 

Araspin'  on  the  scraper,  — 
All  ways  to  once  her  f  eelins  flew 

Like  sparks  in  burnt-up  paper. 


He  kin'  o'  1'itered  on  the  mat, 
Some  doubtfle  o'  the  seekle  ; 

His  heart  kep'  goin'  pitypat, 
But  hern  went  pity  Zekle. 


An'  yet  she  gin  her  cheer  a  jerk 
Ez  though  she  wished  him  f  urder, 

An'  on  her  apples  kep'  to  work 
Ez  ef  a  wager  spurred  her. 

You  want  to  see  my  Pa,  I  sppse  ?  " 
"  Wall,  no  ;  I  come  designin'  —  " 

To  see  my  Ma  ?    She  's  sprinklin'  clo'ea 
Agin  to-morrow's  i'nin'." 

He  stood  a  spell  on  one  foot  fust, 

Then  stood  a  spell  on  tother, 
An'  on  which  one  he  felt  the  wust 

He  could  n't  ha'  told  ye,  nuther. 

Sez  he,  "  I  'd  better  call  agin  ;  » 
Sez  she,  "  Think  likely,  Mister  ;  " 

The  last  word  pricked  him  like  a  pin, 
An'  —  wal,  he  up  and  kist  her. 

When  Ma  bimeby  upon  'em  slips, 

Huldy  sot  pale  ez  ashes, 
All  kind  o'  smily  round  the  lips 

An'  teary  round  the  lashes. 

Her  blood  riz  quick,  though,  like  the  tide 

Down  to  the  Bay  o'  Fundy, 
An'  all  I  know  is  they  wuz  cried 

In  meetin',  come  nex  Sunday. 


THE  BIGLOW   PAPERS 


171 


SATIS  multis  sese  emptores  futures  libri  pro- 
fessis,  Georgius  Nichols,  Cantabrigiensis,  opus 
emittet  de  parte  gravi  sed  adhuc  neglecta  his- 
toriae  naturalis,  cum  titulo  sequente,  videlicet : 

Conatus  ad  Delineationem  naturalem  nonnihil 
perfectiorem  Scarabcei  Bombilatoris,  vulgo  dicti 
HUMBUG,  ab  HOMEBO  WILBUR,  Artium  Magis- 
tro,  Societatis  historico-naturalis  Jaalainensis 
Preside  (Secretario,  Socioque  (eheu  !)  singulo), 
multarumque  aliarum  Societatum  eruditarum 
(sive  ineruditarum)  tarn  domesticarum  quam 
transmarinarum  Socio  —  f orsitan  future. 


PROEMIUM 

LECTORI  BENEVOLO  S. 

Toga  scholastica  nondum  deposita,  quum 
systemata  varia  entomologica,  a  viris  ejus  sci- 
entiae-cultoribus  studiosissimis  summa  diligen- 
tia  aedificata,  penitus  indagassem,  non  f  uit  quin 
luctuose  omnibus  in  iis,  quamvis  aliter  laude 
dignissimis,  hiatum  magni  momenti  percipe- 
rem.  Tune,  nescio  quo  motu  superiore  impul- 
sus,  aut  qua  captus  dulcedine  operis,  ad  eum 
implendum  (Curtius  alter)  me  solemniter  de- 
vovi.  Nee  ab  isto  labore,  Sai/j.ovius  imposito, 
abstinui  antequam  tractatulum  sufficienter  in- 
concinnum  lingua  vernacula  perfeceram.  Inde, 
juveniliter  tumef actus,  et  baratbro  ineptiae  rS>v 
&I$XIOTT<I)\£>V  (necnon  "  Publici  Legentis  "  )  nus- 
quam  explorato,  me  composuisse  quod  quasi 
placentas  prsefervidas  (ut  sic  dicam)  homines 
ingurgitarent  credidi.  Sed,  quum  huic  et  alio 
bibliopolaa  MSS.  mea  submisissem  et  nihil  so- 
lidius  responsione  valde  negativa  in  Musaeum 
meum  retulissem,  horror  ingens  atque  miseri- 
cordia,  ob  crassitudinem  Lambertianam  in  cere- 
bris  homunculorum  istius  muneris  ccelesti  qua- 
darn  ira  infixam,  me  invasere.  Extemplo  mei 
solius  impensis  librum  edere  decrevi,  nihil  om- 
nino  dubitans  quin  "  Mundus  Scientificus  "  (ut 
aiunt)  crumenam  meam  ampliter  repleret. 
Nullam,  attamen,  ex  agro  illo  meo  parvulo  se- 
getem  demessui  praeter  gaudium  vacuum  bene 
de  Republica  merendi.  Iste  panis  meus  pretio- 
sus  super  aquas  literarias  faeculentas  praefiden- 
ter  jactus,  quasi  Harpyiarum  quarundam  (scili 
cet  bibliopolarum  istorum  facinorosorum  su- 
pradictorum)  tactu  raneidus,  intra  perpaucos 
dies  mihi  domum  rediit.  Et,  quum  ipse  tali 
victu  ali  non  tolerarem,  primum  in  mentem 
venit  pistori  (typographo  nempe)  nihilominus 
solvendum  esse.  Animum  non  idcirco  demisi, 
imo  seque  ac  pueri  naviculas  suas  penes  se  lino 
retinent  (eo  ut  e  recto  cursu  delapsas  ad  ripam 
retrahant),  sic  ego  Argo  meam  chartaceam 
fluctibus  laborantem  a  quaesitu  velleris  aurei, 
ipse  potius  tonsus  pelleque  exutus,  mente  solida 
revocavi.  Metaphoram  ut  mutem,  boomaran- 


gam  meam  a  scopo  aberrantem  retraxi,  dum 
majore  vi,  occasione  ministrante,  adversus  For- 
tunam  intorquerem.  Ast  mihi,  talia  volventi, 
et,  sicut  Saturnus  ille  Trai5ofi6pos,  liberos  in- 
tellectus  mei  depascere  fidenti,  casus  miseran- 
dus,  nee  antea  inauditus,  supervenit.  Nam,  ut 
ferunt  Scythas  pietatis  causa  et  parsimoniae, 
parentes  suos  mortuos  devorasse,  sic  films  hie 
meus  primogenitus,  Scythis  ipsis  minus  man- 
suetus,  patrem  vivum  totum  et  calcitrantem  ex- 
sorbere  enixus  est.  Nee  tamen  hac  de  causa 
sobolem  meam  esurientem  exheredavi.  Sed 
f  amem  istam  pro  valido  testimonio  virilitatis 
roborisque  potius  habui,  cibumque  ad  earn  sa- 
tiandam,  salva  paterna  mea  carne,  petii.  Et 
quia  bilem  illam  scaturientem  ad  aes  etiam  con- 
coquendum  idoneam  esse  estimabam,  unde  aes 
alienum,  ut  minoris  pretii,  haberem,  circum- 
spexi.  Rebus  ita  se  habentibus,  ab  avunculo 
meo  Johanne  Doolittle,  Armigero,  impetravi  ut 
peeunias  necessarias  suppeditaret,  ne  opus  esset 
mihi  universitatem  relinquendi  antequam  ad 
gradum  primum  in  artibus  pervenissem.  Tune 
ego,  salvum  f  acere  patronum  meum  munificum 
maxime  cupiens,  omnes  libros  primae  editionis 
operis  mei  non  venditos  una  cum  privilegio  in 
omne  aevum  ejusdem  imprimendi  et  edendi 
avunculo  meo  dicto  pigneravi.  Ex  illo  die,  atro 
lapide  notando,  curae  vociferantes  familiae  sin- 
gulis  annis  crescentis  eo  usque  insultabant  ut 
nunquam  tarn  carum  pignus  e  vinculis  istis 
aheneis  solve  re  possem. 

Avunculo  vero  nuper  mortuo,  quum  inter 
alios  consanguineos  testamenti  ejus  lectionem 
audiendi  causa  advenissem,  erectis  auribus 
verba  talia  sequentia  accepi :  "  Quoniam  per- 
suasum  habeo  meum  dilectum  nepotem  Home- 
rum,  longa  et  intima  rerum  angustarum  domi 
experientia,  aptissimum  esse  qui  divitias  tuea- 
tur,  beneficenterque  ac  prudenter  iis  divinis 
creditis  utatur,  —  ergo,  motus  hisce  cogitationi- 
bus,  exque  amore  meo  in  ilium  magno,  do,  lego- 
que  nepoti  caro  meo  supranominato  omnes  sin- 
gularesque  istas  possessiones  nee  ponderabiles 
nee  computabiles  meas  quaa  sequuntur,  scili 
cet  :  quingentos  libros  quos  mihi  pigneravit  dic- 
tus  Homerus,  anno  lucis  1792,  cum  privilegio 
edendi  et  repetendi  opus  istud  *  scientificum ' 
(quod  dicunt)  suum,  si  sic  elegerit.  Tamen 
D.  O.  M.  precor  oculos  Homeri  nepotis  mei  ita 
aperiat  eumque  moveat,  ut  libros  istos  in  biblio- 
theca  unius  e  plurimis  castellis  suis  Hispani- 
ensibus  tuto  abscondat." 

His  verbis  (vix  credibilibus,  auditis,  cor 
meum  in  pectore  exsultavit.  Deinde,  quoniam 
tractatus  Anglice  scriptus  spem  auctoris  fefel- 
lerat,  quippe  quum  studium  Histories  Natura 
lis  in  Republica  nostra  inter  f actionis  strepitum 
languescat,  Latine  versum  edere  statui,  et  eo 
potius  quia  nescio  quomodo  disciplina  acade- 
mica  et  duo  diplomata  proficiant,  nisi  quod 


172 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


peritos  lingnaram  omnino  mortuarum  (et  dam- 
nandarum,  ut  dicebat  iste  vavovpyos  Guiliel- 
mus  Cobbett)  nos  f  aciant. 

Et  mihi  adhuc  superstes  est  tota  ilia  editio 
prima,  quam  quasi  crepitaculum  per  quod 
dentes  caninos  dentibam  retineo. 


OPERIS   SPECIMEN 

(Ad  exemplum  Johannis  Physiophili  speciminis 
Monachologice.) 

12.  S.  B.    Militaris,  WILBUR.     Carnifex,  JA- 
BLONSK.    Pro/anus,  DBSFONT. 

[Male  hancce  speciem  Cyclopem  Fabricius 
vocat,  ut  qui  singulo  oculo  ad  quod  sui  interest 
distinguitur.  Melius  vero  Isaacus  Outis  nullum 
inter  S.  milit.  S.  que  Belzebul  (Fabric.  152) 
discrimen  esse  defendit.] 

Habitat  civitat.  Amerie.  austral. 

Aureis  lineis  splendidus;  plerumque  tamen 
sordidus,  utpote  lanienas  valde  frequentans, 
fcetore  sanguinis  allectus.  Amat  quoque  in- 
super  septa  apricari,  neque  inde,  nisi  maxima 
conatione  detruditur.  Candidatus  ergo  popu- 
lariter  vocatus.  Caput  cristam  quasi  pennarum 
ostendit.  Pro  cibo  vaccam  publicam  callide 
mulget ;  abdomen  enorme ;  f acultas  suctus 
haud  facile  estimanda.  Otiosus,  f atuus ;  f erox 
nihilominus,  semperque  dimicare  paratus.  Tor- 
tuose  repit. 

Capite  speae  maxima  cum  cura  dissecto,  ne 
illud  rudimentum  etiam  cerebri  commune  omni 
bus  prope  insectis  detegere  poteram. 

Unam  de  hoc  S.  milit.  rem  singularem  notavi ; 
nam  S.  Guineens.  (Fabric.  143)  servos  facit,  et 
idcirco  a  multis  surama  in  reverentia  habitus, 
quasi  scintillas  rationis  pseae  humanse  demon- 
s  trans. 

24.  S.  B.    Criticus,  WILBUR.    Zoilus,  FABRIC. 
Pygmceus,  CARLSEN. 

[Stultissime  Johannes  Stryx  cum  S.  punctato 
(Fabric.  64-109)  confundit.  Specimina  quam- 
plurima  scrutationi  microscopicae  subjeci,  nun- 
quam  tamen  unum  ulla  indicia  ptmcti  cujusvis 
prorsus  ostendentem  inveni.] 

Praecipne  formidolosus,  insectatusque,  in 
proxima  rima  anonyma  sese  abscondit,  toe,  we, 
creberrime  stridens.  Ineptus,  segnipes. 

Habitat  ubique  gentium ;  in  sicco ;  nidum 
suum  terebratione  indefessa  aedificans.  Gibus. 
Libros  depascit ;  siccos  prsecipue. 


MELIBCEUS-HIPPONAX. 


THE 


EDITED, 


WITH    AN     INTRODUCTION,     NOTES, 
GLOSSARY,  AND  COPIOUS  INDEX, 


HOMER  WILBUR,  A.  M., 

PASTOB    OF    THE    FIRST    CHURCH    IN   JAALAM,    AND    (PRO 

SPECTIVE)  MEMBER  OF  MANY  LITERARY,    LEARNED, 
AND  SCIENTIFIC  SOCIETIES, 

(for  which  see  page  173). 

The  ploughman's  whistle,  or  the  trivial  flute, 
Finds  more  respect  than  great  Apollo's  lute. 
Quarles's  Emblems,  B.  ii.  E.  8. 

Margaritas,  munde  porcine,  calcasti  :  en,  siliquas  accipe. 
Joe.  Car.  Fil.  ad  Pub.  Leg.  §  1. 


NOTE  TO  TITLE-PAGE 

IT  will  not  have  escaped  the  attentive  eye, 
that  I  have,  on  the  title-page,  omitted  those 
honorary  appendages  to  the  editorial  name 
which  not  only  add  greatly  to  the  value  of 
every  book,  but  whet  and  exacerbate  the  appe 
tite  of  the  reader.  For  not  only  does  he  sur 
mise  that  an  honorary  membership  of  literary 
and  scientific  societies  implies  a  certain  amount 
of  necessary  distinction  on  the  part  of  the  re 
cipient  of  such  decorations,  but  he  is  willing1 
to  trust  himself  more  entirely  to  an  author 
who  writes  under  the  fearful  responsibility  of 
involving  the  reputation  of  such  bodies  as  the 
S.  Archceol.  Dahom.  or  the  Acad.  Lit.  et  Scient. 
Kamtschat.  I  cannot  but  think  that  the  early 
editions  of  Shakespeare  and  Milton  would 
have  met  with  more  rapid  and  general  accept 
ance,  but  for  the  barrenness  of  their  respec 
tive  title-pages  ;  and  I  believe  that,  even  now, 
a  publisher  of  the  works  of  either  of  those 
justly  distinguished  men  would  find  his  ac 
count  in  procuring  their  admission  to  the 
membership  of  learned  bodies  on  the  Conti 
nent,  —  a  proceeding  no  whit  more  incongru 
ous  than  the  reversal  of  the  judgment  against 
Socrates,  when  he  was  already  more  than 
twenty  centuries  beyond  the  reach  of  anti 
dotes,  and  when  his  memory  had  acquired  a 
deserved  respectability.  I  conceive  that  it  was 
a  feeling  of  the  importance  of  this  precaution 
which  induced  Mr.  Locke  to  style  himself 
"  Gent."  on  the  title-page  of  his  Essay,  as  who 
should  say  to  his  readers  that  they  could  re 
ceive  his  metaphysics  on  the  honor  of  a  gentle- 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


Nevertheless,  finding  that,  without  descend 
ing  to  a  smaller  size  of  type  than  would  have 
been  compatible  with  the  dignity  of  the  sev 
eral  societies  to  be  named,  I  could  not  com 
press  my  intended  list  within  the  limits  of  a 
single  page,  and  thinking,  moreover,  that  the 
act  would  carry  with  it  an  air  of  decorous 
modesty,  I  have  chosen  to  take  the  reader 
aside,  as  it  were,  into  my  private  closet,  and 
there  not  only  exhibit  to  him  the  diplomas 
which  I  already  possess,  but  also  to  furnish 
him  with  a  prophetic  vision  of  those  which  I 
may,  without  undue  presumption,  hope  for,  as 
not  beyond  the  reach  of  human  ambition  and 
attainment.  And  I  am  the  rather  induced  to 
this  from  the  fact  that  my  name  has  been 
unaccountably  dropped  from  the  last  trien 
nial  catalogue  of  our  beloved  Alma  Mater. 
Whether  this  is  to  be  attributed  to  the  diffi 
culty  of  Latinizing  any  of  those  honorary  ad 
juncts  (with  a  complete  list  of  which  I  took 
care  to  furnish  the  proper  persons  nearly  a 
year  beforehand),  or  whether  it  had  its  origin 
in  any  more  culpable  motives,  I  forbear  to 
consider  in  this  place,  the  matter  being  in 
course  of  painful  investigation.  But,  however 
this  may  be,  I  felt  the  omission  the  more 
keenly,  as  I  had,  in  expectation  of  the  new 
catalogue,  enriched  the  library  of  the  Jaalam 
Athenseum  with  the  old  one  then  in  my  posses 
sion,  by  which  means  it  has  come  about  that 
my  children  will  be  deprived  of  a  never-weary 
ing  winter  evening's  amusement  in  looking  out 
the  name  of  their  parent  in  that  distinguished 
roll.  Those  harmless  innocents  had  at  least 
committed  no  but  I  forbear,  having  in 
trusted  my  reflections  and  animadversions  on 
this  painful  topic  to  the  safe-keeping  of  my 
private  diary,  intended  for  posthumous  publi 
cation.  I  state  this  fact  here,  in  order  that 
certain  nameless  individuals,  who  are,  perhaps, 
overmuch  congratulating  themselves  upon  my 
silence,  may  know  that  a  rod  is  in  pickle  which 
the  vigorous  hand  of  a  justly  incensed  posterity 
will  apply  to  their  memories. 

The  careful  reader  will  note  that,  in  the  list 
which  I  have  prepared,  I  have  included  the 
names  of  several  Cisatlantic  societies  to  which 
a  place  is  not  commonly  assigned  in  proces 
sions  of  this  nature.  I  have  ventured  to  do 
this,  not  only  to  encourage  native  ambition 
and  genius,  but  also  because  I  have  never  been 
able  to  perceive  in  what  way  distance  (unless 
we  suppose  them  at  the  end  of  a  lever)  could 
increase  the  weight  of  learned  bodies.  As  far 
as  I  have  been  able  to  extend  my  researches 
among  such  stuffed  specimens  as  occasionally 
reach  America,  I  have  discovered  no  generic 
difference  between  the  antipodal  Fogrum  Ja- 
ponicum  and  the  F.  Americanum  sufficiently 


common  in  our  own  immediate  neighborhood. 
Yet,  with  a  becoming  deference  to  the  popular 
belief  that  distinctions  of  this  sort  are  en 
hanced  in  value  by  every  additional  mile  they 
travel,  I  have  intermixed  the  names  of  some 
tolerably  distant  literary  and  other  associa 
tions  with  the  rest. 

I  add  here,  also,  an  advertisement,  which, 
that  it  may  be  the  more  readily  understood  by 
those  persons  especially  interested  therein,  I 
have  written  in  that  curtailed  and  otherwise 
maltreated  canine  Latin,  to  the  writing  and 
reading  of  which  they  are  accustomed. 


OMNIB.  PEB   TOT.   ORB.  TERRAR.   CATALOG. 
ACADEM.  EDD. 

Minim,  gent,  diplom.  ab  inclytiss.  acad.  vest, 
orans,  vir.  honorand.  operosiss.,  at  soL  ut 
sciat.  quant,  glor.  nom.  meum  (dipl.  fort, 
concess.)  catal.  vest.  temp,  futur.  affer.,  ilL 
subjec.,  addit.  omnib.  titul.  honorar.  qu.  adh. 
non  tant.  opt.  quam  probab.  put. 

*#*  Litt.  Uncial  distinx.  ut  Frees.  S.  Hist. 
Nat.  Jaal. 

HOMERUS  WILBUR,  Mr.,  Episc. 
Jaalam,  S.  T.  D.  1850,  et  Yal.  1849,  et  Neo- 
Caes.  et  Brun.  et  Gulielm.  1852,  et  Gul.  et  Mar. 
et  Bowd.  et  Georgiop.  et  Viridimont.  et  Columb. 
Nov.  Ebor.  1853,  et  Amberst.  et  Watervill. 
et  S.  Jarlath.  Hib.  et  S.  Mar.  et  S.  Joseph, 
et  S.  And.  Scot.  1854,  et  Nashvill.  et  Dart, 
et  Dickins.  et  Concord,  et  Wash,  et  Colum 
bian,  et  Chariest,  et  Jeff,  et  Dubl.  et  Oxon. 
et  Cantab,  et  Cset.  1855,  P.  U.  N.  C.  H.  et 
J.  U.  D.  Gott.  et  Osnab.  et  Heidelb.  I860, 
et  Acad.  BORE  us.  Berolin.  Soc.,  et  SS.  RR. 
Lugd.  Bat.  et  Patav.  et  Lond.  et  Edinb.  et 
Ins.  Feejee.  et  Null.  Terr,  et  Pekin.  Soc. 
Hon.  et  S.  H.  S.  et  S.  P.  A.  et  A.  A.  S.  et 
S.  Hnmb.  Univ.  et  S.  Omn.  Rer.  Quarund. 
q.  Aliar.  Promo v.  Passamaquod.  et  H.  P.  C. 
et  I.  O.  H,  et  A.  A.  4>.  et  II.  K.  P.  et  *. 
B.  K.  et  Peucin.  et  Erosoph.  et  Philadelph. 
et  Frat.  in  Unit,  et  2.  T.  et  S.  Archaeolog. 
Athen.  et  Acad.  Scient.  et  Lit.  Panorm.  et 
SS.  R.  H.  Matrit.  et  Beeloochist.  et  Caffrar. 
et  Caribb.  et  M.  S.  Reg.  Paris,  et  S.  Am. 
Antiserv.  Soc.  Hon.  et  P.  D.  Gott.  et  LL.  D. 
1852,  et  D.  C.  L.  et,  Mus.  Doc.  Oxon.  1860,  et 
M.  M.  S.  S.  et  M.  D.  1854,  et  Med.  Fac.  Univ. 
Harv.  Soc.  et  S.  pro  Convers.  Pollywog.  Soc. 
Hon.  et  Higgl.  Piggl.  et  LL.  B.  1853,  et  S. 
pro  Christianiz.  Moschet.  Soc.  et  SS.  Ante- 
Diluv.  ubiq.  Gent.  Soc.  Hon.  et  Civit.  Cleric. 
Jaalam.  et  S.  pro  Diffus.  General.  Tenebr. 
Secret.  Corr. 


174 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


INTRODUCTION 

WHEN,  more  than  three  years  ago,  my  tal 
ented  young  parishioner,  Mr.  Big-low,  came  to 
me  and  submitted  to  my  animadversions  the 
first  of  his  poems  which  he  intended  to  com 
mit  to  the  more  hazardous  trial  of  a  city  news 
paper,  it  never  so  much  as  entered  my  imagi 
nation  to  conceive  that  his  productions  would 
ever  be  gathered  into  a  fair  volume,  and  ush 
ered  into  the  august  presence  of  the  reading 
public  by  myself.  So  little  are  we  short 
sighted  mortals  able  to  predict  the  event !  I 
confess  that  there  is  to  me  a  quite  new  sat 
isfaction  in  being  associated  (though  only  as 
sleeping  partner)  in  a  book  which  can  stand 
by  itself  in  an  independent  unity  on  the 
shelves  of  libraries.  For  there  is  always  this 
drawback  from  the  pleasure  of  printing  a  ser 
mon,  that,  whereas  the  queasy  stomach  of  this 
generation  will  not  bear  a  discourse  long 
enough  to  make  a  separate  volume,  those  re 
ligious  and  godly-minded  children  (those  Sam 
uels,  if  I  may  call  them  so)  of  the  brain  must 
at  first  lie  buried  in  an  undistinguished  heap, 
and  then  get  such  resurrection  as  is  vouch 
safed  to  them,  mummy-wrapped  with  a  score 
of  others  in  a  cheap  binding,  with  no  other 
mark  of  distinction  than  the  word  "Miscella 
neous  "  printed  upon  the  back.  Far  be  it  from 
me  to  claim  any  credit  for  the  quite  unex 
pected  popularity  which  I  am  pleased  to  find 
these  bucolic  strains  have  attained  unto.  If  I 
know  myself,  I  am  measurably  free  from  the 
itch  of  vanity ;  yet  I  may  be  allowed  to  say 
that  I  was  not  backward  to  recognize  in  them 
a  certain  wild,  puckery,  acidulous  (sometimes 
even  verging  toward  that  point  which,  in  our 
rustic  phrase,  is  termed  shut-eyed)  flavor,  not 
wholly  unpleasing,  nor  unwholesome,  to  pal 
ates  cloyed  with  the  sugariness  of  tamed  and 
cultivated  fruit.  It  may  be,  also,  that  some 
touches  of  my  own,  here  and  there,  may  have 
led  to  their  wider  acceptance,  albeit  solely 
from  my  larger  experience  of  literature  and 
authorship.1 

I  was  at  first  inclined  to  discourage  Mr. 
Biglow's  attempts,  as  knowing  that  the  desire 
to  poetize  is  one  of  the  diseases  naturally  in 
cident  to  adolescence,  which,  if  the  fitting 
remedies  be  not  at  once  and  with  a  bold  hand 
applied,  may  become  chronic,  and  render  one, 
who  might  else  have  become  in  due  time  an 
ornament  of  the  social  circle,  a  painful  object 
even  to  nearest  friends  and  relatives.  But 
thinking,  on  a  further  experience,  that  there 
was  a  germ  of  promise  in  him  which  required 

1  The  reader  curious  in  such  matters  may  refer  (if  he 
can  find  them)  to  A  sermon  prenched  on  the  Anniver- 
tary  of  the  Dark  Day,  An  Artillery  Election  Sermon, 


only  culture  and  the  pulling  up  of  weeds  from 
about  it,  I  thought  it  best  to  set  before  him 
the  acknowledged  examples  of  English  com 
position  in  verse,  and  leave  the  rest  to  natural 
emulation.  With  this  view,  I  accordingly  lent 
him  some  volumes  of  Pope  and  Goldsmith,  to 
the  assiduous  study  of  which  he  promised  to 
devote  his  evenings.  Not  long  afterward,  he 
brought  me  some  verses  written  upon  that 
model,  a  specimen  of  which  I  subjoin,  having 
changed  some  phrases  of  less  elegancy,  and  a 
few  rhymes  objectionable  to  the  cultivated  ear. 
The  poem  consisted  of  childish  reminiscences, 
and  the  sketches  which  follow  will  not  seem 
destitute  of  truth  to  those  whose  fortunate 
education  began  in  a  country  village.  And, 
first,  let  us  hang  up  his  charcoal  portrait  of 
the  school-dame. 

"  Propped  on  the  marsh,  a  dwelling  now,  I  see 
The  humble  school-house  of  my  A,  B,  C, 
Where  well-drilled    urchins,   each  behind  his 

tire, 

Waited  in  ranks  the  wished  command  to  fire, 
Then  all  together,  when  the  signal  came, 
Discharged  their  a-b  abs  against  the  dame. 
Daughter  of  Danaus,  who  could  daily  pour 
In  treacherous  pipkins  her  Pierian  store, 
She,  mid  the  volleyed  learning  firm  and  calm, 
Patted  the  furloughed  ferule  on  her  palm, 
And,  to  our  wonder,  could  divine  at  once 
Who  flashed  the  pan,  and  who  was  downright 

dunce. 

"  There  young  Devotion  learned  to  climb  with 

ease 

The  gnarly  limbs  of  Scripture  family-trees, 
And  he  was  most  commended  and  admired 
Who  soonest  to  the  topmost  twig  perspired  ; 
Each  name  was  called  as  many  various  ways 
As  pleased  the  reader's  ear  on  different  days, 
So  that  the  weather,  or  the  ferule's  stings, 
Colds  in  the  head,  or  fifty  other  things, 
Transformed   the    helpless    Hebrew    thrice    a 

week 

To  guttural  Pequot  or  resounding  Greek, 
The  vibrant  accent  skipping  here  and  there, 
Just  as  it  pleased  invention  or  despair ; 
No  controversial  Hebraist  was  the  Dame  ; 
With  or  without  the  points  pleased  her  the 

same ; 

If  any  tyro  found  a  name  too  tough, 
And    looked    at    her,    pride    furnished    skill 

enough ; 

She  nerved  her  larynx  for  the  desperate  thing, 
And    cleared    the    five-barred    syllables    at  a 

spring. 

"  Ah,  dear  old  times !  there  once  it  was  my  hap, 
Perched  on  a  stool,  to  wear  the  long-eared  cap  ; 
From  books  degraded,  there  I  sat  at  ease, 
A  drone,  the  envy  of  compulsory  bees ; 
Rewards  of  merit,  too,  full  many  a  time, 

A  Discourse  on  the  Late  Eclipse,  Dorcas,  a  Funeral 
Sermon  on  the  Death  of  Madam  Submit  Tidd,  Relict  oj 
the  late  Experience  Tidd,  Esq.,  &c.,  &c. 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


'75 


Each  with  its  woodcut  and  its  moral  rhyme, 
And  pierced  half-dollars  hung  on  ribbons  gay 
About  my  neck  (to  be  restored  next  day) 
I  carried  home,  rewards  as  shining  then 
As  those  that  deck  the  lifelong  pains  of  men, 
More  solid  than  the  redemanded  praise 
With  which  the  world  beribbons  later  days. 


"Ah,   dear  old  times!    how   brightly  ye  re 
turn! 
How,    rubbed    afresh,    your    phosphor    traces 

burn  ! 
The  ramble  sehoolward  through  dewsparkling 

meads, 

The  willow-wands  turned  Cinderella  steeds, 
The  impromptu  pin-bent  hook,   the  deep  re 
morse 
O'er   the  chance-captured  minnow's  inchlong 

corse  ; 

The  pockets,  plethoric  with  marbles  round, 
That  still  a  space  for  ball  and  pegtop  found, 
Nor  satiate  yet,  could  manage  to  confine 
Horsechestnuts,  flagroot,  and  the  kite's  wound 

twine, 

Nay,  like  the  prophet's  carpet  could  take  in, 
Enlarging  still,  the  popgun's  magazine  ; 
The  dinner  carried  in  the  small  tin  pail, 
Shared  with  some  dog,  whose  most  beseeching 

tail 

And  dripping  tongue  and  eager  ears  belied 
The  assumed  indifference  of  canine  pride  ; 
The  caper  homeward,  shortened  if  the  cart 
Of  Neighbor  Pomeroy,  trundling  from  the 

mart, 

O'ertook  me,  —  then,  translated  to  the  seat 
I  praised  the  steed,  how  stanch  he  was  and 

fleet, 

While  the  bluff  farmer,  with  superior  grin, 
Explained  where  horses  should  be  thick,  where 

thin, 

And  warned  me  (joke  he  always  had  in  store) 
To  shun  a  beast  that  four  white  stockings  wore. 
What  a  fine  natural  courtesy  was  his ! 
His  nod  was  pleasure,  and  his  full  bow  bliss  ; 
How  did   his   well-thumbed    hat,  with   ardor 

rapt, 

Its  curve  decorous  to  each  rank  adapt ! 
How  did  it  graduate  with  a  courtly  ease 
The  whole  long  scale  of  social  differences, 
Yet  so  gave  each  his  measure  running  o'er, 
None  thought  his  own  was  less,  his  neighbor's 

more  ; 

The  squire  was  flattered,  and  the  pauper  knew 
Old  times  acknowledged  'neath  the  threadbare 

blue! 

Dropped  at  the  corner  of  the  embowered  lane, 
Whistling  I  wade  the  knee-deep  leaves  again, 
While  eager  Argus,  who  has  missed  all  day 
The  sharer  of  his  condescending  play, 
Comes  leaping  onward  with  a  bark  elate 
And  boisterous  tail  to  greet  me  at  the  gate  ; 
That  I  was  true  in  absence  to  our  love 
Let  the  thick  dog's-ears  in  my  primer  prove." 

I  add  only  one  further  extract,  which  will 
possess  a  melancholy  interest  to  all  such  as 


have  endeavored  to  glean  the  materials  of  rev 
olutionary  history  from  the  lips  of  aged  per 
sons,  who  took  a  part  in  the  actual  making  of 
it,  and,  finding  the  manufacture  profitable, 
continued  the  supply  in  an  adequate  propor 
tion  to  the  demand. 

"  Old  Joe  is  gone,  who  saw  hot  Percy  goad 

His  slow  artillery  up  the  Concord  road, 

A  tale  which  grew  in  wonder,  year  by  year, 

As,  every  time  he  told  it,  Joe  drew  near 

To  the  main  fight,  till,  faded  and  grown  gray, 

The  original  scene  to  bolder  tints  gave  way ; 

Then  Joe  had  heard  the  foe's  scared  double* 

quick 

Beat  on  stove  drum  with  one  uncaptured  stick> 
And,  ere  death  came  the  lengthening  tale  to 

lop, 

Himself  had  fired,  and  seen  a  red-coat  drop; 
Had  Joe  lived  long  enough,  that  scrambling 

fight 
Had  squared  more  nearly  with  his  sense  of 

right. 

And  vanquished  Percy,  to  complete  the  tale, 
Had  hammered  stone  for  life  in  Concord  jail." 


I  do  not  know  that  the  foregoing  extracts 
ought  not  to  be  called  my  own  rather  than  Mr. 
Biglow's,  as,  indeed,  he  maintained  stoutly 
that  my  file  had  left  nothing  of  his  in  them.  I 
should  not,  perhaps,  have  felt  entitled  to  take 
so  great  liberties  with  them,  had  I  not  more 
than  suspected  an  hereditary  vein  of  poetry  in 
myself,  a  very  near  ancestor  having  written  a 
Latin  poem  in  the  Harvard  Gratulatio  on  the 
accession  of  George  the  Third.  Suffice  it  to 
say,  that,  whether  not  satisfied  with  such  lim 
ited  approbation  as  I  could  conscientiously  be 
stow,  or  from  a  sense  of  natural  inaptitude, 
certain  it  is  that  my  young  friend  could  never 
be  induced  to  any  further  essays  in  this  kind. 
He  affirmed  that  it  was  to  him  like  writing 
in  a  foreign  tongue,  —  that  Mr.  Pope's  versifi 
cation  was  like  the  regular  ticking  of  one  of 
Willard's  clocks,  in  which  one  could  fancy, 
after  long  listening,  a  certain  kind  of  rhythm 
or  tune,  but  which  yet  was  only  a  poverty- 
stricken  tick,  tick,  after  all,  —  and  that  he  had 
never  seen  a  sweet-water  on  a  trellis  growing 
so  fairly,  or  in  forms  so  pleasing  to  his  eye,  as 
a  fox-grape  over  a  scrub-oak  in  a  swamp.  He 
added  I  know  not  what,  to  the  effect  that  the 
sweet-water  would  only  be  the  more  disfigured 
by  having  its  leaves  starched  and  ironed  out, 
and  that  Pegasus  (so  he  called  him)  hardly 
looked  right  with  his  mane  and  tail  in  curl 
papers.  These  and  other  such  opinions  I  did 
not  long  strive  to  eradicate,  attributing  them 
rather  to  a  defective  education  and  senses  un 
tuned  by  too  long  familiarity  with  purely  nat 
ural  objects,  than  to  a  perverted  moral  sense. 
I  was  the  more  inclined  to  this  leniency  since 


I76 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


sufficient  evidence  was  not  to  seek,  that  his 
verses,  wanting  as  they  certainly  were  in  classic 
polish  and  point,  had  somehow  taken  hold  of 
the  public  ear  in  a  surprising  manner.  So, 
only  setting  him  right  as  to  the  quantity  of  the 
proper  name  Pegasus,  I  left  him  to  follow  the 
bent  of  his  natural  genius. 

Yet  could  I  not  surrender  him  wholly  to  the 
tutelage  of  the  pagan  (which,  literally  inter 
preted,  signifies  village)  muse  without  yet  a 
further  effort  for  his  conversion,  and  to  this 
end  I  resolved  that  whatever  of  poetic  fire  yet 
burned  in  myself,  aided  by  the  assiduous  bel 
lows  of  correct  models,  should  be  put  in  requi 
sition.  Accordingly,  when  my  ingenious  young 
parishioner  brought  to  my  study  a  copy  of 
verses  which  he  had  written  touching  the  ac 
quisition  of  territory  resulting  from  the  Mexi 
can  war,  and  the  folly  of  leaving  the  question 
of  slavery  or  freedom  to  the  adjudication  of 
chance,  I  did  myself  indite  a  short  fable  or 
apologue  after  the  manner  of  Gay  and  Prior, 
to  the  end  that  he  might  see  how  easily  even 
such  subjects  as  he  treated  of  were  capable  of 
a  more  refined  style  and  more  elegant  expres 
sion.  Mr.  Biglow's  production  was  as  fol 
lows  :  — 


THE  TWO  GUNNERS 

A  FABLE 

Two  fellers,  Isrel  named  and  Joe, 
One  Sundy  mornin'  'greed  to  go 
Agnnnin'  soon  'z  the  bells  wuz  done 
And  meetin'  finally  begun, 
So'st  no  one  would  n't  be  about 
Ther  Sabbath-breakin'  to  spy  out. 

Joe  did  n't  want  to  go  a  mite  ; 

He  felt  ez  though  't  warn't  skeercely  right, 

But,  when  his  doubts  he  went  to  speak  on, 

Isrel  he  up  and  called  him  Deacon, 

An'  kep'  apokin'  fun  like  sin 

An'  then  arubbin'  on  it  in, 

Till  Joe,  less  skeered  o'  doin'  wrong 

Than  bein'  laughed  at,  went  along. 

Past  noontime  they  went  tranrpin'  round 

An'  nary  thing  to  pop  at  found, 

Till,  fairly  tired  o'  their  spree, 

They  leaned  their  guns  agin  a  tree, 

An'  jest  ez  they  wuz  settin'  down 

To  take  their  noonin',  Joe  looked  roun' 

And  see  (acrost  lots  in  a  pond 

That  warn't  mor'n  twenty  rod  beyond) 

A  goose  that  on  the  water  sot 

Ez  ef  awaitin'  to  be  shot. 

Isrel  he  nps  and  grabs  his  gun ; 
Sez  he,  "  By  ginger,  here  's  some  fun  ! " 
Don't  fire,"  sez  .Toe,  "  it  ain't  no  use, 
Thet  's  Deacon  Peleg's  tame  wiP-goose : " 
Sez  Isrel,  "  I  don't  care  a  cent. 


I  Ve  sighted  an'  111  let  her  went ;  " 

Bang  !  went  queen's-arm,  ole  gander  flopped 

His  wings  a  spell,  an'  quorked,  an'  dropped. 

Sez  Joe,  "  I  would  n't  ha'  been  hired 
At  that  poor  critter  to  ha'  fired, 
But  sence  it 's  clean  gin  up  the  ghost, 
We  '11  hev  the  tallest  kind  o1  roast ; 
I  guess  our  waistbands  '11  be  tight 
'Fore  it  comes  ten  o'clock  ternight." 

41  I  won't  agree  to  no  such  bender," 
Sez  Isrel ;  "  keep  it  tell  it 's  tender ; 
'T  aint  wuth  a  snap  afore  it 's  ripe." 
Sez  Joe,  "  I  'd  jest  ez  lives  eat  tripe  ; 
You  air  a  buster  ter  suppose 
I  'd  eat  what  makes  me  hoi'  my  nose  !  " 

So  they  disputed  to  an'  fro 

Till  cunnin'  Isrel  sez  to  Joe, 
il  Don't  le's  stay  here  an'  play  the  fool, 

Le's  wait  till  both  on  us  git  cool, 

Jest  for  a  day  or  two  le's  hide  it, 

An'  then  toss  up  an'  so  decide  it." 
"  Agreed  1  "  sez  Joe,  an'  so  they  did, 

An'  the  ole  goose  wuz  safely  hid. 

Now 't  wuz  the  hottest  kind  o'  weather, 
An'  when  at  last  they  come  together, 
It  did  n't  signify  which  won, 
Fer  all  the  mischief  hed  been  done : 
The  goose  wnz  there,  but,  fer  his  soul, 
Joe  would  n't  ha'  tetched  it  with  a  pole ; 
But  Isrel  kind  p'  liked  the  smell  on 't 
An'  made  his  dinner  very  well  on 't. 

My  own  humble  attempt  was  in  manner  and 
form  following,  and  I  print  it  here,  1  sincerely 
trust,  out  of  no  vainglory,  but  solely  with  the 
hope  of  doing  good. 


LEAVING  THE   MATTER   OPEN 

A    TALE 
BY  HOMER  WILBUR,  A.   M. 

Two  brothers  once,  an  ill-matched  pair, 

Together  dwelt  (no  matter  where), 

To  whom  an  Uncle  Sam,  or  some  one, 

Had  left  a  house  and  farm  in  common. 

The  two  in  principles  and  habits 

Were  different  as  rats  from  rabbits  ; 

Stout  Farmer  North,  with  frugal  care, 

Laid  up  provision  for  his  heir, 

Not  scorning  with  hard  sun-browned  hands 

To  scrape  acquaintance  with  his  lands ; 

Whatever  thing  he  had  to  do 

He  did,  and  made  it  pay  him,  too  ; 

He  sold  his  waste  stone  by  the  pound, 

His  drains  made  water-wheels  spin  round, 

His  ice  in  summer-time  he  sold, 

His  wood  brought  profit  when  't  was  cold, 

He  dug  and  delved  from  morn  till  night. 

Strove  to  make  profit  sqnare  with  right, 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


177 


Lived  on  his  means,  cut  no  great  dash, 
And  paid  his  debts  in  honest  cash. 

On  tother  hand,  his  brother  South 

Lived  very  much  from  hand  to  mouth, 

Played  gentleman,  nursed  dainty  hands, 

Borrowed  North's  money  on  his  lands, 

And  culled  his  morals  and  his  graces 

From  cock-pits,  bar-rooms,  fights,  and  races ; 

His  sole  work  in  the  farming  line 

Was  keeping  droves  of  long-legged  swine, 

Which  brought  great  bothers  and  expenses 

To  North  in  looking  after  fences, 

And,  when  they  happened  to  break  through, 

Cost  him  both  time  and  temper  too, 

For  South  insisted  it  was  plain 

He  ought  to  drive  them  home  again, 

And  North  consented  to  the  work 

Because  he  loved  to  buy  cheap  pork. 

Meanwhile,  South's  swine  increasing  fast. 
His  farm  became  too  small  at  last ; 
So,  having  thought  the  matter  over, 
And  feeling  bound  to  live  in  clover 
And  never  pay  the  clover's  worth, 
He  said  one  day  to  Brother  North :  — 

"  Our  families  are  both  increasing, 
And,  though  we  labor  without  ceasing, 
Our  produce  soon  will  be  too  scant 
To  keep  our  children  out  of  want^; 
They  who  wish  fortune  to  be  lasting 
Must  be  both  prudent  and  forecasting  ; 
We  soon  shall  need  more  land ;  a  lot 
I  know,  that  cheaply  can  be  bo't ; 
You  lend  the  cash,  I  '11  buy  the  acres, 
And  we  '11  be  equally  partakers." 

Poor  North,  whose  Anglo-Saxon  blood 
Gave  him  a  hankering  after  mud, 
Wavered  a  moment,  then  consented, 
And,  when  the  cash  was  paid,  repented  ; 
To  make  the  new  land  worth  a  pin, 
Thought  he,  it  must  be  all  fenced  in, 
For,  if  South's  swine  once  get  the  run  on  't 
No  kind  of  farming  can  be  done  on  't ; 
If  that  don't  suit  the  other  side, 
'T  is  best  we  instantly  divide. 

But  somehow  South  could  ne'er  incline 
This  way  or  that  to  run  the  line, 
And  always  found  some  new  pretence 
'Gainst  setting  the  division  fence  ; 
At  last  he  said :  — 

"  For  peace's  sake, 
Liberal  concessions  I  will  make  ; 
Though  I  believe,  upon  my  soul, 
I  've  a  just  title  to  the  whole, 
I  '11  make  an  offer  which  I  call 
Gen'rous,  — we  '11  have  no  fence  at  all ; 
Then  both  of  us,  whene'er  we  choose, 
Can  take  what  part  we  want  to  use  ; 
If  you  should  chance  to  need  it  first, 
Pick  you  the  best,  I  '11  take  the  worst." 

"  Agreed !  "  cried  North  ;  thought  he,  This  fall 
With  wheat  and  rye  I  '11  sow  it  all ; 


In  that  way  I  shall  get  the  start, 
And  South  may  whistle  for  his  part. 
So  thought,  so  done,  the  field  was  sown, 


Heavens,  what  a  sight !  his  brother's  swine 
Had  asked  themselves  all  out  to  dine  ; 
Such  grunting,  munching,  rooting,  shoving, 
The  soil  seemed  all  alive  and  moving, 
As  for  his  grain,  such  work  they  'd  made  on  't, 
He  could  n't  spy  a  single  blade  on  't. 

Off  in  a  rage  he  rushed  to  South, 
"My    wheat    and    rye" — grief    choked    hia 

month  : 
"  Pray  don't  mind  me,"  said  South,  "  but  plant 

All  of  the  new  land  that  you  want  ;  " 
"  Yes,  but  your  hogs,"  cried  North  ; 

"The  grain 

Won't  hurt  them,"  answered  South  again ; 
"  But  they  destroy  my  crop  ;  " 

"No  doubt ; 

'T  is  fortunate  you  've  found  it  out ; 
Misfortunes  teach,  and  only  they, 
You  must  not  sow  it  in  their  way  ;  " 

"Nay,  you,"   says  North,  "must  keep  them 
out;" 

"  Did  I  create  them  with  a  snout  ?  " 
Asked  South  demurely ;  "  as  agreed, 
The  land  is  open  to  your  seed, 
And  would  you  fain  prevent  my  pigs 
From  running  there  their  harmless  rigs  ? 
God  knows  I  view  this  compromise 
With  not  the  most  approving  eyes  ; 
I  gave  up  my  unquestioned  rights 
For  sake  of  quiet  days  and  nights  ; 
I  offered  then,  you  know  't  is  true, 
To  cut  the  piece  of  land  in  two." 

"  Then  cut  it  now,"  growls  North  ; 

"Abate 

Your  heat,"  says  South,  "'t  is  now  too  late ; 
I  offered  you  the  rocky  corner, 
But  you,  of  your  own  good  the  scorner, 
Refused  to  take  it ;  I  am  sorry  ; 
No  doubt  you  might  have  found  a  quarry, 
Perhaps  a  gold-mine,  for  anght  I  know, 
Containing  heaps  of  native  rhino ; 
You  can't  expect  me  to  resign 
My  rights  "- 

"  But  where,"  quoth  North,  "  are  mine  ?  " 
"  Your  rights,"    says   tother,    "well,    that's 

funny, 
I  bought  the  land  "  — 

"  /  paid  the  money  ;  " 
That,"  answered  South,  "  is  from  the  point, 
The  ownership,  you  '11  grant,  is  joint ; 
I  'm  sure  my  only  hope  and  trust  is 
Not  law  so  much  as  abstract  justice, 
Though,  you  remember,  't  was  agreed 
That  so  and  so —  consult  the  deed  ; 
Objections  now  are  out  of  date, 


i78 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


They  might  have  answered  once,  but  Fate 

Quashes  them  at  the  point  we  've  got  to  ; 

Obsta  principiis,  that 's  my  motto." 

So  saying,  South  began  to  whistle 

And  looked  as  obstinate  as  gristle, 

While  North  went  homeward,  each  brown  paw 

Clenched  like  a  knot  of  natural  law, 

And  all  the  while,  in  either  ear, 

Heard  something  clicking  wondrous  clear. 

To  turn  now  to  other  matters,  there  are  two 
things  upon  which  it  should  seem  fitting  to 
dilate  somewhat  more  largely  in  this  place,  — 
the  Yankee  character  and  the  Yankee  dialect. 
And,  first,  of  the  Yankee  character,  which  has 
wanted  neither  open  maligners,  nor  even  more 
dangerous  enemies  in  the  persons  of  those  un 
skilful  painters  who  have  given  to  it  that  hard 
ness,  angularity,  and  want  of  proper  perspec 
tive,  which,  in  truth,  belonged,  not  to  their 
subject,  but  to  their  own  niggard  and  unskilful 
pencil. 

New  England  was  not  so  much  the  colony  of 
a  mother  country,  as  a  Hagar  driven  forth  into 
the  wilderness.  The  little  self  -  exiled  band 
which  came  hither  in  1620  came,  not  to  seek 
gold,  but  to  found  a  democracy.  They  came 
that  they  might  have  the  privilege  to  work  and 
pray,  to  sit  upon  hard  benches  and  listen  to 
painful  preachers  as  long  as  they  would,  yea. 
even  unto  thirty-seventhly.  if  the  spirit  so  willed 
it.  And  surely,  if  the  Greek  might  boast  his 
Thermopylae,  where  three  hundred  men  fell  in 
resisting  the  Persian,  we  may  well  be  proud  of 
our  Plymouth  Rock,  where  a  handful  of  men, 
women,  and  children  not  merely  faced,  but 
vanquished,  winter,  famine,  the  wilderness,  and 
the  yet  more  invincible  storge  that  drew  them 
back  to  the  green  island  far  away.  These  found 
no  lotus  growing  upon  the  surly  shore,  the 
taste  of  which  could  make  them  forget  their 
little  native  Ithaca ;  nor  were  they  so  wanting  to 
themselves  in  faith  as  to  burn  their  ship,  but 
could  see  the  fair  west-wind  belly  the  homeward 
sail,  and  then  turn  unrepining  to  grapple  with 
the  terrible  Unknown. 

As  Want  was  the  prime  foe  these  hardy  ex- 
odists  had  to  fortress  themselves  against,  so  it 
is  little  wonder  if  that  traditional  feud  be  long 
in  wearing  out  of  the  stock.  The  wounds  of 
the  old  warfare  were  long  a-healing,  and  an  east- 
wind  of  hard  times  puts  a  new  ache  into  every 
one  of  them.  Thrift  was  the  first  lesson  in  their 
horn-book,  pointed  out,  letter  after  letter,  by 
the  lean  finger  of  the  hard  schoolmistress,  Ne 
cessity.  Neither  were  those  plump,  rosy-gilled 
Englishmen  that  came  hither,  but  a  hard-faced, 
atrabilious,  earnest-eyed  race,  stiff  from  long 
wrestling  with  the  Lord  in  prayer,  and  who 
had  taught  Satan  to  dread  the  new  Puritan  hug. 
Add  two  hundred  years'  influence  of  soil,  cli 
mate,  and  exposure,  with  its  necessary  result 


of  idiosyncrasies,  and  we  have  the  present 
Yankee,  full  of  expedients,  half -master  of  all 
trades,  inventive  in  all  but  the  beautiful,  full 
of  shifts,  not  yet  capable  of  comfort,  armed  at 
all  points  against  the  old  enemy  Hunger,  long- 
animous,  good  at  patching,  not  so  careful  for 
what  is  best  as  for  what  will  do,  with  a  clasp 
to  his  purse  and  a  button  to  his  pocket,  not 
skilled  to  build  against  Time,  as  in  old  countries, 
but  against  sore-pressing  Need,  accustomed  to 
move  the  world  with  no  irov  area  but  his  own 
two  feet,  and  no  lever  but  his  own  long  forecast. 
A  strange  hybrid,  indeed,  did  circumstance 
beget,  here  in  the  New  World,  upon  the  old 
Puritan  stock,  and  the  earth  never  before  saw 
such  mystic-practicalism,  such  niggard-gen 
iality,  such  calculating-fanaticism,  such  cast- 
iron-enthusiasm,  such  sour-faced-humor,  such 
close  -  fisted  -  generosity.  This  new  Grceculus 
esuriens  will  make  a  living  out  of  anything. 
He  will  invent  new  trades  as  well  as  tools. 
His  brain  is  his  capital,  and  he  will  get  educa 
tion  at  all  risks.  Put  him  on  Juan  Fernandez, 
and  he  would  make  a  spelling-book  first,  and  a 
salt-pan  afterward.  In  coelum,  jusseris,  ibit,  — 
or  the  other  way  either,  —  it  is  all  one,  so  any 
thing  is  to  be  got  by  it.  Yet,  after  all,  thin, 
speculative  Jonathan  is  more  like  the  English 
man  of  two  centuries  ago  than  John  Bull  him 
self  is.  He  has  lost  somewhat  in  solidity,  has 
become  fluent  and  adaptable,  but  more  of  the 
original  groundwork  of  character  remains.  He 
feels  more  at  home  with  Fulke  Greville,  Her 
bert  of  Cherbury,  Quarles,  George  Herbert, 
and  Browne,  than  with  his  modern  English 
cousins.  He  is  nearer  than  John,  by  at  least 
a  hundred  years,  to  Naseby,  Marston  Moor, 
Worcester,  and  the  time  when,  if  ever,  there 
were  true  Englishmen.  John  Bull  has  suffered 
the  idea  of  the  Invisible  to  be  very  much  fat 
tened  out  of  him.  Jonathan  is  conscious  still 
that  he  lives  in  the  world  of  the  Unseen  as  well 
as  of  the  Seen.  To  move  John  you  must  make 
your  fulcrum  of  solid  beef  and  pudding ;  an 
abstract  idea  will  do  for  Jonathan. 


***  TO  THE  INDULGENT  READER 

MY  friend,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Wilbur,  having  been 
seized  with  a  dangerous  fit  of  illness,  before  this 
Introduction  had  passed  through  the  press,  and 
being  incapacitated  for  all  literary  exertion,  sent 
to  me  his  notes,  memoranda,  &c.,  and  requested 
me  to  fashion  them  into  some  shape  more  fitting 
for  the  general  eye.  This,  owing  to  the  frag 
mentary  and  disjointed  state  of  his  manuscripts, 
I  have  felt  wholly  unable  to  do  ;  yet  being  un 
willing  that  the  reader  should  be  deprived  of  such 
parts  of  his  lucubrations  as  seemed  more  finished, 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


179 


and  not  well  discerning  how  to  segregate  these 
from  the  rest,  I  have  concluded  to  send  them 
all  to  the  press  precisely  as  they  are. 

COLUMBUS  NYE, 
Pastor  of  a  Church  in  Bungtown  Corner. 

It  remains  to  speak  of  the  Yankee  dialect. 
And,  first,  it  may  be  premised,  in  a  general 
way,  that  any  one  much  read  in  the  writings  of 
the  early  colonists  need  not  be  told  that  the 
far  greater  share  of  the  words  and  phrases  now 
esteemed  peculiar  to  New  England,  and  local 
there,  were  brought  from  the  mother  country. 
A  person  familiar  with  the  dialect  of  certain 
portions  of  Massachusetts  will  not  fail  to  re 
cognize,  in  ordinary  discourse,  many  words  now 
noted  in  English  vocabularies  as  archaic,  the 
greater  part  of  which  were  in  common  use  about 
the  time  of  the  King  James  translation  of  the 
Bible.  Shakespeare  stands  less  in  need  of  a 
glossary  to  most  New-Englanders  than  to  many 
a  native  of  the  Old  Country.  The  peculiarities 
of  our  speech,  however,  are  rapidly  wearing  out. 
As  there  is  no  country  where  reading  is  so  uni 
versal  and  newspapers  are  so  multitudinous,  so 
no  phrase  remains  long  local,  but  is  transplanted 
in  the  mail-bags  to  every  remotest  corner  of 
the  land.  Consequently  our  dialect  approaches 
nearer  to  uniformity  than  that  of  any  other 
nation. 

The  English  have  complained  of  us  for  coin 
ing  new  words.  Many  of  those  so  stigmatized 
were  old  ones  by  them  forgotten,  and  all  make 
now  an  unquestioned  part  of  the  currency, 
wherever  English  is  spoken.  Undoubtedly,  we 
have  a  right  to  make  new  words,  as  they  are 
needed  by  the  fresh  aspects  under  which  life 
presents  itself  here  in  the  New  World ;  and, 
indeed,  wherever  a  language  is  alive,  it  grows. 
It  might  be  questioned  whether  we  could  not 
establish  a  stronger  title  to  the  ownership  of 
the  English  tongue  than  the  mother-islanders 
themselves.  Here,  past  all  question,  is  to  be 
its  great  home  and  centre.  And  not  only  is  it 
already  spoken  here  by  greater  numbers,  but 
with  a  far  higher  popular  average  of  correct 
ness  than  in  Britain.  The  great  writers  of  it, 
too,  we  might  claim  as  ours,  were  ownership 
to  be  settled  by  the  number  of  readers  and 
lovers. 

As  regards  the  provincialisms  to  be  met 
with  in  this  volume,  I  may  say  that  the  reader 
will  not  find  one  which  is  not  (as  I  believe) 
either  native  or  imported  with  the  early  set 
tlers,  nor  one  which  I  have  not,  with  my  own 
ears,  heard  in  familiar  use.  In  the  metrical 
portion  of  the  book,  I  have  endeavored  to 
adapt  the  spelling  as  nearly  as  possible  to  the 
ordinary  mode  of  pronunciation.  Let  the  read 
er  who  deems  me  over-particular  remember 
this  caution  of  Martial :  — 


"  Quern  recitas,  meus  est,  O  Fidentine,  libellus; 
Sed  male  cum  recitas,  incipit  essetuus." 

A  few  further  explanatory  remarks  will  not 
be  impertinent. 

I  shall  barely  lay  down  a  few  general  rules 
for  the  reader's  guidance. 

1.  The   genuine   Yankee    never    gives    the 
rough  sound  to  the  r  when  he  can  help  it,  and 
often  displays  considerable  ingenuity  in  avoid 
ing  it  even  before  a  vowel. 

2.  He  seldom  sounds  the  final  g,  a  piece  of 
self-denial,   if    we    consider   his   partiality  for 
nasals.     The  same  of  the  final  d,  as  /tan'  and 
stan1  for  hand  and  stand. 

o.  The  h  in  such  words  as  while,  when,  where, 
he  omits  altogether. 

4.  In  regard  to  a,  he  shows  some  inconsis 
tency,  sometimes  giving  a  close  and   obscure 
sound,  as  hev  for  have,  hendy  for  handy,  ez  for 
as,  thet  for  that,  and  again  giving  it  the  broad 
sound  it  has  in  father,  as  hansome  for  hand 
some. 

5.  To  the  sound  ou  he  prefixes  an  e  (hard  to 
exemplify  otherwise  than  orally). 

The  following  passage  in  Shakespeare  he 
would  recite  thus  :  — 

"  Neow  is  the  winta  uv  eour  discontent 

Med  glorious  summa  by  this  sun  o'  Yock, 

An'  all  the  cleouds  thet  leowered  upun  eour 

heouse 

In  the  deep  buzzum  o'  the  oshin  buried  ; 
Neow  air  eour  breows  beound   'ith  victorious 

wreaths ; 

Eour  breused  arms  hung  up  f  er  monimunce  ; 
Eour  starn  alarums  changed  to  merry  meetins, 
Eour  dreffle  marches  to  delighfle  masures. 
Grim-visaged  war  heth  smeuthed  his  wrinkled 

front, 

An'  neow,  instid  o'  mountin'  barebid  steeds 
To  fright  the  souls  o'  ferfle  edverseries, 
He  capers  nimly  in  a  lady's  chamber, 
To  the  lascivious  pleasin'  uv  a  loot." 

6.  Au,  in  such  words  as  daughter  and  slaugh 
ter,  he  pronounces  ah. 

7.  To  the  dish  thus  seasoned  add  a  drawl  ad 

libitum. 

[Mr.  Wilbur's  notes  here  become  entirely  fragmen 
tary.— C.  N.j 

a.  Unable  to  procure  a  likeness  of  Mr.  Big- 
low,  I  thought  the  curious  reader  might  be 
gratified  with  a  sight  of  the  editorial  effigies. 
And  here  a  choice  between  two  was  offered, — 
the  one  a  profile  (entirely  black)  cut  by  Doyle, 
the  other  a  portrait  painted  by  a  native  artist 
of  much  promise.  The  first  of  these  seemed 
wanting  in  expression,  and  in  the  second  a 
slight  obliquity  of  the  visual  organs  has  been 
heightened  (perhaps  from  an  over-desire  of 
force  on  the  part  of  the  artist)  into  too  close 


i8o 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


an  approach  to  actual  strabismus.  This  slight 
divergence  in  nay  optical  apparatus  from  the 
ordinary  model  —  however  I  may  have  been 
taught  to  regard  it  in  the  light  of  a  mercy 
rather  than  a  cross,  since  it  enabled  me  to  give 
as  much  of  directness  and  personal  application 
to  my  discourses  as  met  the  wants  of  my  con 
gregation,  without  risk  of  offending  any  by 
being  supposed  to  have  him  or  her  in  my  eye 
(as  the  saying  is)  —  seemed  yet  to  Mrs.  Wil 
bur  a  sufficient  objection  to  the  engraving  of 
the  aforesaid  painting.  We  read  of  many  who 
either  absolutely  refused  to  allow  the  copying 
of  their  features,  as  especially  did  Plotinus  and 
Agesilaus  among  the  ancients,  not  to  mention 
the  more  modern  instances  of  Scioppius,  Palse- 
ottus,  Pinellus,  Velserus,  Gataker,  and  others, 
or  were  indifferent  thereto,  as  Cromwell. 

)8.  Yet  was  Caesar  desirous  of  concealing  his 
baldness.  Per  contra,  my  Lord  Protector's 
carefulness  in  the  matter  of  his  wart  might  be 
cited.  Men  generally  more  desirous  of  being 
improved  in  their  portraits  than  characters. 
Shall  probably  find  very  unflattered  likenesses 
of  ourselves  in  Recording  Angel's  gallery. 

7.  Whether  any  of  our  national  peculiarities 
may  be  traced  to  our  use  of  stoves,  as  a  certain 
closeness  of  the  lips  in   pronunciation,  and  a 
smothered   smoulderingness  of  disposition  sel 
dom  roused  to  open  flame  ?     An  unrestrained 
intercourse   with   fire    probably   conducive  to 
generosity  and   hospitality   of  soul.     Ancient 
Mexicans  used  stoves,   as   the   friar  Augustin 
Ruiz  reports,  Hakluyt,  III.  468,  —  but  Popish 
priests  not  always  reliable  authority. 

To-day  picked  my  Isabella  grapes.  Crop 
injured  by  attacks  of  rose-bug  in  the  spring. 
Whether  Noah  was  justifiable  in  preserving 
this  class  of  insects  ? 

8.  Concerning  Mr.  Biglow's  pedigree.     Tol 
erably  certain   that   there    was   never   a   poet 
among   his   ancestors.       An    ordination   hymn 
attributed  to  a  maternal  uncle,  but  perhaps  a 
sort  of  production  not  demanding  the  creative 
faculty. 

His  grandfather  a  painter  of  the  grandiose 
or  Michael  Angelo  school.  Seldom  painted  ob 
jects  smaller  than  houses  or  barns,  and  these 
with  uncommon  expression. 

f.  Of  the  Wilburs  no  complete  pedigree. 
The  crest  said  to  be  a  wild  boar,  whence,  per 
haps,  the  name.  (?)  A  connection  with  the 
Earls  of  Wilbraham  (quasi  wild  boar  ham) 
misrht  be  made  out.  This  suggestion  worth 
following  up.  In  1677,  John  W.  m.  Expect 

,  had  issue,  1.  John,  2.  Haggai,  3.  Expect, 

4.  Ruhamah.  5.  Desire. 


'  Hear  lyes  y*  bodye  of  Mrs  Expect  Wilber, 
Ye  crewell  salvages  they  kil'd  her 
Together  wth  other  Christian  soles  eleaven, 
October  y«  ix  daye,  1707. 
Ye  stream  of  Jordan  sh'  as  crost  ore 
And  now  expeacts  me  on  y«  other  shore : 
I  live  in  hope  her  soon  to  join ; 
Her  earthlye  yeeres  were  forty  and  nine." 
From  Gi-avestone  in  Pekussett,  North  Parish. 

This  is  unquestionably  the  same  John  who 
afterward  (1711)  married  Tabitha  Hagg  or 
Ragg. 

But  if  this  were  the  case,  she  seems  to  have 
died  early  ;  for  only  three  years  after,  namely, 
1714,  we  have  evidence  that  he  married  Wini 
fred,  daughter  of  Lieutenant  Tipping. 

He  seems  to  have  been  a  man  of  substance. 
for  we  find  him  in  1696  conveying  *'  one  un* 
divided  eightieth  part  of  a  salt-meadow"  in 
Yabbok,  and  he  commanded  a  sloop  in  1702. 

Those  who  doubt  the  importance  of  genea 
logical  studies/Mste  potius  quam  argumento  erU' 
diendi. 

I  trace  him  as  far  as  1723,  and  there  lose 
him.  In  that  year  he  was  chosen  selectman. 

No  gravestone.  Perhaps  overthrown  when 
new  hearse-house  was  built,  1802. 

He  was  probably  the  son  of  John,  who  came 
from  Bilham  Comit.  Salop,  circa  1642. 

This  first  John  was  a  man  of  considerable 
importance,  being  twice  mentioned  with  the 
honorable  prefix  of  Mr.  in  the  town  records. 
Name  spelt  with  two  /-s. 

"  Hear  lyeth  ye  bod  [stone  unhappily  broken.'] 
Mr.  Ihon  Willber  [Esq.]     [/  inclose  this  in 
brackets   as    doubtful.     To  me    it   seems 
clear.] 

Ob' t  die  [illegible;  looks  like  xviii.]  ....  Hi 
[prob.  1693.] 

paynt 

deseased  seinte : 

A  friend  and  [fath]er  nntoe  all  y"  opreast, 
Hee  gave  ye  wicked  familists  noe  reast, 
When  Sat  [an  bTjewe  his  Antinomian  blaste, 
Wee  clong  to  TWillber  as  a  steadf]ast  maste. 
[A]  gaynst  ye  horrid  Qua[kers] " 

It  is  greatly  to  be  lamented  that  this  curious 
epitaph  is  mutilated.  It  is  said  that  the  sacri 
legious  British  soldiers  made  a  target  of  the 
stone  during  the  war  of  Independence.  How 
odious  an  animosity  which  pauses  not  at  the 
grave !  How  brutal  that  which  spares  not 
the  monuments  of  authentic  history !  This  is 
not  improbably  from  the  pen  of  Rev.  Moody 
Pyram,  who  is  mentioned  by  Hubbard  as  hav 
ing  been  noted  for  a  silver  vein  of  poetry.  If 
his  papers  be  still  extant,  a  copy  might  possi 
bly  be  recovered. 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


181 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 

No.  I 
A    LETTER 

FROM  MR.  EZEKIEL  BIGLOW  OF  JAALAM 
TO  THE  HON.  JOSEPH  T.  BUCKINGHAM, 
EDITOR  OF  THE  BOSTON  COURIER,  IN 
CLOSING  A  POEM  OF  HIS  SON,  MR. 
HOSEA  BIGLOW 

JAYLEM,  June  1846. 

MISTER  EDDYTER  :  —  Our  Hosea  wuz 
down  to  Boston  last  week,  and  he  see  a 
cruetin  Sarjimt  a  struttin  round  as  popler 
as  a  hen  with  1  chicking,  with  2  fellers  a 
drummin  and  fifin  arter  him  like  all  nater. 
the  sarjunt  he  thout  Hosea  hed  n't  gut  his 
i  teeth  cut  cos  he  looked  a  kindo  's  though 
he  M  jest  com  down,  so  he  caFlated  to  hook 
him  in,  but  Hosy  wood  n't  take  none  o'  his 
sarse  for  all  he  hed  much  as  20  Rooster's 
tales  stuck  onto  his  hat  and  eenamost  enuf 
brass  a  bobbin  up  and  down  on  his  shoul 
ders  and  figureed  onto  his  coat  and  trousis, 
let  alone  wut  nater  hed  sot  in  his  featers, 
to  make  a  6  pounder  out  on. 

wal,  Hosea  he  com  home  considerabal 
riled,  and  arter  I'd  gone  to  bed  I  heern 
Him  a  thrashin  round  like  a  short-tailed 
Bull  in  fli-time.  The  old  Woman  ses  she 
to  me  ses  she,  Zekle,  ses  she,  our  Hosee  's 
gut  the  chollery  or  suthin  anuther  ses  she, 
don't  you  Bee  skeered,  ses  I,  he  's  oney 
amakin  pottery  *  ses  i,  he  's  oilers  on  hand 
at  that  ere  busynes  like  Da  &  martin,  and 
shureenuf,  cum  mornin,  Hosyhe  cum  down 
stares  full  chizzle,  hare  on  eend  and  cote 
tales  flyin,  and  sot  rite  of  to  go  reed  his 
varses  to  Parson  Wilbur  bein  he  haint  aney 
grate  shows  o'  book  larnin  himself,  bimeby 
he  cum  back  and  sed  the  parson  wuz  dreffle 
tickled  with  'em  as  i  hoop  you  will  Be,  and 
said  they  wuz  True  grit. 

Hosea  ses  taint  hardly  fair  to  call  'em 
hisn  now,  cos  the  parson  kind  o'  slicked  off 
sum  o'  the  last  varses,  but  he  told  Hosee 
he  did  n't  want  to  put  his  ore  in  to  tetch  to 
the  Rest  on  'em,  bein  they  wuz  verry  well 
As  thay  wuz,  and  then  Hosy  ses  he  sed 
suthin  a  nuther  about  Simplex  Mundishes 
or  sum  sech  feller,  but  I  guess  Hosea  kind 
o*  did  n't  hear  him,  for  I  never  hearn  o' 
uobody  o'  that  name  in  this  villadge,  and 

1  Autinsanit,  out  versos  facit.  —H.  W. 


I  've  lived  here  man  and  boy  76  year  cum 
next  tater  diggin,  and  thair  aint  no  wheres 
a  kitting  spryer  'n  I  be. 

If  you  print  'em  I  wish  you  M  jest  let 
folks  know  who  hosy's  father  is,  cos  my  ant 
Keziah  used  to  say  it 's  nater  to  be  curus 
ses  she,  she  aint  livin  though  and  he  's 
a  likely  kind  o'  lad. 

EZEKIEL  BIGLOW. 


THRASH  away,  you  '11  hev  to  rattle 

On  them  kittle-drums  o'  yourn,  — 
'Taint  a  knowin'  kind  o'  cattle 

Thet  is  ketched  with  mouldy  corn  ; 
Put  in  stiff,  you  fifer  feller, 

Let  folks  see  how  spry  you  be,  — 
Guess  you  '11  toot  till  you  are  yeller 

'Fore  you  git  ahold  o'  me  ! 

Thet  air  flag  's  a  leetle  rotten, 

Hope  it  aint  your  Sunday's  best;  — 
Fact !  it  takes  a  sight  o'  cotton 

To  stuff  out  a  soger's  chest: 
Sence  we  farmers  hev  to  pay  fer  't, 

Ef  you  must  wear  humps  like  these, 
S'posin'  you  should  try  salt  hay  fer  't, 

It  would  du  ez  slick  ez  grease. 

'T  would  n't  suit  them  Southun  fellers, 

They  're  a  dreffle  graspin'  set, 
We  must  oilers  blow  the  bellers 

Wen  they  want  their  irons  het; 
May  be  it  's  all  right  ez  preachin', 

But  my  narves  it  kind  o'  grates, 
Wen  I  see  the  overreachin' 

O'  them  nigger-drivin'  States. 

Them  thet  rule  us,  them  slave-traders 

Haint  they  cut  a  thunderin'  swarth 
(Helped  by  Yankee  renegaders), 

Thru  the  vartu  o'  the  North  ! 
We  begin  to  think  it  's  nater 

To  take  sarse  an'  not  be  riled;  — 
Who  'd  expect  to  see  a  tater 

All  on  eend  at  bein'  biled  ? 

Ez  fer  war,  I  call  it  murder,  — 

There  you  hev  it  plain  an'  flat; 
I  don't  want  to  go  no  f  urder 

Thau  my  Testyment  fer  that; 
God  hez  sed  so  plump  an'  fairly, 

It  's  ez  long  ez  it  is  broad, 
An'  you  've  gut  to  git  up  airly 

Ef  you  want  to  take  in  God. 


182 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


'Taint  your  eppyletts  an'  feathers 

Make  the  thing  a  grain  more  right; 
'Taint  afollerin'  your  bell-wethers 

Will  excuse  ye  in  His  sight; 
Ef  you  take  a  sword  an'  dror  it, 

An'  go  stick  a  feller  thru, 
Guv'ment  aint  to  answer  for  it, 

God  '11  send  the  bill  to  you. 

Wut  's  the  use  o'  meetin'-goin' 

Every  Sabbath,  wet  or  dry, 
Ef  it  's  right  to  go  amowiii' 

Feller-men  like  oats  an'  rye  ? 
I  dunno  but  wut  it  's  pooty 

Trainin'  round  in  bobtail  coats,  — 
But  it  's  curus  Christian  dooty 

This  'ere  cuttin'  folks's  throats. 

They  may  talk  o'  Freedom's  airy 

Tell  they  're  pupple  in  the  face,  — 
It  's  a  grand  gret  cemetary 

Fer  the  barthrights  of  our  race; 
They  jest  want  this  Californy 

So  's  to  lug  new  slave-states  in 
To  abuse  ye,  an'  to  scorn  ye, 

An'  to  plunder  ye  like  sin. 

Aint  it  cute  to  see  a  Yankee 

Take  sech  everlastin'  pains, 
All  to  get  the  Devil's  thankee 

Helpin'  on  'em  weld  their  chains  ? 
Wy,  it  's  jest  ez  clear  ez  figgers, 

Clear  ez  one  an'  one  make  two, 
Chaps  thet  make  black  slaves  o'  niggers 

Want  to  make  wite  slaves  o'  you. 

Tell  ye  jest  the  eend  I  've  come  to 

Arter  cipherin'  plaguy  smart, 
An'  it  makes  a  handy  sum,  tu, 

Any  gump  could  larn  by  heart; 
Laborin'  man  an'  laborin'  woman 

Hev  one  glory  an'  one  shame. 
Ev'y  thin'  thet  's  done  inhuman 

Injers  all  on  'em  the  same. 

'Taint  by  turnin*  out  to  hack  folks 

You  're  agoin'  to  git  your  right, 
Nor  by  lookin'  down  on  black  folks 

Coz  you  're  put  upon  by  wite; 
Slavery  aint  o'  nary  color, 

'Taint  the  hide  thet  makes  it  wus, 
All  it  keers  fer  in  a  feller 

'S  jest  to  make  him  fill  its  pus. 


Want  to  tackle  me  in,  du  ye  ? 

I  expect  you  '11  hev  to  wait ; 
Wen  cold  lead  puts  daylight  thru  ye 

You  '11  begin  to  kal'late ; 
S'pose  the  crows  wun't  fall  to  pickin' 

All  the  carkiss  from  your  bones, 
Coz  you  helped  to  give  a  lickin' 

To  them  poor  half-Spanish  drones  ? 

Jest  go  home  an'  ask  our  Nancy 

Wether  I  'd  be  sech  a  goose 
Ez  to  jine  ye,  —  guess  you  'd  fancy 

The  etarnal  bung  wuz  loose  ! 
She  wants  me  fer  home  consumption, 

Let  alone  the  hay  's  to  mow,  — 
Ef  you  're  arter  folks  o'  gumption, 

You  've  a  darned  long  row  to  hoe. 

Take  them  editors  thet  's  crowin' 

Like  a  cockerel  three  months  old,  — 
Don't  ketch  any  on  'em  goin', 

Though  they  be  so  blasted  bold; 
Aint  they  a  prime  lot  o'  fellers  ? 

'Fore   they   think   on  't    guess    they  II 

sprout 
(Like  a  peach  thet  's  got  the  yellers), 

With  the  meanness  bustin'  out. 

Wai,  go  'long  to  help  'em  stealin' 

Bigger  pens  to  cram  with  slaves, 
Help  the  men  thet  's  oilers  dealin' 

Insults  on  your  fathers'  graves; 
Help  the  strong  to  grind  the  feeble, 

Help  the  many  agin  the  few, 
Help  the  men  thet  call  your  people 

Witewashed  slaves  an'  peddlin'  crew  I 

Massachusetts,  God  forgive  her, 

She  's  akneelin'  with  the  rest, 
She,  thet  ough'  to  ha'  clung  ferever 

In  her  grand  old  eagle-nest; 
She  thet  ough'  to  stand  so  fearless 

Wile  the  wracks  are  round  her  hurled. 
Holdin'  up  a  beacon  peerless 

To  the  oppressed  of  all  the  world  ! 

Ha'n't  they  sold  your  colored  seamen  ? 

Ha'n't  they  made  your  env'ys  w'iz  ? 
Wut  '11  make  ye  act  like  freemen  ? 

Wut  '11  git  your  dander  riz  ? 

Come,  I  '11  tell  ye  wut  I  'm  thinkin' 

Is  our  dooty  in  this  fix, 
They  'd  ha'  done  't  ez  quick  ez  winkinr 

In  the  days  o'  seventy-six. 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


183 


Clang  the  bells  in  every  steeple, 

Call  all  true  men  to  disown 
The  tradoocers  of  our  people, 

The  enslavers  o'  their  own; 
Let  our  dear  old  Bay  State  proudly 

Put  the  trumpet  to  her  mouth, 
Let  her  ring  this  messidge  loudly 

In  the  ears  of  all  the  (South :  — 

"  I  '11  return  ye  good  fer  evil 

Much  ez  we  frail  mortils  can, 
But  I  wun't  go  help  the  Devil 

Makin'  man  the  cus  o'  man; 
Call  me  coward,  call  me  traiter, 

Jest  ez  suits  your  mean  idees,  — 
Here  I  stand  a  tyrant-hater, 

An'  the  friend  o'  God  an'  Peace!  " 

Ef  I  'd  my  way  I  hed  ruther 

We  should  go  to  work  an'  part, 
They  take  one  way,  we  take  t'  other, 

Guess  it  would  n't  break  my  heart; 
Man  hed  ough'  to  put  asunder 

Them  thet  God  has  noways  jined; 
An'  I  should  n't  gretly  wonder 

Ef  there  's  thousands  o'  my  mind. 

[The  first  recruiting-  sergeant  on  record  I 
conceive  to  have  been  that  individual  who  is 
mentioned  in  the  Book  of  Job  as  going  to  and 
fro  in  the  earth,  and  walking  up  and  dotvn  in  it. 
Bishop  Latimer  \vill  have  him  to  have  been  a 
bishop,  but  to  me  that  other  calling1  would  ap 
pear  more  congenial.  The  sect  of  Cainites  is 
not  yet  extinct,  who  esteemed  the  first-born  of 
Adam  to  be  the  most  worthy,  not  only  because 
of  that  privilege  of  primogeniture,  but  inasmuch 
as  he  was  able  to  overcome  and  slay  his  younger 
brother.  That  was  a  wise  saying  of  the  famous 
Marquis  Pescara  to  the  Papal  Legate,  that  it 
was  impossible  for  men  to  serve  Mars  and  Christ 
at  the  same  time.  Yet  in  time  past  the  profession 
of  arms  was  judged  to  be  /COT'  Qoxfiv  that  of  a 
gentleman,  nor  does  this  opinion  want  for  stren 
uous  upholders  even  in  our  day.  Must  we  sup 
pose,  then,  that  the  profession  of  Christianity 
was  only  intended  for  losels,  or,  at  best,  to 
afford  an  opening  for  plebeian  ambition  ?  Or 
shall  we  hold  with  that  nicely  metaphysical 
Pomeranian,  Captain  Vratz,  who  was  Count 
Konigsmark's  chief  instrument  in  the  murder 
of  Mr.  Thynne,  that  the  Scheme  of  Salvation 
has  been  arranged  with  an  especial  eye  to  the 
necessities  of  the  upper  classes,  and  that  "  God 
would  consider  a  gentleman  and  deal  with  him 
suitably  to  the  condition  and  profession  he  had 
placed  him  in "  ?  It  may  be  said  of  us  all, 
Exemploplus  quam  ratione  vivimus.  —  H.  W.] 


No.  II 
A  LETTER 

FROM  MR.  HOSEA  BIGLOW  TO  THE  HON.  J. 
T.  BUCKINGHAM,  EDITOR  OF  THE  BOS 
TON  COURIER,  COVERING  A  LETTER 
FROM  MR.  B.  SAWIN,  PRIVATE  IN  THE 
MASSACHUSETTS  REGIMENT 

[THIS  letter  of  Mr.  Sawin's  was  not  origi 
nally  written  in  verse.  Mr.  Biglow,  thinking  it 
peculiarly  susceptible  of  metrical  adornment, 
translated  it,  so  to  speak,  into  his  own  vernacu 
lar  tongue.  This  is  not  the  time  to  consider 
the  question,  whether  rhyme  be  a  mode  of  ex 
pression  natural  to  the  human  race.  If  leisure 
from  other  and  more  important  avocations  be 
granted,  I  will  handle  the  matter  more  at  large 
in  an  appendix  to  the  present  volume.  In  this 
place  I  will  barely  remark,  that  I  have  some 
times  noticed  in  the  unlanguaged  prattlings  of 
infants  a  fondness  for  alliteration,  assonance, 
and  even  rhyme,  in  which  natural  predisposition 
we  may  trace  the  three  degrees  through  which 
our  Anglo-Saxon  verse  rose  to  its  culmination 
in  the  poetry  of  Pope.  I  would  not  be  under 
stood  as  questioning  in  these  remarks  that  pious 
theory  which  supposes  that  children,  if  left 
entirely  to  themselves,  would  naturally  dis 
course  in  Hebrew.  For  this  the  authority  of 
one  experiment  is  claimed,  and  I  could,  with 
Sir  Thomas  Browne,  desire  its  establishment, 
inasmuch  as  the  acquirement  of  that  sacred 
tongue  would  thereby  be  facilitated.  lam  aware 
that  Herodotus  states  the  conclusion  of  Psam- 
meticus  to  have  been  in  favor  of  a  dialect  of 
the  Phrygian.  But,  beside  the  chance  that  a 
trial  of  this  importance  would  hardly  be  blessed 
to  a  Pagan  monarch  whose  only  motive  was 
curiosity,  we  have  on  the  Hebrew  side  the 
comparatively  recent  investigation  of  James 
the  Fourth  of  Scotland.  I  will  add  to  this  pre 
fatory  remark,  that  Mr.  Sawin,  though  a  native 
of  Jaalam,  has  never  been  a  stated  attendant 
on  the  religious  exercises  of  my  congregation. 
I  consider  my  humble  efforts  prospered  in  that 
not  one  of  my  sheep  hath  ever  indued  the  wolf's 
clothing  of  war,  save  for  the  comparatively 
innocent  diversion  of  a  militia  training.  Not 
that  my  flock  are  backward  to  undergo  the 
hardships  of  defensive  warfare.  They  serve 
cheerfully  in  the  great  army  which  fights,  even 
unto  death  pro  aris  et  focis,  accoutred  with  the 
spade,  the  axe,  the  plane,  the  sledge,  the  spell 
ing-book,  and  other  such  effectual  weapons 
against  want  and  ignorance  and  unthrift.  I 
have  taught  them  (under  God)  to  esteem  our 
human  institutions  as  but  tents  of  a  night,  to 
be  stricken  whenever  Truth  puts  the  bugle  to 


i84 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


her  lips  and  sounds  a  march  to  the  heights  of 
wider-viewed  intelligence  and  more  perfect 
organization.  —  H.  W.J 

MISTER  BUCKINUM,  the  follerin  Billet 
was  writ  hum  by  a  Yung  feller  of  our  town 
that  wuz  cussed  fool  enuff  to  goe  atrottin 
inter  Miss  Chiff  arter  a  Drum  and  fife,  it 
ain't  Nater  for  a  feller  to  let  on  that  he  's 
sick  o'  any  bizness  that  He  went  intu  off 
his  own  free  will  and  a  Cord,  but  I  rather 
caPlate  he  's  middlin  tired  o'  voluntearin 
By  this  Time.  I  bleeve  u  may  put  depend- 
unts  on  his  statemence.  For  I  never  heered 
nothin  bad  on  him  let  Alone  his  havin  what 
Parson  Wilbur  cals  a  pong  shong  for  cock- 
tales,  and  he  ses  it  wuz  a  soshiashun  of  idees 
sot  him  agoin  arter  the  Crootin  Sargient 
cos  he  wore  a  cocktale  onto  his  hat. 

his  Folks  gin  the  letter  to  me  and  i  shew 
it  to  parson  Wilbur  and  he  ses  it  oughter 
Bee  printed,  send  It  to  mister  Buckinum, 
ses  he,  i  don't  oilers  agree  with  him,  ses  he, 
but  by  Time,1  ses  he,  I  du  like  a  feller  that 
aint  a  Feared. 

I  have  intusspussed  a  Few  refleckshuns 
hear  and  thair.  We  're  kind  o'  prest  with 
Hayin. 

Ewers  respecfly 

HOSEA  BIGLOW. 

THIS  kind  o'  sogerin'  aint  a  mite  like  our 

October  trainin', 
A  chap  could  clear  right  out  from  there  ef 

't  only  looked  like  rainin', 
An'  th'  Gunnies,  tu,  could  kiver  up  their 

shappoes  with  bandanners, 
An'  send  the   insines  skootin'  to  the   bar 
room  with  their  banners 
(Fear  o'  gittin'  on  'em  spotted),  an'  a  feller 

could  cry  quarter 
Ef  he  fired  away  his  ramrod  arter  tu  much 

rum  an'  water. 
Recollect  wut  fun  we  hed,  you  'n'   I   an' 

Ezry  Hollis, 
Up  there  to  Waltham  plain  last  fall,  along 

o'  the  Cornwallis  ?  2 
This  sort  o'  thing  aint  jest   like   thet,  —  I 

wish  thet  I  wuz  f  urder,8  — 

1  In  relation  to  this  expression,  I  cannot  but  think 
that  Mr.  Biglow  has  been  too  hasty  in  attributing  it  to 
me.  Though  Time  be  a  comparatively  innocent  per 
sonage  to  swear  by,  and  though  Longinus  in  his  dis 
course  Ilepi  *YJ»ovs  have  commended  timely  oaths  as  not 
only  a  useful  but  sublime  figure  of  speech,  yet  I  have 
always  kept  my  lips  free  from  that  abomination.  Odi 


Nimepunce  a   day  fer  killin'   folks  comes 

kind  o'  low  fer  murder, 
(Wy  I  've  worked  out  to  slarterin*   some 

fer  Deacon  Cephas  Billins, 
An'  in  the  hardest  times  there  wuz  I  oilers 

tetched  ten  shillins,) 
There  's  sutthin'  gits  into  my  throat  thet 

makes  it  hard  to  s  waller, 
It  comes  so  nateral  to  think  about  a  hempen 

collar; 
It  's  glory,  —  but,  in  spite  o'  all  my  tryin' 

to  git  callous, 
I  feel  a  kind  o'  in  a  cart,  aridin'  to  the 

gallus. 
But  wen  it  comes  to  &etV  killed,  —  I  tell  ye 

I  felt  streaked 
The  fust  time  't  ever  I  found  out  wy  bag- 

gonets  wuz  peaked; 
Here  's  how  it  wuz:  I  started  out  to  go  to 

a  fandango, 
The  sentinul  he  ups  an'  sez,  "  Thet  's   fur- 

der  'an  you  can  go." 
"  None   o'    your    sarse,"    sez   I ;    sez  he, 

"  Stan'  back  !  "     «  Aint  you  a  bus 
ter?" 
Sez  I,  "I  'm  up  to   all  thet   air,   I   guess 

I  've  ben  to  muster; 
I  know  wy  sentinuls  air  sot ;  you  aint  agoin' 

to  eat  us; 
Caleb   haint    no    monopoly   to    court   the 

seenoreetas; 
My  folks  to  hum  air  full  ez  good  ez  his'n 

be,  by  golly  !  " 
An'  so  ez  I  wuz  goin'  by,  not  thinkin'  wut 

would  folly, 

The    everlastin'    ens    he    stuck    his    one- 
pronged  pitchfork  in  me 
An'  made  a  hole  right  thru  my  close  ez  ef 

I  wuz  an  in'my. 

Wai,  it  beats  all  how  big  I  felt  hoorawin' 

in  ole  Funnel 
Wen  Mister  Bolles  he  gin  the  sword  to  our 

Lef  tenant  Cunnle, 
(It  's  Mister  Secondary  Bolles,4  thet  writ 

the  prize  peace  essay; 
Thet  's  wy  he  did  n't  list  himself  along  o' 

us,  I  dessay,) 

profanum  vulgus,  I  hate  your  swearing  and  hectoring 
fellows.  —  H.  W. 

2  i  hait  the  Site  of  a  feller  with  a  muskit  as  I  du  pizn 
But  their  is  fun  to  a  cornwallis  I  aint  agoin'  to  deny  it. 
—  H.  B. 

3  he  means  Not  quite  so  fur  I  guess.  —  H.  B. 

*  the  ignorant  creeter  means  Sekketary ;  but  he 
oilers  stuck  to  his  books  like  cobbler's  wax  to  an  ile- 
stone.  —  H.  B. 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS 


'85 


An'  Rantoul,  tu,   talked  pooty  loud,   but 

don't  put  his  foot  in  it, 
Coz  human   life    's   so   sacred  thet  he  's 

principled  agin  it,  — 
Though  I  myself  can't  rightly  see  it  's  any 

wus  achokin'  on  'em, 
Than  puttin'   bullets  thru   their  lights,  or 

with  a  bagnet  pokin'  on  'em; 
How  dreffle   slick  he   reeled  it  off  (like 

Blitz  at  our  lyceum 
Ahaulin'  ribbins  from  his  chops  so  quick 

you  skeercely  see  'em), 
About  the  Anglo-Saxon   race  (an'   saxons 

would  be  handy 
To  du  the  buryin'  down  here  upon  the  Rio 

Grandy), 

About    our    patriotic    pas    an'    our    star- 
spangled  banner, 
Our  country's  bird  alookin*  on  an'  singin' 

out  hosanner, 
An'  how  he  (Mister  B.  himself)  wuz  happy 

fer  Ameriky,  — 
I  felt,  ez  sister  Patience  sez,  a  leetle  mite 

histericky. 
I  felt,  I  swon,  ez  though  it  wuz  a  dreffle 

kind  o'  privilege 
Atrampiu'    round     thru     Boston     streets 

among  the  gutter's  drivelage ; 
I  act'lly  thought  it  wuz  a  treat  to  hear  a 

little  drummin', 
An'  it  did  bonyfidy   seem  millanyum  wuz 

acomin' 
Wen  all  on  us  got  suits  (darned  like  them 

wore  in  the  state  prison) 
An'  every  feller  felt  ez  though  all  Mexico 

wuz  hisn.1 

This  'ere  's  about  the  meanest  place  a 
skunk  could  wal  diskiver 

(Saltillo  's  Mexican,  I  b'lieve,  fer  wut  we 
call  Salt-river) ; 

The  sort  o'  trash  a  feller  gits  to  eat  doos 
beat  all  nater, 

I  'd  give  a  year's  pay  fer  a  smell  o'  one 
good  blue-nose  tater; 

The  country  here  thet  Mister  Bolles  de 
clared  to  be  so  charmin' 


1  it  must  be  aloud  that  thare  's  a  streak  of  nater  in 
lovin'  sho,  but  it  sartinly  is  1  of  the  curusest  things  in 
nater  to  see  a  rispecktable  dri  goods  dealer  (deekon  off 
a  chutch  maybe)  a  riggin'  himself  out  in  the  Weigh  they 
du  and  struttin'  round  in  the  Reign  aspilin'  his  trowsis 
and  makin'  wet  goods  of  himself.     Ef  any  thin's  fool- 
iaher  and  moor  dicklus  than  militerry  gloary  it  is  mi- 
lishy  gloary.  —  H.  B. 

2  these    fellers    are    verry  proppilly    called    Bank 


Throughout    is    swarmin'   with   the   most 

alarmin'  kind  o'  variniu. 
He  talked  about  delishis   froots,  but   then 

it  wuz  a  wopper  all, 
The  holl  on  't  's   mud  an'  prickly  pears, 

with  here  an'  there  a  chapparal; 
You  see  a  feller  peekin'  out,  an',  fust  you 

know,  a  lariat 
Is  round  your  throat  an'  you  a  copse,  'fore 

you  can  say,  "  Wut  air  ye  at  ?  "  2 
You  never  see  sech  darned  gret   bugs  (it 

may  not  be  irrelevant 
To  say  I  've  seen   a  sc.arabceus  pilularius  3 

big  ez  a  year  old  elephant), 
The  rigiment  come  up  one  day  in  time  to 

stop  a  red  bug 
From  runnin'  off  with  Cunnle  Wright,  —  't 

wuz  jest  a  common  cimex  lectularius. 

One  night  I  started  up  on  eend  an'  thought 

I  wuz  to  hum  agin, 

I  heern  a  horn,  thinks  I  it  's  Sol  the  fisher 
man  hez  come  agin, 
His  bellowses  is  sound  enough,  —  ez  I  'm  a 

livin'  creeter, 
I  felt  a  thing  go  thru  my  leg,  —  't  wuz 

nothin'  more  'n  a  skeeter  ! 
Then  there  's  the  yaller  fever,  tu,  they  call 

it  here  el  vomito,  — 
(Come,  thet  wun't  du,  you  landcrab  there, 

I  tell  ye  to  le'  go  my  toe  ! 
My  gracious  !  it 's  a  scorpion  thet  's  took 

a  shine  to  play  with  't, 
I  darsn't  skeer  the   tarnal   thing  fer   fear 

he  'd  run  away  with  't.) 
Afore  I  come  away   from   hum   I  hed  a 

strong  persuasion 
Thet  Mexicans  worn't  human  beans,4  —  an 

ourang  outang  nation, 
A  sort  o'  folks  a  chap  could  kill  an'  never 

dream  on  't  arter, 
No  more  'n  a  feller  'd  dream  o'  pigs   thet 

he  hed  hed  to  slarter; 
I  'd  an  idee  thet  they  were  built  arter  the 

darkie  fashion  all, 
An'  kickin'  colored  folks  about,  you  know, 

's  a  kind  o'  national; 

Heroes,  and  the  more  tha  kill  the  ranker  and  more 
Herowick  tha  bekum.  —  H.  B. 

3  it  wuz  "  tumblebug  "  as  he  Writ  it,  but  the  parson 
put  the  Latten  instid.    i  sed  tother  maid  better  meeter, 
but  he  said  tha  was  eddykated  peepl  to  Boston  and  tha 
would  n't  stan'  it  no  how.    idnow  as  tha  wood  and 
idnow  as  tha  wood.  —  H.  B. 

4  he  means  human  beins,  that 's  wut  he  means,     i 
spose  he  kinder  thought  tha  wuz  human  beans  ware 
the  Xisle  Poles  comes  from.  —  H.  B. 


i86 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


But  wen  I  jined  I  worn't  so   wise  ez  thet 

air  queen  o'  Sheby, 
Fer,  come  to  look  at  'em,  they  aint  much 

diff 'rent  from  wut  we  be, 
An'  here  we  air  ascrougin'  'em  out  o'  thir 

own  dominions, 
Ashelterin'  'em,  ez  Caleb   sez,  under  our 

eagle's  pinions, 
Wich  means  to  take  a  feller  up  jest  by  the 

slack  o'  's  trowsis 
An'  walk  him  Spanish  clean  right   out   o' 

all  his  homes  an'  houses; 
Wai,  it   doos  seem  a  curus  way,  but  then 

hooraw  fer  Jackson  ! 
It  must  be  right,  fer  Caleb  sez  it  's  reg'lar 

Anglo-saxon. 
The    Mex'cans   don't  fight  fair,  they   say, 

they  piz'n  all  the  water, 
An'  du  amazin'  lots   o'   things  thet  is  n't 

wut  they  ough'  to; 
Bein'  they  haint  no  lead,  they  make  their 

bullets  out  o'  copper 
An'  shoot  the  darned  things  at  us,  tu,  wich 

Caleb  sez  aint  proper; 
He  sez  they  'd  ough'  to  stan'  right  up  an' 

let  us  pop  'em  fairly 
(Guess  wen  he  ketches  'em  at   thet  he  '11 

hev  to  git  up  airly), 
Thet  our  nation  's  bigger  'n  theirn  an'  so 

its  rights  air  bigger, 
An'  thet  it  's  all  to  make  'em  free  thet  we 

air  pullin'  trigger, 
Thet   Anglo   Saxondom's  idee  's  abreakin' 

'em  to  pieces, 
An'  thet  idee  's  thet  every  man  doos  jest 

wut  he  damn  pleases; 
Ef  1  don't  make  his  meanin'  clear,  perhaps 

in  some  respex  I  can, 
I  know  thet    "  every  man  "  don't  mean  a 

nigger  or  a  Mexican ; 
An'  there  's  another  thing  I  know,  an'  thet 

is,  ef  these  creeturs, 

Thet  stick  an  Anglosaxon  mask  onto  State- 
prison  feeturs, 
Should    come   to   Jaalam    Centre    fer  to 

argify  an'  spout  on  't, 
The  gals  'ould  count  the  silver  spoons  the 

minnit  they  cleared  out  on  't. 

This  goin'  ware    glory  waits  ye  haint   one 

agreeable  feetur, 
An*  ef  it   worn't   fer   wakin'  snakes,    I  'd 

home  agin  short  meter; 
0,    would  n't    I    be    off,    quick    time,   ef 

't  worn't  thet  I  wuz  sartin 


They  'd  let  the  daylight  into  me  to  pay  me 

fer  desartin  ! 
I  don't  approve  o'  telliii'  tales,  but  jest  to 

you  I  may  state 
Our  ossifers  aint  wut  they  wuz  afore  they 

left  the  Bay-state; 
Then  it  wuz   "  Mistei    Sawin,  sir,  you  're 

middlin'  well  now,  be  ye  ? 
Step  up  an'  take  a  nipper,  sir;  I  'm  dreffle 

glad  to  see  ye  ;  " 
But  now  it  's  "  Ware  's  my  eppylet  ?  here, 

Sawin,  step  an'  fetch  it  ! 
An'  mind  your  eye,  be  thund'rin'  spry,  or, 

damn  ye,  you  shall  ketch  it !  " 
Wai,  ez  the  Doctor  sez,  some  pork  will  bile 

so,  but  by  mighty, 
Ef  I  hed  some  on  'em   to   hum,    I  'd  give 

'em  linkum  vity, 
I  'd  play  the  rogue's  march  on  their  hides 

an'  other  music  follerin'  — 
But  I  must  close  my  letter  here,  fer  one  on 

'em  's  ahollerin', 
These  Anglosaxon  ossifers,  —  wal,  taint  no 

use  ajawin', 
I  'm  safe  enlisted  fer  the  war, 

Yourn, 

BIRDOFREDUM  SAWIN. 

[Those  have  not  been  wanting  (as,  indeed, 
when  hath  Satan  been  to  seek  for  attorneys  ?) 
who  have  maintained  that  our  late  inroad  upon 
Mexico  was  undertaken  not  so  much  for  the 
avenging  of  any  national  quarrel,  as  for  the 
spreading  of  free  institutions  and  of  Protestant 
ism.  Capita  vix  duabus  Anticyris  medenda  ! 
Verily  I  admire  that  no  pious  sergeant  among 
these  new  Crusaders  beheld  Martin  Luther  rid 
ing  at  the  front  of  the  host  upon  a  tamed  ponti 
fical  bull,  as,  in  that  former  invasion  of  Mexico, 
the  zealous  Gomara  (spawn  though  he  were  of 
the  Scarlet  Woman)  was  favored  with  a  vision 
of  St.  James  of  Compostella,  skewering  the 
infidels  upon  his  apostolical  lance.  We  read, 
also,  that  Richard  of  the  lion  heart,  having  gone 
to  Palestine  on  a  similar  errand  of  mercy,  was 
divinely  encouraged  to  cut  the  throats  of  such 
Paynims  as  refused  to  swallow  the  bread  of  life 
(doubtless  that  they  might  be  thereafter  inca 
pacitated  for  swallowing  the  filthy  gobbets  of 
Mahound)  by  angels  of  heaven,  who  cried  to  the 
king  and  his  knights,  —  Seigneurs,  tuez  !  tuez  ! 
providentially  using  the  French  tongue,  as 
being  the  only  one  understood  by  their  auditors. 
This  -would  argue  for  the  pantoglottism  of  these 
celestial  intelligences,  while,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  Devil,  teste  Cotton  Mather,  is  unversed  in 
certain  of  the  Indian  dialects.  Yet  must  he  be 
a  semeiologist  the  most  expert,  making  himself 
intelligible  to  every  people  and  kindred  by 
signs  ;  no  other  discourse,  indeed,  being  needful, 
than  such  as  the  mackerel-fisher  holds  with  hia 
finned  quarry,  who,  if  other  bait  be  wanting, 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS 


187 


can  by  a  bare  bit  of  white  rag  at  the  end  of  a 
string  captivate  those  foolish  fishes.  Such  pis 
catorial  persuasion  is  Satan  cunning  in.  Before 
one  he  trails  a  hat  and  feather,  or  a  bare  feather 
without  a  hat ;  before  another,  a  Presidential 
chair  or  a  tide-waiter's  stool,  or  a  pulpit  in  the 
city,  no  matter  what.  To  us,  dangling  there 
over  our  heads,  they  seem  junkets  dropped 
out  of  the  seventh  heaven,  sops  dipped  in  nec 
tar,  but,  once  in  our  mouths,  they  are  all  one, 
bits  of  fuzzy  cotton. 

This,  however,  by  the  way.  It  is  time  now 
revocare  gradum.  While  so  many  miracles  of 
this  sort,  vouched  by  eye-witnesses,  have  en 
couraged  the  arms  of  Papists,  not  to  speak  of 
Echetlaeus  at  Marathon  and  those  Dioscuri 
(whom  we  must  conclude  imps  of  the  pit)  who 
sundry  times  captained  the  pagan  Roman  sol 
diery,  it  is  strange  that  our  first  American  cru 
sade  was  not  in  some  such  wise  also  signalized. 
Yet  it  is  said  that  the  Lord  hath  manifestly 
prospered  our  armies.  This  opens  the  ques 
tion,  whether,  when  our  hands  are  strengthened 
to  make  great  slaughter  of  our  enemies,  it  be 
absolutely  and  demonstratively  certain  that 
this  might  is  added  to  us  from  above,  or 
whether  some  Potentate  from  an  opposite  quar 
ter  may  not  have  a  finger  in  it,  as  there  are  few 
pies  into  which  his  meddling  digits  are  not 
thrust.  Would  the  Sanctifier  and  Setter-apart 
of  the  seventh  day  have  assisted  in  a  victory 
gained  on  the  Sabbath,  as  was  one  in  the  late 
war  ?  Do  we  not  know  from  Jpsephus,  that, 
careful  of  His  decree,  a  certain  river  in  Judsea 
abstained  from  flowing  on  the  day  of  Rest  ? 
Or  has  that  day  become  less  an  object  of  His 
especial  care  since  the  year  1697,  when  so  mani 
fest  a  providence  occurred  to  Mr.  William 
Trowbridge,  in  answer  to  whose  prayers,  when 
he  and  all  on  shipboard  with  him  were  starving, 
a  dolphin  was  sent  daily,  "which  was  enough 
to  serve  'em;  only  on  Saturdays  they  still 
catched  a  couple,  and  on  the  Lord's  Days  they 
could  catch  none  at  all  "  ?  Haply  they  might 
have  been  permitted,  by  way  of  mortification, 
to  take  some  few  sculpins  (those  banes  of  the 
salt-water  angler),  which  unseemly  fish  would, 
moreover,  have  conveyed  to  them  a  symbol 
ical  reproof  for  their  breach  of  the  day,  being 
known  in  the  rude  dialect  of  our  mariners  as 
Cape  Cod  Clergymen. 

It  has  been  a  refreshment  to  many  nice  con 
sciences  to  know  that  our  Chief  Magistrate 
would  not  regard  with  eyes  of  approval  the  (by 
many  esteemed)  sinful  pastime  of  dancing,  and 
I  own  myself  to  be  so  far  of  that  mind,  that  I 
could  not  but  set  my  face  against  this  Mexican 
Polka,  though  danced  to  the  Presidential  piping 
with  a  Gubernatorial  second.  If  ever  the  coun 
try  should  be  seized  with  another  such  mania 
pro  propaganda  fide,  I  think  it  would  be  wise 
to  fill  our  bombshells  with  alternate  copies  of 
the  t  Cambridge  Platform  and  the  Thirty-nine 
Articles,  which  would  produce  a  mixture  of  the 
highest  explosive  power,  and  to  wrap  every  one 
of  our  cannon-balls  in  a  leaf  of  the  New  Testa 
ment,  the  reading  of  which  is  denied  to  those 


who  sit  in  the  darkness  of  Popery.  Those  iron 
evangelists  would  thus  be  able  to  disseminate 
vital  religion  and  Gospel  truth  in  quarters  inac 
cessible  to  the  ordinary  missionary.  I  have  seen 
lads,  unimpregnate  with  the  more  sublimated 
punctiliousness  of  Walton,  secure  pickerel,  tak 
ing  their  unwary  siesta  beneath  the  lily-pads 
too  nigh  the  surface,  with  a  gun  and  small  shot. 
Why  not,  then,  since  gunpowder  was  unknown 
in  the  time  of  the  Apostles  (not  to  enter  here 
upon  the  question  whether  it  were  discovered 
before  that  period  by  the  Chinese),  suit  our 
metaphor  to  the  age  in  which  we  live,  and  say 
shooters  as  well  as. fishers  of  men  ? 

I  do  much  fear  that  we  shall  be  seized  now 
and  then  with  a  Protestant  fervor,  as  long  as 
we  have  neighbor  Naboths  whose  wallowings  in 
Papistical  mire  excite  our  horror  in  exact  pro 
portion  to  the  size  and  desirableness  of  their 
vineyards.  Yet  I  rejoice  that  some  earnest 
Protestants  have  been  made  by  this  war,  —  I 
mean  those  who  protested  against  it.  Fewer 
they  were  than  I  could  wish,  for  one  might  im 
agine  America  to  have  been  colonized  by  a  tribe 
of  those  nondescript  African  animals  the  Aye- 
Ayes,  so  difficult  a  word  is  No  to  us  all.  There 
is  some  malformation  or  defect  of  the  vocal 
organs,  which  either  prevents  our  uttering  it 
at  all,  or  gives  it  so  thick  a  pronunciation  as  to 
be  unintelligible.  A  mouth  filled  with  the 
national  pudding,  or  watering  in  expectation 
thereof,  is  wholly  incompetent  to  this  refractory 
monosyllable.  An  abject  and  herpetic  Public 
Opinion  is  the  Pope,  the  Anti-Christ,  for  us  to 
protest  against  e  corde  cordium.  And  by  what 
College  of  Cardinals  is  this  our  God's- vicar,  our 
binder  and  looser,  elected  ?  Very  like,  by  the 
sacred  conclave  of  Tag,  Rag,  and  Bobtail,  in 
the  gracious  atmosphere  of  the  grog-shop.  Yet 
it  is  of  this  that  we  must  all  be  puppets.  This 
thumps  the  pulpit-cushion,  this  guides  the  edi 
tor's  pen,  this  wags  the  senator's  tongue.  This 
decides  what  Scriptures  are  canonical,  and  shuf 
fles  Christ  away  into  the  Apocrypha.  Accord 
ing  to  that  sentence  fathered  upon  Solon,  OUTW 

Sr)fj.6cri.ov  KOLKOV  ep^erai  otKaS'  exacrT&j.      This  Unclean 

spirit  is  skilful  to  assume  various  shapes.  I 
have  known  it  to  enter  my  own  study  and 
nudge  my  elbow  of  a  Saturday,  under  the  sem 
blance  of  a  wealthy  member  of  my  congregation. 
It  were  a  great  blessing,  if  every  particular  of 
what  in  the  sum  we  call  popular  sentiment 
could  carry  about  the  name  of  its  manufacturer 
stamped  legibly  upon  it.  I  gave  a  stab  under 
the  fifth  rib  to  that  pestilent  fallacy,  — "9u.r 
country,  right  or  wrong,"  —  by  tracing  its  origi 
nal  to  a  speech  of  Ensign  Cilley  at  a  dinner  of 
the  Bungtown  Fencibles.  —  H.  W.] 


No.   Ill 
WHAT   MR.  ROBINSON  THINKS 

[A  FEW  remarks  on  the  following  verses  will 
not  be  out  of  place.  The  satire  in  them  was 
not  meant  to  have  any  personal,  but  only  a 


i88 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


general,  application.  Of  the  gentleman  upon 
whose  letter  they  were  intended  as  a  commen 
tary  Mr.  Biglow  had  never  heard,  till  he  saw 
the  letter  itself.  The  position  of  the  satirist  is 
oftentimes  one  which  he  would  not  have  chosen, 
had  the  election  been  left  to  himself.  In  at 
tacking  bad  principles,  he  is  obliged  to  select 
some  individual  who  has  made  himself  their 
exponent,  and  in  whom  they  are  impersonate,  to 
the  end  that  what  he  says  may  not,  through 
ambiguity,  be  dissipated  tenues  in  auras.  For 
what  says  Seneca  ?  Longum  iter  per  prcecepta, 
breve  et  efficace  per  exempla.  A  bad  principle  is 
comparatively  harmless  while  it  continues  to  be 
an  abstraction,  nor  can  the  general  mind  com 
prehend  it  fully  till  it  is  printed  in  that  large 
type  which  all  men  can  read  at  sight,  namely, 
the  life  and  character,  the  sayings  and  doings, 
of  particular  persons.  It  is  one  of  the  cun- 
ningest  fetches  of  Satan,  that  he  never  exposes 
himself  directly  to  our  arrows,  but,  still  dodg 
ing  behind  this  neighbor  or  that  acquaint 
ance,  compels  us  to  wound  him  through  them, 
if  at  all.  He  holds  our  affections  as  hostages, 
the  while  he  patches  up  a  truce  with  our  con 
science. 

Meanwhile,  let  us  not  forget  that  the  aim  of 
the  true  satirist  is  not  to  be  severe  upon  persons, 
but  only  upon  falsehood,  and,  as  Truth  and 
Falsehood  start  from  the  same  point,  and  some 
times  even  go  along  together  for  a  little  way, 
his  business  is  to  follow  the  path  of  the  latter 
after  it  diverges,  and  to  show  her  floundering  in 
the  bog  at  the  end  of  it.  Truth  is  quite  beyond 
the  reach  of  satire.  There  is  so  brave  a  simplicity 
in  her,  that  she  can  no  more  be  made  ridiculous 
than  an  oak  or  a  pine.  The  danger  of  the  satirist 
is,  that  continual  use  may  deaden  his  sensibility 
to  the  force  of  language.  He  becomes  more  and 
more  liable  to  strike  harder  than  he  knows  or 
intends.  He  may  be  careful  to  put  on  his  box 
ing-gloves,  and  yet  forget  that,  the  older  they 
grow,  the  more  plainly  may  the  knuckles  inside 
be  felt.  Moreover,  in  the  heat  of  contest,  the 
eye  is  insensibly  drawn  to  the  crown  of  victory, 
whose  tawdry  tinsel  glitters  through  that  dust 
of  the  ring  which  obscures  Truth's  wreath  of 
simple  leaves.  I  have  sometimes  thought  that 
my  young  friend,  Mr.  Biglow,  needed  a  moni 
tory  hand  laid  on  his  arm,  —  aliquid  sufflami- 
nandus  erat.  I  have  never  thought  it  good  hus 
bandry  to  water  the  tender  plants  of  reform  with 
aquafortis,  yet,  where  so  much  is  to  do  in  the 
beds,  he  were  a  sorry  gardener  who  should  wage 
a  whole  day's  war  with  an  iron  scuffle  on  those 
ill  weeds  that  make  the  garden-walks  of  life 
unsightly,  when  a  sprinkle  of  Attic  salt  will 
wither  them  up.  Est  ars  etiam  maledicendi, 
says  Scaliger,  and  truly  it  is  a  hard  thing  to 
say  where  the  graceful  gentleness  of  the  lamb 
merges  in  downright  sheepishness.  We  may 
conclude  with  worthy  and  wise  Dr.  Fuller,  that 
"one  may  be  a  lamb  in  private  wrongs,  but  in 
hearing  general  affronts  to  goodness  they  are 
asses  which  are  not  lions."  — H.  W.] 


GUVENER  B.  is  a  sensible  man; 

He  stays  to  his  home  an'  looks  arter  his 

folks; 

He  draws  his  f  urrer  ez  straight  ez  he  can, 
An'  into  nobody's  tater-patch  pokes; 
But  John  P. 
Robinson  he 
Sez  he  wunt  vote  fer  Guvener  B. 

My  !  aint  it  terrible  ?     Wut  shall  we  du  ? 
We  can't  never  choose  him  o'  course,  — 

thet's  flat; 
Guess  we  shall  hev  to  come  round,  (don  't 

you?) 

An'  go  in  fer  thunder  an'  guns,  an'  all 
that; 

Fer  John  P. 
Robinson  he 
Sez  he  wunt  vote  fer  Guvener  B. 

Gineral  C.  is  a  dreffle  smart  man: 

He  's  ben  on  all  sides  thet  give  places  or 

pelf; 
But  consistency   still   wuz   a   part   of  his 

plan, — 

He  's  ben  true  to  one  party,  —  an'  thet  is 
himself;  — 

So  John  P. 
Robinson  he 
Sez  he  shall  vote  fer  Gineral  C. 

Gineral  C.  he  goes  in  fer  the  war ; 

He  don't  vally  princerple  more  'n  an  old 

cud; 

Wut  did  God  make  us  raytional  creeturs  fer, 
But   glory  an'   gunpowder,  plunder  an' 
blood  ? 

So  John  P. 
Robinson  he 
Sez  he  shall  vote  fer  Gineral  C. 

We  were  gittin'  on  nicely  up  here  to  our 

village, 
With  good  old  idees  o'  wut's  right  an' 

wut  aint, 
We  kind  o'  thought  Christ  went  agin  war 

an'  pillage, 

An'  thet  eppyletts  worn't  the  best  mark 
of  a  saint; 

But  John  P. 
Robinson  he 

Sez  this  kind  o'  thing's  an  exploded 
idee. 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


189 


The  side  of  our  country  must  oilers  be  took, 
An*  Presiduiit  Polk,  you  know,  he  is  our 

country. 
An'  the  angel  thet  writes  all  our  sins  in  a 

book 

Puts  the  debit  to  him,  an'  to  us  the  per 
contry; 

An'  John  P. 
Robinson  he 
Sez  this  is  his  view  o*  the  thing  to  a  T. 

Parson  Wilbur  he  calls  all  these  argimunts 

lies; 
Sez  they  're  nothin'  on  airth  but  jest/ee, 

faw,  fum; 

An'  thet  all  this  big  talk  of  our  destinies 
Is  half  on  it  ign'auce,  an'  t'other  half 
rum; 

But  John  P. 
Robinson  he 

Sez  it  aint  no  sech  thing;  an',  of  course, 
so  must  we. 

Parson  Wilbur  sez  he  never  heerd  in  his  life 
Thet   th'    Apostles   rigged   out  in  their 

s waller- tail  coats, 
An'  marched  round  in  front  of  a  drum  an' 

a  fife, 

To  git  some  on  'em  office,  an'  some  on  'em 
votes ; 

But  John  P. 
Robinson  he 

Sez  they  did  n't  know  everythin'  down 
in  Judee. 

Wai,  it 's  a  marcy  we  've  gut  folks  to  tell  us 
The  rights  an'  the  wrongs  o'  these  mat 
ters,  I  vow, — 
God  sends  country  lawyers,  an'  other  wise 

fellers, 

To  start  the  world's  team  wen  it  gits  in  a 
slough; 

Fer  John  P. 
Robinson  he 

Sez  the  world  '11  go  right,  ef  he  hollers 
out  Gee! 

[ The  attentive  reader  will  doubtless  have  per 
ceived  in  the  foregoing  poem  an  allusion  to  that 
pernicious  sentiment,  —  "  Our  country,  right  or 
wrong."  It  is  an  abuse  of  language  to  call  a 
certain  portion  of  land,  much  more,  certain  per 
sonages,  elevated  for  the  time  being  to  high  sta 
tion,  our  country.  I  would  not  sever  nor  loosen 
a  single  one  of  those  ties  by  which  we  are  united 
to  the  spot  of  our  birth,  nor  minish  by  a  tittle 
the  respect  due  to  the  Magistrate.  I  love  our 


own  Bay  State  too  well  to  do  the  one,  and  as  for 
the  other,  I  have  myself  for  nigh  forty  years 
exercised,  however  unworthily,  the  function  of 
Justice  of  the  Peace,  having  been  called  thereto 
by  the  unsolicited  kindness  of  that  most  ex 
cellent  man  and  upright  patriot,  Caleb  Strong. 
Patrice  fumus  igne  alieno  luculentior  is  best 
qualified  with  this,  —  Ubi  libertas,  ibi  patria. 
We  are  inhabitants  of  two  worlds,  and  owe  a 
double,  but  not  a  divided,  allegiance.  In  virtue 
of  our  clay,  this  little  ball  of  earth  exacts  a 
certain  loyalty  of  us,  while,  in  our  capacity  as 
spirits,  we  are  admitted  citizens  of  an  invisible 
and  holier  fatherland.  There  is  a  patriotism  of 
the  soul  whose  claim  absolves  us  from  our  other 
and  terrene  fealty.  Our  true  country  is  that  ideal 
realm  which  we  represent  to  ourselves  under  the 
names  of  religion,  duty,  and  the  like.  Our  terres 
trial  organizations  are  but  far-off  approaches  to 
so  fair  a  model,  and  all  they  are  verily  traitors 
who  resist  not  any  attempt  to  divert  them  from 
this  their  original  intendment.  When,  therefore, 
one  would  have  us  to  fling  up  our  caps  and  shout 
with  the  multitude,  —  "  Our  country,  however 
bounded  !  "  he  demands  of  us  that  we  sacrifice 
the  larger  to  the  less,  the  higher  to  the  lower, 
and  that  we  yield  to  the  imaginary  claims  of  a 
few  acres  of  soil  our  duty  and  privilege  as  liege 
men  of  Truth.  Our  true  country  is  bounded  on 
the  north  and  the  south,  on  the  east  and  the 
west,  by  Justice,  and  when  she  oversteps  that 
invisible  boundary- line  by  so  much  as  a  hair's- 
breadth,  she  ceases  to  be  our  mother,  and  chooses 
rather  to  be  looked  upon  quasi  noverca.  That 
is  a  hard  choice  when  our  earthly  love  of  country 
calls  upon  us  to  tread  one  path  and  our  duty 
points  us  to  another.  We  must  make  as  noble 
and  becoming  an  election  as  did  Penelope  be 
tween  Icarius  and  Ulysses.  Veiling  our  faces, 
we  must  take  silently  the  hand  of  Duty  to 
follow  her. 

Shortly  after  the  publication  of  the  foregoing 
poem,  there  appeared  some  comments  upon  it 
in  one  of  the  public  prints  which  seemed  to  call 
for  animadversion.  I  accordingly  addressed  to 
Mr.  Buckingham,  of  the  Boston  Courier,  the 
following  letter. 

"  JAALAM,  November  4,  1847. 

"  To  the  Editor  of  the  Courier  : 

"RESPECTED  SIB,  — Calling  at  the  post- 
office  this  morning,  our  worthy  and  efficient 
postmaster  offered  for  my  perusal  a  paragraph 
in  the  Boston  Morning  Post  of  the  3d  instant, 
wherein  certain  effusions  of  the  pastoral  muse 
are  attributed  to  the  pen  of  Mr.  James  Russell 
Lowell.  For  aught  I  know  or  can  affirm  to 
the  contrary,  this  Mr.  Lowell  may  be  a  very 
deserving  person  and  a  youth  of  parts  (though 
I  have  seen  verses  of  his  which  I  could  never 
rightly  understand)  ;  and  if  he  be  such,  he,  I 
am  certain,  as  well  as  I,  would  be  free  from 
any  proclivity  to  appropriate  to  himself  what 
ever  of  credit  (or  discredit)  may  honestly  be 
long  to  another.  I  am  confident,  that,  in  pen 
ning  these  few  lines,  I  am  only  forestalling  a 
disclaimer  from  that  young  gentleman,  whose 


190 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


silence  hitherto,  when  rumor  pointed  to  him- 
ward,  has  excited  in  my  bosom  mingled  emo 
tions  of  sorrow  and  surprise.  Well  may  my 
young  parishioner,  Mr.  Biglow,  exclaim  with 
the  poet, 

"  '  Sic  vos  non  vobis,'  &c.  ; 

though,  in  saying  this,  I  would  not  convey  the 
impression  that  he  is  a  proficient  in  the  Latin 
tongue,  —  the  tongue,  I  might  add,  of  a  Horace 
and  a  Tully. 

"  Mr.  B.  does  not  employ  his  pen,  I  can  safely 
say,  for  any  lucre  of  worldly  gain,  or  to  be  ex 
alted  by  the  carnal  plaudits  of  men,  digitp 
monstrari,  &c.  He  does  not  wait  upon  Provi 
dence  for  mercies,  and  in  his  heart  mean  merces- 
But  I  should  esteem  myself  as  verily  deficient 
in  my  duty  (who  am  his  friend  and  in  some  un 
worthy  sort  his  spiritual,  fidus  Achates,  &c.),  if  I 
did  not  step  forward  to  claim  for  him  whatever 
measure  of  applause  might  be  assigned  to  him 
by  the  judicious. 

"  If  this  were  a  fitting  occasion,  I  might  ven 
ture  here  a  brief  dissertation  touching  the  man 
ner  and  kind  of  my  young  friend's  poetry.  But 
I  dubitate  whether  this  abstruser  sort  of  specu 
lation  (though  enlivened  by  some  apposite  in 
stances  from  Aristophanes)  would  sufficiently 
interest  your  oppidan  readers.  As  regards  their 
satirical  tone,  and  their  plainness  of  speech,  I 
will  only  say,  that,  in  my  pastoral  experience,  I 
have  found  that  the  Arch-Enemy  loves  nothing 
better  than  to  be  treated  as  a  religious,  moral, 
and  intellectual  being,  and  that  there  is  no 
apage  Satkanas  !  so  potent  as  ridicule.  But  it 
is  a  kind  of  weapon  that  must  have  a  button  of 
good-nature  on  the  point  of  it. 

"  The  productions  of  Mr.  B.  have  been  stig 
matized  in  some  quarters  as  unpatriotic  ;  but  I 
can  vouch  that  he  loves  his  native  soil  with 
that  hearty,  though  discriminating,  attachment 
which  springs  from  an  intimate  social  inter 
course  of  many  years'  standing.  In  the  plough 
ing  season,  no  one  has  a  deeper  share  in  the 
well-being  of  the  country  than  he.  If  Dean 
Swift  were  right  in  saying  that  he  who  makes 
two  blades  of  grass  grow  where  one  grew  be 
fore  confers  a  greater  benefit  on  the  state  than 
he  who  taketh  a  city,  Mr.  B.  might  exhibit  a 
fairer  claim  to  the  Presidency  than  General 
Scott  himself.  I  think  that  some  of  those 
disinterested  lovers  of  the  hard-handed  demo 
cracy,  whose  fingers  have  never  touched  any 
thing  rougher  than  the  dollars  of  our  common 
country,  would  hesitate  to  compare  palms  with 
him.  It  would  do  your  heart  good,  respected 
Sir,  to  see  that  young  man  mow.  He  cuts  a 
cleaner  and  wider  swath  than  any  in  this  town. 

"  But  it  is  time  for  me  to  be  at  my  Post.  It 
is  very  clear  that  my  young  friend's  shot  has 
struck  the  lintel,  for  the  Post  is  shaken  (Amos 
ix.  1).  The  editor  of  that  paper  is  a  strenuous 
advocate  of  the  Mexican  war,  and  a  colonel,  as 
I  am  given  to  understand.  I  presume,  that, 
being  necessarily  absent  in  Mexico,  he  has  left 
his  journal  in  some  less  judicious  hands.  At 
any  rate,  the  Post  has  been  too  swift  on  this 


occasion.  It  could  hardly  have  cited  a  more 
incontrovertible  line  from  any  poem  than  that 
which  it  has  selected  for  animadversion, 
namely,  — 

"  '  We  kind  o'  thought  Christ  went  agin  war  an'  pillage.' 

"  If  the  Post  maintains  the  converse  of  this 
proposition,  it  can  hardly  be  considered  as  a 
safe  guide-post  for  the  moral  and  religious  por 
tions  of  its  party,  however  many  other  excellent 
qualities  of  a  post  it  may  be  blessed  with. 
There  is  a  sign  in  London  on  which  is  painted, 
—  '  The  Green  Man.'  It  would  do  very  well  as 
a  portrait  of  any  individual  who  should  support 
so  unscriptural  a  thesis.  As  regards  the  lan 
guage  of  the  line  in  question,  I  am  bold  to  say 
that  He  who  readeth  the  hearts  of  men  will 
not  account  any  dialect  unseemly  which  con 
veys  a  sound  and  pious  sentiment.  I  could 
wish  that  such  sentiments  were  more  common, 
however  uncouthly  expressed,  fcaint  Ambrose 
affirms,  that  veritas  a  guocunque  (why  not,  then, 
quomodocunque  f)  dicatur,  a  spiritu  sancto  est. 
Digest  also  this  of  Baxter  :  *  The  plainest  words 
are  the  most  profitable  oratory  in  the  weighti 
est  matters.' 

"  When  the  paragraph  in  question  was  shown 
to  Mr.  Biglow,  the  only  part  of  it  which  seemed 
to  give  him  any  dissatisfaction  was  that  which 
classed  him  with  the  Whig  party.  He  says, 
that,  if  resolutions  are  a  nourishing  kind  of 
diet,  that  party  must  be  in  a  very  hearty  and 
flourishing  condition  ;  for  that  they  have  qui 
etly  eaten  more  good  ones  of  their  own  bak 
ing  than  he  could  have  conceived  to  be  possi 
ble  without  repletion.  He  has  been  for  some 
years  past  (I  regret  to  say)  an  ardent  opponent 
of  those  sound  doctrines  of  protective  policy 
which  form  so  prominent  a  portion  of  the  creed 
of  that  party.  I  confess,  that,  in  some  discus 
sions  which  I  have  had  with  him  on  this  point  in 
my  study,  he  has  displayed  a  vein  of  obstinacy 
which  I  had  not  hitherto  detected  in  his  compo 
sition.  He  is  also  (horresco  referens)  infected  in 
no  small  measure  with  the  peculiar  notions  of 
a  print  called  the  Liberator,  whose  heresies  I 
take  every  proper  opportunity  of  combating, 
and  of  which,  I  thank  God,  I  have  never  read 
a  single  line. 

"  I  did  not  see  Mr.  B.'s  verses  until  they  ap 
peared  in  print,  and  there  is  certainly  one  thing 
in  them  which  I  consider  highly  improper.  I 
allude  to  the  personal  references  to  myself  by 
name.  To  confer  notoriety  on  an  humble  indi 
vidual  who  is  laboring  quietly  in  his  vocation, 
and  who  keeps  his  cloth  as  free  as  he  can  from 
the  dust  of  the  political  arena  (though  vce  mihi 
si  non  evangelizavero) ,  is  no  doubt  an  indeco 
rum.  The  sentiments  which  he  attributes  to 
me  I  will  not  deny  to  be  mine.  They  were  em 
bodied,  though  in  a  different  form,  in  a  dis 
course  preached  upon  the  last  day  of  public 
fasting,  and  were  acceptable  to  my  entire 
people  (of  whatever  political  views),  except  the 
postmaster,  who  dissented  ex  officio.  I  observe 
that  you  sometimes  devote  a  portion  of  your 
paper  to  a  religious  summary.  I  should  be 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


191 


well  pleased  to  furnish  a  copy  of  my  discourse 
for  insertion  in  this  department  of  your  instruc 
tive  journal.  By  omitting  the  advertisements, 
it  might  easily  be  got  within  the  limits  of  a 
single  number,  and  I  venture  to  insure  you  the 
sale  of  some  scores  of  copies  in  this  town.  I 
will  cheerfully  render  myself  responsible  for 
ten.  It  might  possibly  be  advantageous  to  is 
sue  it  as  an  extra.  But  perhaps  you  will  not 
esteem  it  an  object,  and  I  will  not  press  it.  My 
offer  does  not  spring  from  any  weak  desire  of 
seeing  my  name  in  print ;  for  I  can  enjoy  this 
satisfaction  at  any  time  by  turning  to  the  Tri 
ennial  Catalogue  of  the  University,  where  it 
also  possesses  that  added  emphasis  of  Italics 
with  which  those  of  my  calling  are  distin 
guished. 

"  I  would  simply  add,  that  I  continue  to  fit 
ingenuous  youth  for  college,  and  that  I  have 
two  spacious  and  airy  sleeping  apartments  at 
this  moment  unoccupied.  Ingenuas  didicisse, 
&c.  Terms,  which  vary  according  to  the  circum 
stances  of  the  parents,  may  be  known  on  appli 
cation  to  me  by  letter,  post-paid.  In  all  cases 
the  lad  will  be  expected  to  fetch  his  own  towels. 
This  rule,  Mrs.  W.  desires  me  to  add,  has  no 
exceptions. 

"Respectfully,  your  obedient  servant, 

"HOMER  WILBUR,  A.  M. 

"  P.  S.  Perhaps  the  last  paragraph  may  look 
like  an  attempt  to  obtain  the  insertion  of  my 
circular  gratuitously.  If  it  should  appear  to 
you  in  that  light,  I  desire  that  you  would  erase 
it,  or  charge  for  it  at  the  usual  rates,  and  deduct 
the  amount  from  the  proceeds  in  your  hands 
from  the  sale  of  my  discourse,  when  it  shall  be 
printed.  My  circular  is  much  longer  and  more 
explicit,  and  will  be  forwarded  without  charge 
to  any  who  may  desire  it.  It  has  been  very 
neatly  executed  on  a  letter  sheet,  by  a  very  de 
serving  printer,  who  attends  uoon  my  ministry, 
and  is  a  creditable  specimen  of  the  typographic 
art.  I  have  one  hung  over  my  mantelpiece  in 
a  neat  frame,  where  it  makes  a  beautiful  and 
appropriate  ornament,  and  balances  the  profile 
of  Mrs.  W.,  cut  with  her  toes  by  the  young  lady 
born  without  arms. 

"H.  W." 

I  have  in  the  foregoing  letter  mentioned  Gen 
eral  Scott  in  connection  with  the  Presidency, 
because  I  have  been  given  to  understand  that 
he  has  blown  to  pieces  and  otherwise  caused  to 
be  destroyed  more  Mexicans  than  any  other 
commander.  His  claim  would  therefore  be  de 
servedly  considered  the  strongest.  Until  accu 
rate  returns  of  the  Mexicans  killed,  wounded, 
and  maimed  be  obtained,  it  will  be  difficult  to 
settle  these  nice  points  of  precedence.  Should 
it  prove  that  any  other  officer  has  been  more 
meritorious  and  destructive  than  General  S., 
and  has  thereby  rendered  himself  more  worthy 
of  the  confidence  and  support  of  the  conservative 
portion  of  our  community,  I  shall  cheerfully 
insert  his  name,  instead  of  that  of  General  S-, 
in  a  future  edition.  It  may  be  thought,  like 


wise,  that  General  S.  has  invalidated  his  claims 
by  too  much  attention  to  the  decencies  of  ap 
parel,  and  the  habits  belonging  to  a  gentleman. 
These  abstruser  points  of  statesmanship  are  be 
yond  my  scope.  I  wonder  not  that  successful 
inilitary  achievement  should  attract  the  admira 
tion  of  the  multitude.  Rather  do  I  rejoice  with 
wonder  to  behold  how  rapidly  this  sentiment  is 
losing  its  hold  upon  the  popular  mind.  It  is 
related  of  Thomas  Warton,  the  second  of  that 
honored  name  who  held  the  office  of  Poetry 
Professor  at  Oxford,  that,  when  one  wished  to 
find  him,  being  absconded,  as  was  his  wont, 
in  some  obscure  alehouse,  he  was  counselled  to 
traverse  the  city  with  a  drum  and  fife,  the  sound 
of  which  inspiring  music  would  be  sure  to  draw 
the  Doctor  from  his  retirement  into  the  street. 
We  are  all  more  or  less  bitten  with  this  martial 
insanity.  Nescio  qua  dulcedine  .  .  .  cunctos  ducit. 
I  confess  to  some  infection  of  that  itch  myself. 
When  I  see  a  Brigadier-General  maintaining  his 
insecure  elevation  in  the  saddle  under  the  severe 
fire  of  the  training-field,  and  when  I  remember 
that  some  military  enthusiasts,  through  haste, 
inexperience,  or  an  over-desire  to  lend  reality 
to  those  fictitious  combats,  will  sometimes  dis 
charge  their  ramrods,  I  cannot  but  admire, 
while  I  deplore,  the  mistaken  devotion  of  those 
Leroic  officers.  Semel  insanivimus  omnes.  I 
was  myself,  during  the  late  war  with  Great 
Britain,  chaplain  of-  a  regiment,  which  was  for 
tunately  never  called  to  active  military  duty. 
I  mention  this  circumstance  with  regret  rather 
than  pride.  Had  I  been  summoned  to  actual 
warfare,  I  trust  that  I  might  have  been  strength 
ened  to  bear  myself  after  the  manner  of  that 
reverend  father  in  our  New  England  Israel,  Dr. 
Benjamin  Colman,  who,  as  we  are  told  in  Tu- 
rell's  life  of  him,  when  the  vessel  in  which  he 
had  taken  passage  for  England  was  attacked 
by  a  French  privateer,  "  fought  like  a  philoso 
pher  and  a  Christian,  .  .  .  and  prayed  all  the 
while  he  charged  and  fired."  As  this  note  is 
already  long,  I  shall  not  here  enter  upon  a  dis 
cussion  of  the  question,  whether  Christians  may 
lawfully  be  soldiers.  I  think  it  sufficiently  evi 
dent,  that,  during  the  first  two  centuries  of  the 
Christian  era,  at  least,  the  two  professions  were 
esteemed  incompatible.  Consult  Jortin  on  this 
head.-H.  W.] 


No.  IV 

REMARKS      OF       INCREASE      D. 
O'PHACE,   ESQUIRE, 

AT  AN  EXTRUMPERY  CAUCUS  IN  STATE 
STREET,  REPORTED  BY  MR.  H.  BIG- 
LOW 

[THE  ingenious  reader  will  at  once  understand 
that  no  such  speech  as  the  following  was  ever 
totidem  verbis  pronounced.  But  there  are  simpler 
and  less  guarded  wits,  for  the  satisfying  of  which 


I92 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


such  an  explanation  may  be  needful.  For  there 
are  certain  invisible  lines,  which  as  Truth 
successively  overpasses,  she  becomes  Untruth 
to  one  and  another  of  us,  as  a  large  river, 
flowing  from  one  kingdom  into  another,  some 
times  takes  a  new  name,  albeit  the  waters 
undergo  no  change,  how  small  soever.  There  is, 
moreover,  a  truth  of  fiction  more  veracious 
than  the  truth  of  fact,  as  that  of  the  Poet,  which 
represents  to  us  things  and  events  as  they  ought 
to  be,  rather  than  servilely  copies  them  as  they 
are  imperfectly  imaged  in  the  crooked  and 
smoky  glass  of  our  mundane  aft'airs.  It  is  this 
which  makes  the  speech  of  Antonius,  though 
originally  spoken  in  no  wider  a  forum  than  the 
brain  of  Shakespeare,  more  historically  valuable 
than  that  other  which  Appian  has  reported,  by 
as  much  as  the  understanding  of  the  English 
man  was  more  comprehensive  than  that  of  the 
Alexandrian.  Mr.  Biglow,  in  the  present  in 
stance,  has  only  made  use  of  a  license  assumed 
by  all  the  historians  of  antiquity,  who  put  into 
the  mouths  of  various  characters  such  words  as 
seem  to  them  most  fitting  to  the  occasion  and 
to  the  speaker.  If  it  be  objected  that  no  such 
oration  could  ever  have  been  delivered,  1  answer, 
that  there  are  few  assemblages  for  speech- 
making  which  do  not  better  deserve  the  title  of 
P arli amentum  Indoctorum  than  did  the  sixth 
Parliament  of  Henry  the  Fourth,  and  that  men 
still  continue  to  have  as  much  faith  in  the  Or 
acle  of  Fools  as  ever  Pantagruel  had.  Howell, 
in  his  letters,  recounts  a  merry  tale  of  a  certain 
ambassador  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  who,  having 
written  two  letters,  —  one  to  her  Majesty,  and 
the  other  to  his  wife,  —  directed  them  at  cross- 
purposes,  so  that  the  Queen  was  beducked  and 
bedeared  and  requested  to  send  a  change  of 
hose,  and  the  wife  was  beprincessed  and  other 
wise  unwontedly  besuperlatived,  till  the  one 
feared  for  the  wits  of  her  ambassador,  and  the 
other  for  those  of  her  husband.  In  like  manner 
it  may  be  presumed  that  our  speaker  has  misdi 
rected  some  of  his  thoughts,  and  given  to  the 
•whole  theatre  what  he  would  have  wished  to 
confide  only  to  a  select  auditory  at  the  back  of 
the  curtain.  For  it  is  seldom  that  we  can  get 
any  frank  utterance  from  men,  who  address, 
for  the  most  part,  a  Buncombe  either  in  this 
world  or  the  next.  As  for  their  audiences,  it 
may  be  truly  said  of  our  people,  that  they  enjoy 
one  political  institution  in  common  with  the  an 
cient  Athenians:  I  mean  a  certain  profitless 
kind  of  ostracism,  wherewith,  nevertheless,  they 
seem  hitherto  well  enough  content.  For  in 
Presidential  elections,  and  other  affairs  of  the 
sort,  whereas  I  observe  that  the  oysters  fall  to 
the  lot  of  comparatively  few,  the  shells  (such  as 
the  privileges  of  voting  as  they  are  told  to  do  by 
the  ostrivori  aforesaid,  and  of  huz/aing  at  public 
meetings)  are  very  liberally  distributed  among 


1  The  speaker  is  of  a  different  mind  from  T"lly,  who, 
in  his  recently  discovered  tractate  De  Pepnblicn,  tells 
us,  NfC  vero  hfbcre  virtutem  srrti,t  f,xt,  quasi  artem 
aliqunm,  nisi  ulare,  and  from  our  Milton,  who  says : 
"  I  cannot  praise  a  fugitive  and  cloistered  virtue,  un- 


the  people,  as  being  their  prescriptive  and  quite 
sufficient  portion. 

The  occasion  of  the  speech  is  supposed  to  be 
Mr.  Palfrey's  refusal  to  vote  for  the  Whig  can 
didate  for  the  JSpeakership.  —  H.  W.j 

No  ?    Hez  he  ?    He  haint,  though  ?    Wut  ? 

Voted  agin  him  ? 
Ef  the  bird  of  our  country  could  ketch  him, 

she  'd  skin  him ; 
I  seem  's  though  1  see  her,  with  wrath  in 

each  quill, 

Like  a  chancery  lawyer,  afilin'  her  bill, 
An'  grindin'  her  talents   ez   sharp   ez   all 

nater, 
To  pounce  like  a  writ  on  the  back  o'  the 

traitor. 

Forgive  me,  my  friends,  ef  I  seem  to  be  het, 
But  a  crisis  like  this  must  with  vigor  be 

met; 
Wen  an  Arnold  the  star-spangled  banner 

bestains, 
Holl  Fourth  oj  Julys  seem  to  bile  in  my 


Who  ever  'd  ha'  thought  sech  a  pisonous  rig 
Would  be  run  by  a  chap  thet  wuz  chose  f  er 

a  Wig? 
"  We  knowed  wut  his  princerples  wuz  'fore 

we  sent  him  "  ? 
Wut  wuz  there  in  them  from  this  vote  to 

pervent  him  ? 

A  marciful  Providunce  fashioned  us  holler 
O'  purpose  thet  we  might  our  princerples 

s  waller; 
It  can  hold  any  quantity  on  'em,  the  belly 

can, 
An'   bring  'em  up  ready  fer  use  like  the 

pelican, 
Or  more  like  the  kangaroo,  who    (wich  is 

stranger) 
Puts  her  family  into  her  pouch  wen  there  's 

danger. 
Aint    princerple    precious  ?    then,    who  's 

goin'  to  use  it 
Wen  there  's  resk  o'  some  chap  's  gittin'  up 

to  abuse  it  ? 
I  can't  tell  the  wy  on'fc,  but  nothin'  is  so 

sure 
Ez  thet  princerple  kind  o'  gits  spiled  by 

exposure;1 


exercised  and  unbreathed,  that  never  sallies  out  and 
sees  her  adversary,  but  slinks  out  of  the  race  where  that 
immortal  garland  is  to  be  run  for,  not  without  dust  and 
heat."  —  Areop.  He  had  taken  the  words  out  of  the 
Roman's  mouth,  without  knowing  it,  and  might  well 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


A  man  thet  lets  all  sorts  o'  folks  git  a  sight 

on  't 
Ough'  to  hev  it  all  took  right  away,  every 

mite  on  't; 
Ef  he  can't  keep  it  all  to  himself  wen  it  's 

wise  to, 
He  aint  one  it's  fit  to  trust  nothin'  so  nice  to. 

Besides,  ther  's  a  wonderful  power  in  lati 
tude 

To  shift  a  man's  morril  relations  an'  atti 
tude; 

Some  flossifers  think  thet  a  fakkilty  's 
granted 

The  minnit  it  's  proved  to  be  thoroughly 
wanted, 

Thet  a  change  o'  demand  makes  a  change 
o'  condition, 

An'  thet  everythin'  's  nothin'  except  by 
position; 

Ez,  fer  instance,  thet  rubber-trees  fust  be 
gun  bearin' 

Wen  p'litikle  conshunces  come  into  wear- 
in', 

Thet  the  fears  of  a  monkey,  whose  holt 
chanced  to  fail, 

Drawed  the  vertibry  out  to  a  prehensile 
tail; 

So,  wen  one  's  chose  to  Congriss,  ez  soon  ez 
he  's  in  it, 

A  collar  grows  right  round  his  neck  in  a 
minnit, 

An*  sartin  it  is  thet  a  man  cannot  be  strict 

In  bein'  himself,  wen  he  gits  to  the  Dees- 
trict, 

Fer  a  coat  thet  sets  wal  here  in  ole  Massa 
chusetts, 

Wen  it  gits  on  to  Washinton,  somehow 
askew  sets. 

Resolves,  do  you   say,   o'  the    Springfield 

Convention  ? 
Thet  's  percisely  the  pint  I  was  goin'  to 

mention; 
Resolves  air  a  thing  we  most  gen'ally  keep 

ill, 
They  're  a  cheap  kind  'o  dust  fer  the  eyes 

o'  the  people; 

A  parcel  o'  delligits  jest  git  together 
An'  chat  fer  a   spell  o'  the  crops  an'  the 

weather, 

exclaim  with  Donatus  (if  Saint  Jerome's  tutor  may 
stand  sponsor  for  a  curse),  Pereant  qui  ante  nos  nostra 
dixerinU  —  H.  W. 


Then,  comin'  to  order,  they  squabble  awile 

An'  let  off  the  speeches  they  're  ferf ul  '11 
spile ; 

Then  —  Resolve,  —  Thet  we  wunt  hev  an 
inch  o'  slave  territory; 

Thet  Presidunt  Polk's  holl  perceedins  air 
very  tory; 

Thet  the  war  is  a  damned  war,  an'  them 
thet  enlist  in  it 

Should  hev  a  cravat  with  a  dreffle  tight 
twist  in  it; 

Thet  the  war  is  a  war  fer  the  spreadin'  o' 
slavery; 

Thet  our  army  desarves  our  best  thanks 
fer  their  bravery; 

Thet  we  're  the  original  friends  o'  the 
nation, 

All  the  rest  air  a  paltry  an'  base  fabrica 
tion; 

Thet  we  highly  respect  Messrs.  A,  B, 
an'C, 

An'  ez  deeply  despise  Messrs.  E,  F,  an'  G. 

In  this  way  they  go  to  the  eend  o'  the 
chapter, 

An'  then  they  bust  out  in  a  kind  of  a  rap- 
tur 

About  their  own  vartoo,  an'  folks's  stone- 
blindness 

To  the  men  thet  'ould  actilly  do  'em  a 
kindness,  — 

The  American  eagle,  —  the  Pilgrims  thet 
landed,  — 

Till  on  ole  Plymouth  Rock  they  git  finally 
stranded. 

Wal,  the  people  they  listen  an'  say,  "  Thet 's 
the  ticket; 

Ez  fer  Mexico,  't  aint  no  great  glory  to 
lick  it, 

But 't  would  be  a  darned  shame  to  go  pull- 
in'  o'  triggers 

To  extend  the  aree  of  abusin'  the  nig 
gers.'' 

So  they  march  in  percession,  an'  git  up 
hooraws, 

An'  tramp  thru  the  mud  fer  the  good  o'  the 
cause, 

An'  think  they  're  a  kind  o'  fulfillin'  the 
prophecies, 

Wen  they  're  on'y  jest  changin'  the  holders 
of  offices; 

Ware  A  sot  afore,  B  is  comf'tably  seated, 

One  humbug  's  victor'ous  an'  t'  other  de 
feated, 


i94 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


Each  honnable  doughface  gits  jest  wut  he 

axes, 
An'  the  people,  —  their  annooal  sof t-sodder 

an'  taxes. 

Now,  to  keep  unimpaired  all  these  glorious 

feeturs 
Thet  characterize  morril  an'  reasonin'  cree- 

turs, 

Thet  give  every  paytriot  all  he  can  cram, 
Thet    oust   the    untrustworthy    Presidunt 

Flam, 
An'    stick   honest   Presidunt  Sham  in  his 

place, 
To  the  manifest  gain   o'   the   holl   human 

race, 

An'  to  some  indervidgewals  on  't  in  par- 
tickler, 
Who  love  Public  Opinion  an'  know  how  to 

tickle  her, — 

I  say  thet  a  party  with  gret  aims  like  these 
Must  stick  jest  ez  close  ez  a  hive  full  o' 

bees. 

I  'm  willin'  a  man  should  go  tollable  strong 
Agin  wrong  in  the  abstract,  fer  thet  kind 

o'  wrong 

Is  oilers  unpop'lar  an'  never  gits  pitied, 
Because  it  's  a  crime  no   one  never   com 
mitted  ; 

But  he  inns'  n't  be  hard  on  partickler  sins, 
Coz  then  he  '11  be  kickin'  the  people's  own 

shins; 
On'y   look   at  the  Demmercrats,   see  wut 

they  've  done 

Jest  simply  by  stickin'  together  like  fun; 
They've  sucked   us   right  into  a  mis'able 

war 

Thet  no  one  on  airth  aint  responsible  for; 
They  've  run  us  a  hundred  cool  millions  in 

debt 
(An'  fer  Demmercrat  Homers  ther  's  good 

plums  left  yet) ; 
They  talk  agin  tayriffs,  but  act  fer  a  high 

one, 
An'    so  coax  all  parties  to  build  up  their 

Zion; 

To  the  people  they  're  oilers  ez  slick  ez  mo 
lasses, 
An'  butter  their  bread  on  both  sides  with 

The  Masses, 
Half  o'  whom  they  Ve  persuaded,  by  way 

of  a  joke, 
Thet   Washinton's   mantelpiece   fell   upon 

Polk. 


Now  all  o'  these  blessin's  the  Wigs  might 

enjoy, 
Ef  they  'd  gumption  enough  the  right  means 

to  imploy ; 1 
Fer  the  silver  spoon  born  in  Dermoc'acy's 

mouth 
Is  a  kind  of  a  scringe  thet  they  hev  to  the 

South; 
Their  masters  can  cuss  'em  an'  kick  'em  an' 

wale  'em, 

An'  they  notice  it  less  'an  the  ass  did  to  Ba 
laam; 
In   this   way   they  screw  into  second-rate 

offices 
Wich  the  slaveholder  thinks  'ould  substract 

too  much  off  his  ease; 
The  file-leaders,  I  mean,  du,  fer  they,  by 

their  wiles, 

Unlike  the  old  viper,  grow  fat  on  their  files. 
Wai,  the  Wigs  hev  been  tryin'  to  grab  all 

this  prey  frum  'em 
An'  to  hook  this  nice  spoon  o'  good  fortin' 

away  frum  'em, 
An'  they  might  ha'  succeeded,  ez  likely  ez 

not, 
In  lickin'  the  Demmercrats  all  round  the 

lot, 
Ef  it  warn't  the't,  wile  all  faithful  Wigs 

were  their  knees  on, 
Some  stuffy  old  codger  would  holler  out,  — 

"Treason! 
You  must  keep  a  sharp  eye  on  a  dog  thet 

hez  bit  you  once, 
An'  /  aint  agoin'  to  cheat   my   constitoo- 

unts,"  — 

Wen  every  fool  knows  thet  a  man  repre 
sents 
Not  the  fellers  thet  sent  him,  but  them  on 

the  fence,  — 

Impartially  ready  to  jump  either  side 
An'  make    the  fust  use  of  a  turn  o'  the 

tide,  — 

The  waiters  on  Providunce  here  in  the  city, 
Who  compose  wut  they  call  a  State  Centerl 

Committy. 

Constitoounts  air  hendy  to  help  a  man  in, 
But  arterwards  don't  weigh  the  heft  of  a 

pin. 
Wy,  the  people  can't  all  live  on  Uncle  Sam's 

pus, 
So  they  've  nothin'  to  du  with  't  fer  better 

or  wus; 


1  That  was  a  pithy  saying  of  Persius,  and  fits 
politicians  without  a  wrinkle,  —  Magister  artis,  \ 
niique  largitor  venter,  —  H.  W. 


our 

inge- 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


It 's  the  folks  thet  air  kind  o'  brought  up 

to  depend  on  't 
Thet  hev  any  consarn  in  't,  an'  thet  is  the 

end  on 't. 
Now  here  wuz  New  England  ahevin'  the 

honor 
Of  a  chance  at  the  Speakership  showered 

upon  her;  — 
Do  you    say,  "She  don't  want    no   more 

Speakers,  but  fewer; 
She  's  hed  plenty  o'  them,  wut  she  wants  is 

a  doer  "  ? 

Fer  the  matter  o'  thet,  it 's  notorous  in  town 
Thet  her  own  representatives  du  her  quite 

brown. 
But  thet's  nothin'  to  du  with  it;  wut  right 

hed  Palfrey 
To   mix   himself   up  with  fanatical  small 

fry? 
Warn't  we  gittin'  on  prime  with  our  hot 

an'  cold  bio  win', 
Acondemnin'   the   war    wilst   we    kep'    it 

ago  in'  ? 

We  'd  assumed  with  gret  skill  a  command- 
in'  position, 
On  this  side  or  thet,  no  one  could  u't  tell 

wich  one, 
So,  wutever  side  wipped,  we  'd  a  chance  at 

the  plunder 
An'  could  sue  fer  infringin'  our  paytented 

thunder; 
We   were  ready  to  vote  fer  whoever  wuz 

eligible, 
Ef  on  all  pints  at  issoo  he  'd  stay  unintelli- 

gible. 
Wai,  sposin'  we  hed  to  gulp  down  our  per- 

fessions, 
We  were  ready  to  come  out  next  mornin' 

with  fresh  ones; 

Besides,  ef  we  did,  't  was  our  business  alone, 
Fer  could  n't  we  du  wut  we  would  with  our 

own  ? 

An'  ef  a  man  can,  wen  pervisions  hev  riz  so, 
Eat  up  his  own  words,  it 's  a  marcy  it  is  so. 
Wy,  these  chaps  f  rum  the  North,  with  back 
bones  to  'em,  darn  'em, 
'Ould  be  wuth  more  'an  Gennle  Tom  Thumb 

is  to  Barnum: 
Ther  's  enough  thet  to  office  on  this  very 

plau  grow, 
By  exhibitin'  how  very  small  a  man  can 

grow; 
But  an  M.  C.  frum  here  oilers  hastens  to 

state  he 
Belongs  to  the  order  called  invertebraty, 


Wence  some  gret  filologists  judge   primy 

fashy 

Thet  M.  C.  is  M.  T.  by  paronomashy; 
An'  these  few  exceptions  air  loosus  naytury 
Folks  'ould  put  down  their  quarters  to  stare 

at,  like  fury. 

It  's  no  use  to  open  the  door  o'  success, 
Ef  a  member  can  bolt  so  fer  nothin'  or  less; 
Wy,  all  o'  them  grand  constitootional  pillers 
Our  fore-fathers  fetched  with  'em  over  the 

billers, 
Them   pillers   the   people   so  soundly  hev 

slep'  on, 
Wile  to  slav'ry,  invasion,  an'  debt  they  were 

swep'  on, 
Wile  our  Destiny  higher  an'  higher   kep' 

mountin' 
(Though  I   guess   folks  '11   stare  wen  she 

heuds  her  account  in), 

Ef  members  in  this  way  go  kickin'  agin  'em, 
They  wunt  hev  so  much  ez  a  feather  left  in 

'em. 

An',  ez  fer  this  Palfrey,1  we  thought  wen 

we  'd  gut  him  in, 
He  'd  go  kindly  in  wutever  harness  we  put 

him  in; 
Supposin'  we  did  know  thet  he  wuz  a  peace 

man  ? 
Doos  he  think  he  can  be  Uncle  Sammle's 

policeman, 

An'  wen  Sam  gits  tipsy  an  kicks  up  a  riot, 
Lead  him  off  to  the  lockup  to  snooze  till 

he  's  quiet  ? 
Wy,  the  war  is  a  war  thet  true  paytriots 

can  bear,  ef 
It   leads   to   the  fat   promised   land   of  a 

tayriff; 
We  don't  go  an'  fight  it,  nor  aint  to  be  driv 

on, 
Nor  Demmercrats  nuther,  thet  hev  wut  to 

live  on; 
Ef  it  aint  jest  the  thing  thet  's  well  pleasin' 

to  God, 
It  makes  us  thought  highly  on   elsewhere 

abroad ; 
The  Rooshian  black  eagle  looks  blue  in  his 

eerie 
An'  shakes  both  his  heads  wen  he  hears  o' 

Monteery ; 
In  the  Tower  Victory  sets,  all  of  a  fluster, 

1  There  is  truth  yet  in  this  of  Juvenal,  — 

"Dat  veniam  corvis,  vexat  censura  colurubas."  —  H-  'W 


196 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


An'  reads,  with  locked  doors,  how  we  won 

Cherry  Buster; 
An*  old  Philip  Lewis — thet  come  an'  kep' 

school  here 
Fer  the   mere   sake  o'  scorin'  his  ryalist 

ruler 
On    the   tenderest   part   of   our    kings   in 

futuro  — 
Hides  his  crown  underneath  an  old  shut  in 

his  bureau, 
Breaks  off  in  his  brags  to  a  suckle  o'  merry 

kings, 
How    he   often    hed    hided   young  native 

Amerrikins, 
An'  turnin'  quite  faint  in  the  midst  of  his 

fooleries, 
Sneaks  down  stairs  to  bolt  the   front  door 

o'  the  Tooleries.1 

You  say,  "  We  'd  ha'  scared  'em  by  grow- 
in'  in  peace, 
A  plaguy  sight  more  then  by  bobberies  like 

these"? 
Who  is  it  dares    say   thet   our   naytional 

eagle 
Wun't  much  longer   be   classed    with  the 

birds  thet  air  regal, 
Coz  theirn  be  hooked  beaks,  an'  she,  arter 

this  slaughter, 
'11   bring  back  a  bill  ten  times  longer  'n 

she  'd  ough'  to  ? 
Wut  's  your  name  ?     Come,  I  see  ye,  you 

up-country  feller, 
You  Ve  put  me  out  severil  times  with  your 

beller; 

Out  with  it !    Wut  ?     Biglow  ?     I  say  no- 
thin'  f  urder, 
Thet  feller  would  like  nothin'  better  'n  a 

murder; 
He  's  a  traiter,  blasphemer,  an'  wut  ruther 

worse  is, 

He  puts  all  his  ath'ism  in  dreffle  bad  verses; 
Socity  aint  safe  till  sech  monsters  air  out 

on  it, 
Refer  to   the   Post,  ef   you  hev  the  least 

doubt  on  it; 

Wy,  he  goes  agin  war,  agin  indirect  taxes, 
Agin  sellin'   wild   lands   'cept   to   settlers 

with  axes, 

1  Jortin  is  willing  to  allow  of  other  miracles  besides 
those  recorded  in  Holy  Writ,  and  why  not  of  other 
prophecies  ?  It  is  granting  too  much  to  Satan  to  sup 
pose  him,  as  divers  of  the  learned  have  done,  the  in- 
0pirer  of  the  ancient  oracles.  Wiser,  I  esteem  it,  to 
give  chance  the  credit  of  the  successful  ones.  What  is 
aaid  here  of  Louis  Philippe  was  verified  in  some  of  its 
minute  particulars  within  a  few  months'  time.  Enough 
to  have  made  the  fortune  of  Delphi  or  Hammon,  and 


Agiu  holdiii'  o'  slaves,  though  he  knows 
it  's  the  corner 

Our  libbaty  rests  on,  the  mis'able  scorner  ! 

In  short,  he  would  wholly  upset  with  his 
ravages 

All  thet  keeps  us  above  the  brute  critters 
an'  savages, 

An'  pitch  into  all  kinds  o'  briles  an'  con 
fusions 

The  holl  of  our  civerlized,  free  institu 
tions  ; 

He  writes  fer  thet  ruther  unsafe  print,  the 
Courier, 

An'  likely  ez  not  hez  a  squintin'  to  Foorier; 

I  'n  be ,  thet  is,  I  mean  I  '11  be  blest, 

Ef  I  hark  to  a  word  frum  so  noted  a  pest; 

I  sha'u't  talk  with  him,  my  religion  's  too 
fervent. 

Good  mornin',  my  friends,  I  'm  your  most 
humble  servant. 

[Into  the  question  whether  the  ability  to  ex 
press  ourselves  in  articulate  language  has  been 
productive  of  more  good  or  evil,  I  shall  not 
here  enter  at  large.  The  two  faculties  of  speech 
and  of  speech-making  are  wholly  diverse  in 
their  natures.  By  the  first  we  make  ourselves 
intelligible,  by  the  last  unintelligible,  to  our 
fellows.  It  has  not  seldom  occurred  to  me  (not 
ing  how  in  our  national  legislature  everything 
runs  to  talk,  as  lettuces,  if  the  season  or  the 
soil  be  unpropitious,  shoot  up  lankly  to  seed, 
instead  of  forming  handsome  heads)  that  Babel 
was  the  first  Congress,  the  earliest  mill  erected 
for  the  manufacture  of  gabble.  In  these  days, 
what  with  Town  Meetings,  fcchool  Committees, 
Boards  (lumber)  of  one  kind  and  another,  Con 
gresses,  Parliaments,  Diets,  Indian  Councils, 
Palavers,  and  the  like,  there  is  scarce  a  village 
which  has  not  its  factories  of  this  description 
driven  by  milk-and-water  power.  I  cannot 
conceive  the  confusion  of  tongues  to  have  been 
the  curse  of  Babel,  since  I  esteem  my  ignorance 
of  other  languages  as  a  kind  of  Martello-tower, 
in  which  I  am  safe  from  the  furious  bombard 
ments  of  foreign  garrulity.  For  this  reason  I 
have  ever  preferred  the  study  of  the  dead  lan 
guages,  those  primitive  formations  being  Ara- 
rats  upon  whose  silent  peaks  I  sit  secure  and 
watch  this  new  deluge  without  fear,  though  it 
rain  figures  (simulacra,  semblances)  of  speech 

no  thanks  to  Beelzebub  neither  !     That  of  Seneca  in 
Medea  will  suit  here  :  — 

"  Ranida  fprtuna  ac  levis 
Praecepsque  regno  eripuit,  exsilio  dedit." 

Let  us  allow,  even  to  richly  deserved  misfortune,  out 
commiseration,  and  be  not  over-hasty  meanwhile  in  our 
censure  of  the  French  people,  left  for  the  firrt  time  to 
govern  themselves,  remembering  that  wise  sentence  of 
^Eschylus,  — 

'Airas  6e  rpa^VS  carts  a.v  veov  Kpa.TJ}.  —  H.  W. 


THE  BIGLOW   PAPERS 


197 


forty  days  and  nights  together,  as  it  not  uncom 
monly  happens.  Thus  is  my  coat,  as  it  were, 
without  buttons  by  "which  any  but  a  vernacular 
wild  bore  can  seize  me.  Is  it  not  possible  that 
the  Shakers  may  intend  to  convey  a  quiet  re 
proof  and  hint,  in  fastening  their  outer  gar 
ments  with  hooks  and  eyes  ? 

This  reflection  concerning  Babel,  which  I 
find  in  no  Commentary,  was  first  thrown  upon 
rny  mind  when  an  excellent  deacon  of  my  con 
gregation  (being  infected  with  the  Second  Ad 
vent  delusion)  assured  me  that  he  had  received 
a  first  instalment  of  the  gift  of  tongues  as  a 
small  earnest  of  larger  possessions  in  the  like 
kind  to  follow.  For,  of  a  truth,  I  could  not 
reconcile  it  with  my  ideas  of  the  Divine  justice 
and  mercy  that  the  single  wall  which  protected 
people  of  other  languages  from  the  incursions 
of  this  otherwise  well-meaning  propagandist 
should  be  broken  down. 

In  reading  Congressional  debates,  I  have 
fancied,  that,  after  the  subsidence  of  those 
painful  buzzings  in  the  brain  which  result  from 
such  exercises,  I  detected  a  slender  residuum  of 
valuable  information.  I  made  the  discovery 
that  nothing  takes  longer  in  the  saying  than 
anything  else,  for  as  ex  nihilo  nihil.fit,  so  from 
one  polypus  nothing  any  number  of  similar  ones 
may  be  produced.  I  would  recommend  to  the 
attention  of  viva  voce  debaters  and  controver 
sialists  the  admirable  example  of  the  monk 
Copres,  who,  in  the  fourth  century,  stood  for 
half  an  hour  in  the  midst  of  a  great  fire,  and 
thereby  silenced  a  Manichsean  antagonist  who 
had  less  of  the  salamander  in  him.  As  for 
those  who  quarrel  in  print,  I  have  no  concern 
with  them  here,  since  the  eyelids  are  a  divinely 
granted  shield  against  all  such.  Moreover,  I 
have  observed  in  many  modern  books  that  the 
printed  portion  is  becoming  gradually  smaller, 
and  the  number  of  blank  or  fly-leaves  (as  they 
are  called)  greater.  Should  this  fortunate  ten 
dency  of  literature  continue,  books  will  grow 
more  valuable  from  year  to  year,  and  the  whole 
Serbonian  bog  yield  to  the  advances  of  firm 
arable  land. 

The  sagacious  Lacedaemonians,  hearing  that 
Tesephone  had  bragged  that  he  could  talk  all 
day  long  on  any  given  subject,  made  no  more 
ado,  but  forthwith  banished  him,  whereby  they 
supplied  him  a  topic  and  at  the  same  time  took 
care  that  his  experiment  upon  it  should  be  tried 
out  of  earshot. 

I  have  wondered,  in  the  Representatives' 
Chamber  of  our  own  Commonwealth,  to  mark 
how  little  impression  seemed  to  be  produced  by 
that  emblematic  fish  suspended  over  the  heads 
of  the  members.  Our  wiser  ancestors,  no  doubt, 
hung  it  there  as  being  the  animal  which  the 
Pythagoreans  reverenced  for  its  silence,  and 
which  certainly  in  that  particular  does  not  so 
well  merit  the  epithet  cold-blooded,  by  which 
naturalists  distinguish  it,  as  certain  bipeds,  af 
flicted  with  ditch-water  on  the  brain,  who  take 
occasion  to  tap  themselves  in  Faneuil  Halls, 
meeting-houses,  and  other  places  of  public  re 
sort.— H.W.] 


No.  V 
THE    DEBATE    IN    THE    SENNIT 

SOT   TO   A   NUSRY   RHYME 

[THE  incident  which  gave  rise  to  the  debate 
satirized  in  the  following  verses  was  the  unsuc 
cessful  attempt  of  Drayton  and  Sayres  to  give 
freedom  to  seventy  men  and  women,  fellow- 
beings  and  fellow-Christians.  Had  Tripoli,  in 
stead  of  Washington,  been  the  scene  of  this 
undertaking,  the  unhappy  leaders  in  it  would 
have  been  as  secure  of  the  theoretic  as  they  now 
are  of  the  practical  part  of  martyrdom.  I  ques 
tion  whether  the  Dey  of  Tripoli  is  blessed  with 
a  District  Attorney  so  benighted  as  ours  at  the 
seat  of  government.  Very  fitly  is  he  named 
Key,  who  would  allow  himself  to  be  made  the 
instrument  of  locking  the  door  of  hope  against 
sufferers  in  such  a  cause.  Not  all  the  waters  of 
the  ocean  can  cleanse  the  vile  smutch  of  the 
jailer's  fingers  from  off  that  little  Key.  Ahenea 
clavis,  a  brazen  Key  indeed  ! 

Mr.  Calhoun,  who  is  made  the  chief  speaker 
in  this  burlesque,  seems  to  think  that  the  light 
of  the  nineteenth  century  is  to  be  put  out  as 
soon  as  he  tinkles  his  little  cow-bell  curfew. 
Whenever  slavery  is  touched,  he  sets  up  his 
scarecrow  of  dissolving  the  Union.  This  may 
do  for  the  North,  but  I  should  conjecture  that 
something  more  than  a  pumpkin-lantern  is  re 
quired  to  scare  manifest  and  irretrievable  Des 
tiny  out  of  her  path.  Mr.  Calhoun  cannot  let 
go  the  apron-string  of  the  Past.  The  Past  is  a 
good  nurse,  but  we  must  be  weaned  from  her 
sooner  or  later,  even  though,  like  Plotinus,  we 
should  run  home  from  school  to  ask  the  breast, 
after  we  are  tolerably  well-grown  youths.  It 
will  not  do  for  us  to  hide  our  faces  in  her  lap, 
whenever  the  strange  Future  holds  out  her 
arms  and  asks  us  to  come  to  her. 

But  we  are  all  alike.  We  have  all  heard  it 
said,  often  enough,  that  little  boys  must  not 
play  with  fire  ;  and  yet,  if  the  matches  be  taken 
away  from  us,  and  put  out  of  reach  upon  the 
shelf,  we  must  needs  gets  into  our  little  corner, 
and  scowl  and  stamp  and  threaten  the  dire  re 
venge  of  going  to  bed  without  our  supper.  The 
world  shall  stop  till  we  get  our  dangerous  play 
thing  again.  Dame  Earth,  meanwhile,  who  has 
more  than  enough  household  matters  to  mind, 
goes  bustling  hither  and  thither  as  a  hiss  or  a 
sputter  tells  her  that  this  or  that  kettle  of  hers 
is  boiling  over,  arid  before  bedtime  we  are  glad 
to  eat  our  porridge  cold,  and  gulp  down  our  dig 
nity  along  with  it. 

Mr.  Calhoun  has  somehow  acquired  the  name 
of  a  great  statesman,  and,  if  it  be  great  states 
manship  to  put  lance  in  rest  and  run  a  tilt  at 
the  Spirit  of  the  Age  with  the  certainty  of 
being  next  moment  hurled  neck  and  heels  into 
the  dust  amid  universal  laughter,  he  deserves 
the  title.  He  is  the  Sir  Kay  of  our  modern 
chivalry.  He  should  remember  the  old  Scan 
dinavian  mythus.  Thor  was  the  strongest  of 


198 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


gods,  but  he  could  not  wrestle  with  Time,  nor 
so  much  as  lift  up  a  fold  of  the  great  snake 
which  bound  the  universe  together  ;  and  when 
he  smote  the  Earth,  though  with  his  terrible 
mallet,  it  was  but  as  if  a  leaf  had  fallen.  Yet 
all  the  while  it  seemed  to  Thor  that  he  had  only 
been  wrestling  with  an  old  woman,  striving  to 
lift  a  cat,  and  striking  a  stupid  giant  on  the 
head. 

And  in  old  times,  doubtless,  the  giants  were 
stupid,  and  there  was  no  better  sport  for  the  Sir 
Launcelots  and  Sir  Gawains  than  to  go  about 
cutting  off  their  great  blundering  heads  with 
enchanted  swords.  But  things  have  wonder 
fully  changed.  It  is  the  giants,  nowadays,  that 
have  the  science  and  the  intelligence,  while  the 
chivalrous  Don  Quixotes  of  Conservatism  still 
cumber  themselves  with  the  clumsy  armor  of 
a  bygone  age.  On  whirls  the  restless  globe 
through  unsounded  time,  with  its  cities  and  its 
silences,  its  births  and  funerals,  half  light,  half 
shade,  but  never  wholly  dark,  and  sure  to  swing 
round  into  the  happy  morning  at  last.  With  an 
involuntary  smile,  one  sees  Mr.  Calhoun  letting 
slip  his  pack-thread  cable  with  a  crooked  pin  at 
the  end  of  it  to  anchor  South  Carolina  upon  the 
bank  and  shoal  of  the  Past.  —  H.  W.] 


TO   MR.   BUCKENAM 

MR.  EDITER,  As  i  wuz  kinder  prunin 
round  in  a  little  nussry  sot  out  a  year  or  2 
a  go,  the  Dbait  in  the  sennit  cum  inter  my 
mine  An  so  i  took  &  Sot  it  to  wut  I  call  a 
nnssry  rime.  I  hev  made  sum  onnable 
Gentlemun  speak  thut  dident  speak  in  a 
Kind  uv  Poetikul  lie  sense  the  seeson  is 
dreffle  backerd  up  This  way 
ewers  as  ushul 

HOSEA  BIGLOW. 


"HERE  we  stan'  on   the  Constitution,  by 

thunder ! 
It 's   a   fact   o'   wich   ther  's   bushils   o' 

proofs ; 
Fer  how  could  we   trample   on   't   so,    I 

wonder, 
Ef  't  worn't  thet  it 's  oilers  under  our 

hoofs  ?  " 

Sez  John  C.  Calhoun,  sez  he  ; 
"  Human  rights  haint  no  more 
Right  to  come  on  this  floor, 
No  more  'n  the  man  in  the  moon,"  sez 
he. 

*  The  North  haint  no  kind  o'  bisness  with 

nothin', 

An'  you  've  no  idee  how  much  bother  it 
saves  ; 


We  aint  noue   riled   by  their   frettiu'  an' 

frothin', 
We  're  used  to  layin'  the  string  on  our 

slaves," 

Sez  John  C.  Calhoun,  sez  he;  — 
Sez  Mister  Foote, 
"  I  should  like  to  shoot 
The    holl    gang,    by    the    gret    horn 
spoon  ! "  sez  he. 

"  Freedom's    Keystone     is    Slavery,    thet 

ther  's  no  doubt  on, 
It 's  sutthin'  thet 's—  wha'  d'  ye  call  it  ? 

—  divine,  — 
An'  the   slaves   thet   we   oilers   make  the 

most  out  on 
Air  them   north  o'  Mason   an'  Dixon's 

line," 

Sez  John  C.  Calhoun,  sez  he;  — 
"  Fer  all  that,"  sez  Mangum, 
"  'T  would  be  better  to  hang  'em 
An'  so  git  red  on  'em  soon,"  sez  he. 

"  The  mass  ough'  to  labor  an'  we  lay  on 

soffies, 

Thet 's  the  reason  I  want  to  spread  Free 
dom's  aree; 

It  puts  all  the  cunninest  on  us  in  office, 
An'  reelises  our  Maker's  orig'nal  idee," 
Sez  John  C.  Calhoun,  sez  he;  — 
"Thet's  ez  plain,"  sez  Cass, 
"  Ez  thet  some  one 's  an  ass, 
It 's  ez  clear  ez  the  sun  is  at  noon,"  sez 
he. 

"Now  don't  go  to  say  I'm  the  friend  of 

oppression, 
But  keep  all  your  spare  breath  f er  coolin* 

your  broth, 
Fer  I  oilers  hev  strove  (at  least  thet 's  my 

impression) 
To  make  cussed  free  with  the  rights  o* 

the  North," 

Sez  John  C.  Calhoun,  sez  he;  — 
"  Yes,"  sez  Davis  o'  Miss., 
"  The  perfection  o'  bliss 
Is  in  skinnin'  thet  same  old  coon,"  sez 
he. 

"  Slavery 's  a  thing  thet  depends  on  com. 

plexion, 
It 's  God's  law  thet  fetters  on  black  skins 

don't  chafe ; 

Ef  brains  wuz  to  settle  it  (horrid  reflection  1 
Wich  of  our  onnable  body 'd  be  safe  ?  " 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


199 


Sez  John  C.  Calhoun,  sez  he ;  — 

Sez  Mister  Hannegan, 

Afore  he  began  agin, 
"  Thet  exception  is  quite  oppertoon," 

sez  he. 

»'  Gen'nle  Cass,  Sir,  you  need  n't  be  twitchin' 

your  collar, 
Your  merit 's  quite  clear  by  the  dut  on 

your  kuees, 
At  the  North  we  don't  make  no  distinctions 

o'  color; 
You  can  all  take  a  lick  at  our  shoes  wen 

you  please," 

Sez  John  C.  Calhoun,  sez  he;  — 
Sez  Mister  Jarnagin, 
"  They  wun't  hev  to  larn  agin, 
They  all  on  'em  know  the  old  toon," 
sez  he. 

"  The  slavery  question  aint  no  ways  bewil- 

derin', 
North  an'  South  hev  one  int'rest,  it's  plain 

to  a  glance; 
No'thern  men,  like  us  patriarchs,  don't  sell 

their  childrin, 
But  they  du  sell  themselves,  ef  they  git  a 

good  chance," 

Sez  John  C.  Calhoun,  sez  he; — 
Sez  Atherton  here, 
"  This  is  gittin'  severe, 
I  wish  I  could  dive  like  a  loon,"  sez  he. 

"  It  '11  break  up  the  Union,  this  talk  about 

freedom, 
An'  your  fact'  ry  gals   (soon  ez  we  split) 

'11  make  head, 
An'  gittin'  some  Miss  chief  or  other  to  lead 

'em, 

'11  go  to  work  raisin'  permiscoous  Ned," 
Sez  John  C.  Calhoun,  sez  he;  — 
"Yes,  the  North,"  sez  Colquitt, 
"  Ef  we  Southeners  all  quit, 
Would  go  down  like  a  busted  balloon," 
sez  he. 

"Jest    look   wut   is   doin',    wut    annyky's 

brew  in' 
In  the  beautiful  clime  o'  the  olive  an' 

vine, 

All  the  wise  aristoxy  's  atumblin'  to  ruin, 
An'   the  sankylots   drorin'   an'   drinkin' 

their  wine," 

Sez  John  C.  Calhoun,  sez  he;  — 
"  Yes,"  sez  Johnson,  "  in  France 


They  're  begininn'  to  dance 
Beelzebub's  own  rigadoon,"  sez  he. 

"  The  South  's  safe  enough,  it  don't  feel  a 

mite  skeery, 
Our  slaves  in  their  darkness  an'  dut  air 

tu  blest 
Not  to  welcome  with  proud  hallylugers  the 

ery 
Wen  our  eagle  kicks  yourn  from  the  nay- 

tional  nest," 

Sez  John  C.  Calhoun,  sez  he;  — 
"  Oh,"  sez  Westcott  o'  Florida, 
"  Wut  treason  is  horrider 
Than  our  priv'leges  tryin'  to  proon  ?  " 
sez  he. 

"  It 's  'coz  they  're  so  happy,  thet,  wen  crazy 

sarpints 
Stick  their  nose  in  our  bizness,  we  git  so 

darned  riled; 
We  think  it  's  our  dooty  to  give  pooty  sharp 

hints, 
Thet  the  last   crumb  of  Edin  on  airth 

sha'n't  be  spiled," 
Sez  John  C.  Calhoun,  sez  he;  — 
"  Ah,"  sez  Dixon  H.  Lewis, 
"  It  perfectly  true  is 
Thet  slavery 's  airth's  grettest  boon," 
sez  he. 


[It  was  said  of  old  time,  that  riches  have 
wings  ;  and,  though  this  be  not  applicable  in  a 
literal  strictness  to  the  wealth  of  our  patriarchal 
brethren  of  the  South,  yet  it  is  clear  that  their 
possessions  have  legs,  and  an  unaccountable 
propensity  for  using  them  in  a  northerly  direc 
tion.  I  marvel  that  the  grand  jury  of  Washing 
ton  did  not  find  a  true  bill  against  the  North 
Star  for  aiding  and  abetting  Drayton  and  Sayres. 
It  would  have  been  quite  of  a  piece  with  the 
intelligence  displayed  by  the  South  on  other 
questions  connected  with  slavery.  I  think  that 
no  ship  of  state  was  ever  freighted  with  a  more 
veritable  Jonah  than  this  same  domestic  institu 
tion  of  ours.  Mephistopheles  himself  could  not 
feign  so  bitterly,  so  satirically  sad  a  sight  as 
this  of  three  millions  of  human  beings  crushed 
beyond  help  or  hope  by  this  one  mighty  argu 
ment,  —  Our  fathers  knew  no  better  !  Neverthe 
less,  it  is  the  unavoidable  destiny  of  Jonahs  to 
be  cast  overboard  sooner  or  later.  Or  shall  we 
try  the  experiment  of  hiding  our  Jonah  in  a  safe 
place,  that  none  may  lay  hands  on  him  to  make 
jetsam  of  him  ?  Let  us,  then,  with  equal  fore 
thought  and  wisdom,  lash  ourselves  to  the  an 
chor,  and  await,  in  pious  confidence,  the  cer 
tain  result.  Perhaps  our  suspicious  passenger 
is  no  Jonah  after  all,  being  black.  For  it  is  well 
known  that  a  superintending  Providence  made 


2OO 


THE    BIGLOW   PAPERS 


a  kind  of  sandwich  of  Ham  and  his  descendants, 
to  be  devoured  by  the  Caucasian  race. 

In  God's  name,  let  all,  who  hear  nearer  and 
nearer  the  hungry  moan  of  the  storm  and  the 
growl  of  the  breakers,  speak  out !  But,  alas  ! 
we  have  no  right  to  interfere.  If  a  man  pluck 
an  apple  of  mine,  he  shall  be  in  danger  of  the 
justice ;  but  if  he  steal  my  brother,  I  must  be 
silent.  Who  says  this  ?  Our  Constitution,  con 
secrated  by  the  callous  consuetude  of  sixty 
years,  and  grasped  in  triumphant  argument  by 
the  left  hand  of  him  whose  right  hand  clutches 
the  clotted  slave-whip.  Justice,  venerable  with 
the  undethronable  majesty  of  countless  aeons, 
says,  — SPEAK  !  The  Past,  wise  with  the  sorrows 
and  desolations  of  ages,  from  amid  her  shattered 
fanes  and  wolf  -  housing  palaces,  echoes,  — 
SPEAK  !  Nature,  through  her  thousand  trum 
pets  of  freedom,  her  stars,  her  sunrises,  her  seas, 
her  winds,  her  cataracts,  her  mountains  blue 
with  cloudy  pines,  blows  jubilant  encourage 
ment,  and  cries, — SPEAK!  From  the  soul's 
trembling  abysses  the  still,  small  voice  not 
vaguely  murmurs, — SPEAK!  But,  alas!  the 
Constitution  and  the  Honorable  Mr.  Bagowind, 
M.  C.,  say  —  BE  DUMB  ! 

It  occurs  to  me  to  suggest,  as  a  topic  of  in 
quiry  in  this  connection,  whether,  on  that  mo 
mentous  occasion  when  the  goats  and  the  sheep 
shall  be  parted,  the  Constitution  and  the  Hon 
orable  Mr.  Bagowind,  M.  C.,  will  be  expected 
to  take  their  places  on  the  left  as  our  hircine 


vicars, 


Quid  sum  miser  tune  dicturus  f 
Quern  patronum  rogaturus  f 


There  is  a  point  where  toleration  sinks  into 
sheer  baseness  and  poltroonery.  The  toleration 
of  the  worst  leads  us  to  look  on  what  is  barely 
better  as  good  enough,  and  to  worship  what  is 
only  moderately  good.  Woe  to  that  man,  or 
that  nation,  to  whom  mediocrity  has  become  an 
ideal ! 

Has  our  experiment  of  self-government  suc 
ceeded,  if  it  barely  manage  to  rub  and  go  ? 
Here,  now,  is  a  piece  of  barbarism  which  Christ 
and  the  nineteenth  century  say  shall  cease,  and 
which  Messrs.  Smith,  Brown,  and  others  say 
shall  not  cease.  I  would  by  no  means  deny  the 
eminent  respectability  of  these  gentlemen,  but 
I  confess,  that,  in  such  a  wrestling-match,  I 
cannot  help  having  my  fears  for  them. 

Discite  justitiam,  moniti,  el  non  temnere  divos. 

H.W.] 


No.   VI 
THE    PIOUS    EDITOR'S    CREED 

[AT  the  special  instance  of  Mr.  Biglow,  I  pre 
face  the  following  satire  with  an  extract  from 
a  sermon  preached  during  the  past  summer, 
from  Ezekiel  xxxiv.  2 :  "  Son  of  man,  prophesy 
against  the  shepherds  of  Israel."  Since  the 
Sabbath  on  which  this  discourse  was  delivered, 


the  editor  of  the  "  Jaalam  Independent  Blun 
derbuss  "  has  unaccountably  absented  himself 
from  our  house  of  worship. 

"  I  know  of  no  so  responsible  position  as  that 
of  the  public  journalist.  The  editor  of  our  day 
bears  the  same  relation  to  his  time  that  the 
clerk  bore  to  the  age  before  the  invention  of 
printing.  Indeed,  the  position  which  he  hold? 
is  that  which  the  clergyman  should  hold  even 
now.  But  the  clergyman  chooses  to  walk  off  to 
the  extreme  edge  of  the  world,  and  to  throw 
such  seed  as  he  has  clear  over  into  that  dark 
ness  which  he  calls  the  Next  Life.  As  if  next 
did  not  mean  nearest,  and  as  if  any  life  wera 
nearer  than  that  immediately  present  one  which 
boils  and  eddies  all  around  him  at  the  caucus, 
the  ratification  meeting,  and  the  polls  !  Who 
taught  him  to  exhort  men  to  prepare  for  eter 
nity,  as  for  some  future  era  of  which  the  pres 
ent  forms  no  integral  part  ?  The  furrow  which 
Time  is  even  now  turning  runs  through  the 
Everlasting,  and  in  that  must  he  plant,  or  no 
where.  Yet  he  would  fain  believe  and  teach 
that  we  are  going  to  have  more  of  eternity  than 
we  have  now.  This  going  of  his  is  like  that  of 
the  auctioneer,  on  which  gone  follows  before  we 
have  made  up  our  minds  to  bid,  —  in  which 
manner,  not  three  months  back,  I  lost  an  excel 
lent  copy  of  Chappelow  on  Job.  So  it  has  come 
to  pass  that  the  preacher,  instead  of  being 
a  living  force,  has  faded  into  an  emblematic 
figure  at  christenings,  weddings,  and  funerals. 
Or,  if  he  exercise  any  other  function,  it  is  as 
keeper  and  feeder  of  certain  theologic  dogmas, 
which,  when  occasion  offers,  he  unkennels  w  ith 
a  stdboy  !  '  to  bark  and  bite  as  't  is  their  nature 
to,'  whence  that  reproach  of  odium  theologicum 
has  arisen. 

"Meanwhile,  see  what  a  pulpit  the  editor 
mounts  daily,  sometimes  with  a  congregation  of 
fifty  thousand  within  reach  of  his  voice,  and 
never  so  much  as  a  nodder,  even,  among  them ! 
And  from  what  a  Bible  can  he  choose  his  text, 

—  a  Bible  which  needs  no  translation,  and  which 
no  priestcraft  can  shut  and  clasp  from  the  laity, 

—  the  open  volume  of  the  world,  upon  which, 
with  a  pen  of  sunshine  or  destroying  fire,  the  in 
spired  Present  is  even  now  writing  the  annals  of 
God  !     Methinks  the  editor  who  should  under 
stand  his  calling,  and  be  equal  thereto,  would 
truly  deserve   that  title  of  Troi/aV  Aau>i',  which 
Homer  bestows  upon  princes.    He  would  be  the 
Moses  of  our  nineteenth  century  ;  and  whereas 
the   old    Sinai,   silent  now,  is  but  a  common 
mountain  stared  at  by  the  elegant  tourist  and 
crawled  over  by  the  hammering  geologist,  he 
must  find  his  tables  of  the  new  law  here  among 
factories  and  cities  in  this  Wilderness  of  Sin 
(Numbers  xxxiii.  12)  called  Progress  of  Civiliza 
tion,  and  be  the  captain  of  our  Exodus  into  the 
Canaan  of  a  truer  social  order. 

"  Nevertheless,  our  editor  will  not  come  so 
far  within  even  the  shadow  of  Sinai  as  Mahomet 
did,  but  chooses  rather  to  construe  Moses  by 
Joe  Smith.  He  takes  up  the  crook,  not  that 
the  sheep  may  be  fed,  but  that  he  may  never 
want  a  warm  woollen  suit  and  a  joint  of  mutton. 


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2OI 


Immemor,  O,  fidei,  pecommquc  oblite  tuorum  ! 

For  which  reason  I  would  derive  the  name  ed 
itor  not  so  much  from  edo,  to  publish,  as  from 
edo,  to  eat,  that  being  the  peculiar  profession  to 
which  he  esteems  himself  called.  He  blows  up 
the  flames  of  political  discord  for  no  other  occa 
sion  than  that  he  may  thereby  handily  boil  his 
own  pot.  I  believe  there  are  two  thousand  of 
these  mutton-loving  shepherds  in  the  United 
States,  and  of  these,  how  many  have  even  the 
dimmest  perception  of  their  immense  power, 
and  the  duties  consequent  thereon  ?  Here  and 
there,  haply,  one.  Nine  hundred  and  ninety- 
nine  labor  to  impress  upon  the  people  the  great 
principles  of  Tweedledum,  and  other  nine  hun 
dred  and  ninety-nine  preach  with  equal  earnest 
ness  the  gospel  according  to  Tweedledee."  — 
H.W.] 

I  DU  believe  in  Freedom's  cause, 

Ez  fur  away  ez  Payris  is  ; 
I  love  to  see  her  stick  her  claws 

In  them  infarnal  Phayrisees  ; 
It 's  wal  enough  agin  a  king 

To  dror  resolves  an'  triggers,  — 
But  libbaty  's  a  kind  o'  thing 

Thet  don't  agree  with  niggers. 

I  du  believe  the  people  want 

A  tax  on  teas  an'  coffees, 
Thet  nothin'  aint  extravygunt,  — 

Purvidin'  I  'm  in  office  ; 
Fer  I  hev  loved  my  country  sence 

My  eye-teeth  filled  their  sockets, 
An'  Uncle  Sam  I  reverence, 

Partic'larly  his  pockets. 

I  du  believe  in  any  plan 

O'  levyin'  the  texes, 
Ez  long  ez,  like  a  lumberman, 

I  git  jest  wut  I  axes  ; 
I  go  free-trade  thru  thick  an'  thin, 

Because  it  kind  o'  rouses 
The  folks  to  vote,  —  an'  keeps  us  in 

Our  quiet  custom-houses. 

I  du  believe  it  's  wise  an'  good 

To  sen'  out  furrin  missions, 
Thet  is,  on  sartin  understood 

An'  orthyclox  conditions  ;  — 
I  mean  nine  thousan'  dolls,  per  ann.. 

Nine  thousan'  more  fer  outfit, 
An'  me  to  recommend  a  man 

The  place  'ould  jest  about  fit. 

I  du  believe  in  special  ways 
O'  prayin'  an'  convartin'  ; 
The  bread  comes  back  in  many  days, 


An'  buttered,  tu,  fer  sartin  ; 
I  mean  in  preyiu'  till  one  busts 

On  wut  the  party  chooses, 
An'  in  convartin'  public  trusts 

To  very  privit  uses. 

I  du  believe  hard  coin  the  stuff 

Fer  'lectioueers  to  spout  on; 
The  people's  oilers  soft  enough 

To  make  hard  money  out  on; 
Dear  Uncle  Sam  pervides  fer  his, 

An'  gives  a  good-sized  junk  to  all, — •• 
I  don't  care  how  hard  money  is, 

Ez  long  ez  mine  's  paid  puuctooal. 

I  du  believe  with  all  my  soul 

In  the  gret  Press's  freedom, 
To  pint  the  people  to  the  goal 

An'  in  the  traces  lead  'em; 
Palsied  the  arm  thet  forges  yokes 

At  my  fat  contracts  squintin', 
An'  withered  be  the  nose  thet  pokes 

Inter  the  gov'ment  printm' ! 

I  du  believe  thet  I  should  give 

Wnt  's  his'n  unto  Caesar, 
Fer  it  's  by  him  I  move  an'  live, 

Frum  him  my  bread  an'  cheese  air; 
I  du  believe  thet  all  o'  me 

Doth  bear  his  superscription,  — 
Will,  conscience,  honor,  honesty, 

An'  things  o'  thet  description. 

I  du  believe  in  prayer  an'  praise 

To  him  thet  hez  the  grantin' 
O'  jobs,  —  in  every  thin'  thet  pays, 

But  most  of  all  in  CANTIN'  ; 
This  doth  my  cup  with  marcies  fill, 

This  lays  all  thought  o'  sin  to  rest,  — • 
I  don't  believe  in  princerple, 

But  oh,  I  du  in  interest. 

I  du  believe  in  bein'  this 

Or  thet,  ez  it  may  happen 
One  way  or  't  other  hendiest  is 

To  ketch  the  people  nappin'  ; 
It  aint  by  princerples  nor  men 

My  preudunt  course  is  steadied,  — 
I  scent  wich  pays  the  best,  an'  then. 

Go  into  it  baldheaded. 

I  du  believe  thet  holdin'  slaves 
Comes  nat'ral  to  a  Presidunt, 

Let  'lone  the  rowdedow  it  saves 
To  hev  a  wal-broke  precedunt; 


202 


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Fer  any  office,  small  or  gret, 
I  could  n't  ax  with  no  face, 
'iithout  I  'd  ben,  thru  dry  an'  wet, 
,     Th'  uurizzest  kind  o'  doughface. 

I  du  believe  wutever  trash 

'11  keep  the  people  in  blindness,  — 
Thet  we  the  Mexicuus  can  thrash 

Right  inter  brotherly  kindness, 
Thet  bombshells,  grape,  an'  powder  'n'  ball 

Air  good-will's  strongest  magnets, 
Thet  peace,  to  make  it  stick  at  all, 

Must  be  druv  in  with  bagnets. 

In  short,  I  firmly  du  believe 

In  Humbug  generally, 
Fer  it 's  a  thing  thet  I  perceive 

To  hev  a  solid  vally; 
This  heth  my  faithful  shepherd  ben, 

In  pasturs  sweet  heth  led  me, 
An'  this  '11  keep  the  people  green 

To  feed  ez  they  hev  fed  me. 

[I  subjoin  here  another  passage  from  my  be 
fore-mentioned  discourse. 

4 '  Wonderful,  to  him  that  has  eyes  to  see  it 
rightly,  is  the  newspaper.  To  me,  for  example, 
sitting  on  the  critical  front  bench  of  the  pit,  in 
my  study  here  in  Jaalam,  the  advent  of  my 
weekly  journal  is  as  that  of  a  strolling  theatre, 
or  rather  of  a  puppet-show,  on  whose  stage,  nar 
row  as  it  is,  the  tragedy,  comedy,  and  farce 
of  life  are  played  in  little.  Behold  the  whole 
huge  earth  sent  to  me  hebdomadally  in  a  brown- 
paper  wrapper ! 

'  Hither,  to  my  obscure  corner,  by  wind  or 
steam,  on  horseback  or  dromedary-back,  in  the 
pouch  of  the  Indian  runner,  or  clicking  over 
the  magnetic  wires,  troop  all  the  famous  per 
formers  from  the  four  quarters  of  the  globe. 
Looked  at  from  a  point  of  criticism,  tiny  pup 
pets  they  seem  all,  as  the  editor  sets  up  his 
booth  upon  my  desk  and  officiates  as  showman. 
Now  I  can  truly  see  how  little  and  transitory  is 
life.  The  earth  appears  almost  as  a  drop  of 
vinegar,  on  which  the  solar  microscope  of  the 
imagination  must  be  broiight  to  bear  in  order 
to  make  out  anything  distinctly.  That  animal 
cule  there,  in  the  pea-jacket,  is  Louis  Philippe, 
just  landed  on  the  coast  of  England.  That 
other,  in  the  gray  surtout  and  cocked  hat,  is 
Napoleon  Bonaparte  Smith,  assuring  France 
that  she  need  apprehend  no  interference  from 
him  in  the  present  alarming  juncture.  At  that 
spot,  where  you  seem  to  see  a  speck  of  some 
thing  in  motion,  is  an  immense  mass-meeting. 
Look  sharper,  and  you  will  see  a  mite  brandish 
ing  his  mandibles  in  an  excited  manner.  That 
is  the  great  Mr.  Soandso,  defining  his  position 
amid  tumultuous  and  irrepressible  cheers. 
That  infinitesimal  creature,  upon  whom  some 


score  of  others,  as  minute  as  he,  are  gazing  in 
open-mouthed  admiration,  is  a  famous  philoso 
pher,  expounding  to  a  select  audience  their 
capacity  for  the  Infinite.  That  scarce  discerni 
ble  pufflet  of  smoke  and  dust  is  a  revolution. 
That  speck  there  is  a  reformer,  just  arranging 
the  lever  with  which  he  is  to  move  the  world. 
And  lo,  there  creeps  forward  the  shadow  of  a 
skeleton  that  blows  one  breath  between  its 
grinning  teeth,  and  all  our  distinguished  actors 
are  whisked  off  the  slippery  stage  into  the  dark 
Beyond. 

Yes,  the  little  show-box  has  its  solemner 
suggestions.  Now  and  then  we  catch  a  glimpse 
of  a  grim  old  man,  w  ho  lays  down  a  scythe  and 
hour-glass  in  the  corner  while  he  shifts  the 
scenes.  There,  too,  in  the  dim  background,  a 
weird  shape  is  ever  delving.  Sometimes  he 
leans  upon  his  mattock,  and  gazes,  as  a  coach 
whirls  by,  bearing  the  newly  married  on  their 
wedding  jaunt,  or  glances  carelessly  at  a  babe 
brought  home  from  christening.  Suddenly  (for 
the  scene  grows  larger  and  larger  as  we  look)  a 
bony  hand  snatches  back  a  performer  in  the 
midst  of  his  part,  and  him,  whom  yesterday 
two  infinities  (past  and  future)  would  not  suf 
fice,  a  handful  of  dust  is  enough  to  cover  and 
silence  forever.  Nay,  we  see  the  same  fleshless 
fingers  opening  to  clutch  the  showman  himself, 
and  guess,  not  without  a  shudder,  that  they  are 
lying  in  wait  for  spectator  also. 

"  Think  of  it :  for  three  dollars  a  year  I  buy 
a  season-ticket  to  this  great  Globe  Theatre,  for 
which  God  would  write  the  dramas  (only  that 
we  like  farces,  spectacles,  and  the  tragedies  of 
Apollyon  better),  whose  scene-shifter  is  Time, 
and  whose  curtain  is  rung  down  by  Death. 

"  Such  thoughts  will  occur  to  me  sometimes 
as  I  am  tearing  off  the  wrapper  of  my  news 
paper.  Then  suddenly  that  otherwise  too  often 
vacant  sheet  becomes  invested  for  me  with  a 
strange  kind  of  awe.  Look  !  deaths  and  mar 
riages,  notices  of  inventions,  discoveries,  and 
books,  lists  of  promotions,  of  killed,  wounded, 
and  missing,  news  of  fires,  accidents,  of  sudden 
wealth  and  as  sudden  poverty  ;  —  I  hold  in  my 
hand  the  ends  of  myriad  invisible  electric  con 
ductors,  along  which  tremble  the  joys,  sorrows, 
wrongs,  triumphs,  hopes,  and  despairs  of  as 
many  men  and  women  everywhere.  So  that 
upon  that  mood  of  mind  which  seems  to  isolate 
me  from  mankind  as  a  spectator  of  their  puppet- 
pranks,  another  supervenes,  in  which  I  feel  that 
I,  too,  unknown  and  unheard  of,  am  yet  of  some 
import  to  my  fellows.  For,  through  my  news 
paper  here,  do  not  families  take  pains  to  send 
me,  an  entire  stranger,  news  of  a  death  among 
them  ?  Are  not  here  two  who  would  have  me 
know  of  their  marriage  ?  And,  strangest  of  all, 
is  not  this  singular  person  anxious  to  have  me 
informed  that  he  has  received  a  fresh  supply  of 
Dimitry  Bruisgins  ?  But  to  none  of  us  does  the 
Present  continue  miraculous  (even  if  for  a  mo 
ment  discerned  as  such).  We  glance  carelessly 
at  the  sunrise,  and  get  used  to  Orion  and  the 
Pleiades.  The  wonder  wears  off,  and  to-morrow 
this  sheet,  (Acts  x.  11, 12,)  in  which  a  vision  was 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


203 


let  down  to  me  from  Heaven,  shall  be  the 
wrappage  to  a  bar  of  soap  or  the  platter  for  a 
beggar's  broken  victuals."  —  H.  W.] 


No.  VII 
A   LETTER 

FROM  A  CANDIDATE  FOR  THE  PRESI 
DENCY  IN  ANSWER  TO  SUTTIN  QUES 
TIONS  PROPOSED  BY  MR.  HOSEA  BIG- 
LOW,  INCLOSED  IN  A  NOTE  FROM  MR. 
BIGLOW  TO  S.  H.  GAY,  ESQ.,  EDITOR 
OF  THE  NATIONAL  ANTI  -  SLAVERY 
STANDARD 

[CURIOSITY  may  be  said  to  be  the  quality 
which  preeminently  distinguishes  and  segregates 
man  from  the  lower  animals.  As  we  trace  the 
scale  of  animated  nature  downward,  we  find 
this  faculty  (as  it  may  truly  be  called)  of  the 
mind  diminished  in  the  savage,  and  wellnigh 
extinct  in  the  brute.  The  first  object  which 
civilized  man  proposes  to  himself  I  take  to  be 
the  finding  out  whatsoever  he  can  concerning  his 
neighbors.  Nihil  humanum  a  me  alienum  puto ; 
I  am  curious  about  even  John  Smith.  The  de 
sire  next  in  strength  to  this  (an  opposite  pole,  in 
deed,  of  the  same  magnet)  is  that  of  commu 
nicating  the  unintelligence  we  have  carefully 
picked  up. 

Men  in  general  may  be  divided  into  the  in 
quisitive  and  the  communicative.  To  the  first 
class  belong  Peeping  Toms,  eaves-droppers, 
navel-contemplating  Brahmins,  metaphysicians, 
travellers,  Empedocleses,  spies,  the  various  so 
cieties  for  promoting  Rhinothism,  Columbuses, 
Yankees,  discoverers,  and  men  of  science,  who 
present  themselves  to  the  mind  as  so  many 
marks  of  interrogation  wandering  up  and  down 
the  world,  or  sitting  in  studies  and  laboratories. 
The  second  class  I  should  again  subdivide  into 
four.  In  the  first  subdivision  I  would  rank 
those  who  have  an  itch  to  tell  us  about  them 
selves,  —  as  keepers  of  diaries,  insignificant  per 
sons  generally,  Montaignes,  Horace  Walpoles, 
autobiographers,  poets.  The  second  includes 
those  who  are  anxious  to  impart  information 
concerning  other  people,  —  as  historians,  bar 
bers,  and  such.  To  the  third  belong  those  who 
labor  to  give  us  intelligence  about  nothing  at 
all,  —  as  novelists,  political  orators,  the  large 
majority  of  authors,  preachers,  lecturers,  and 
the  like.  In  the  fourth  come  those  who  are 
communicative  from  motives  of  public  benevo 
lence,  —  as  finders  of  mares'-nests  and  bringers 
of  ill  news.  Each  of  us  two-legged  fowls  without 
feathers  embraces  all  these  subdivisions  in  him 
self  to  a  greater  or  less  degree,  for  none  of  us  so 
much  as  lays  an  egg,  or  incubates  a  chalk  one, 
but  straightway  the  whole  barnyard  shall  know 
it  by  our  cackle  or  our  cluck.  Omnibus  hoc 
vitium  est.  There  are  different  grades  in  all 


these  classes.  One  will  turn  his  telescope  toward 
a  back-yard,  another  toward  Uranus ;  one  will 
tell  you  that  he  dined  with  Smith,  another  that 
he  supped  with  Plato.  In  one  particular,  all 
men  may  be  considered  as  belonging  to  the 
first  grand  division,  inasmuch  as  they  all  seem 
equally  desirous  of  discovering  the  mote  in 
their  neighbor's  eye. 

To  one  or  another  of  these  species  every  human 
being  may  safely  be  referred.  I  think  it  beyond 
a  peradventure  that  Jonah  prosecuted  some  in 
quiries  into  the  digestive  apparatus  of  whales, 
and  that  Noah  sealed  up  a  letter  in  an  empty 
bottle,  that  news  in  regard  to  him  might  not  be 
wanting  in  case  of  the  worst.  They  had  else 
been  super  or  subter  human.  I  conceive,  also, 
that,  as  there  are  certain  persons  who  contin 
ually  peep  and  pry  at  the  keyhole  of  that  mys 
terious  door  through  which,  sooner  or  later,  we 
all  make  our  exits,  so  there  are  doubtless  ghosts 
fidgeting  and  fretting  on  the  other  side  of  it, 
because  they  have  no  means  of  conveying  back 
to  this  world  the  scraps  of  news  they  have  picked 
up  in  that.  For  there  is  an  answer  ready  some 
where  to  every  question,  the  great  law  of  give 
and  take  runs  though  all  nature,  and  if  we  see  a 
hook,  we  may  be  sure  that  an  eye  is  waiting  for 
it.  I  read  in  every  face  I  meet  a  standing  ad 
vertisement  of  information  wanted  in  regard  to 
A.  B.,  or  that  the  friends  of  C.  D.  can  hear 
something  to  his  disadvantage  by  application  to 
such  a  one. 

It  was  to  gratify  the  two  great  passions  of 
asking  and  answering  that  epistolary  correspon 
dence  was  first  invented.  Letters  (for  by  this 
usurped  title  epistles  are  now  commonly  known) 
are  of  several  kinds.  First,  there  are  those 
which  are  not  letters  at  all  —  as  letters-patent, 
letters  dimissory,  letters  enclosing  bills,  letters 
of  administration,  Pliny's  letters,  letters  of  di 
plomacy,  of  Cato,  of  Mentor,  of  Lords  Lyttel- 
ton,  Chesterfield,  and  Orrery,  of  Jacob  Behmen, 
Seneca  (whom  St.  Jerome  includes  in  his  list  of 
sacred  writers),  letters  from  abroad,  from  sons 
in  college  to  their  fathers,  letters  of  marque,  and 
letters  generally,  which  are  in  no  wise  letters  of 
mark.  Second,  are  real  letters,  such  as  those  of 
Gray,  Cowper,  Walpole,  Howell,  Lamb,  D.  Y., 
the  first  letters  from  children  (printed  in  stagger 
ing  capitals),  Letters  from  New  York,  letters  of 
credit,  and  others,  interesting  for  the  sake  of 
the  writer  or  the  thing  written.  I  have  read 
also  letters  from  Europe  by  a  gentleman  named 
Pinto,  containing  some  curious  gossip,  and  which 
I  hope  to  see  collected  for  the  benefit  of  the 
curious.  There  are,  besides,  letters  addressed 
to  posterity,  —  as  epitaphs,  for  example,  written 
for  their  own  monuments  by  monarchs,  where 
by  we  have  lately  become  possessed  of  the  names 
of  several  great  conquerors  and  kings  of  kings, 
hitherto  unheard  of  and  still  unpronounceable, 
but  valuable  to  the  student  of  the  entirely  dark 
ages.  The  letter  of  our  Saviour  to  King  Ab- 
garus,  that  which  St.  Peter  sent  to  King  Pepin 
in  the  year  of  grace  755,  that  of  the  Virgin  to 
the  magistrates  of  Messina,  that  of  the  Sanhe 
drim  of  Toledo  to  Annas  and  Caiaphas,  A.  D.  35, 


204 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


that  of  Galeazzo  Sfprza's  spirit  to  his  brother 
Lodovico,  that  of  St.  Gregory  Thaumaturgus 

to  the   D 1,  and  that  of  this  last-mentioned 

active  police-magistrate  to  a  nun  of  Cirgenti,  I 
would  place  in  a  class  by  themselves,  as  also  the 
letters  of  candidates,  concerning  •which  I  shall 
dilate  more  fully  in  a  note  at  the  end  of  the 
following  poem.  At  present  sat  prata  biberunt. 
Only,  concerning  the  shape  of  letters,  they  are 
all  either  square  or  oblong,  to  which  general 
figures  circular  letters  and  round-robins  also 
conform  themselves.  —  H.  W.] 

DEER  SIR  its  gut  to  be  the  fashun  now 
to  rite  letters  to  the  candid  8s  and  i  wus 
chose  at  a  publick  Meetin  in  Jaalam  to  du 
wut  wus  nessary  fur  that  town,  i  writ  to 
271  ginerals  and  gut  ansers  to  209.  tha  air 
called  candid  8s  but  I  don't  see  nothin  can 
did  about  'em.  this  here  1  wich  I  send  wus 
thought  satty's  factory.  I  dunno  as  it  's 
ushle  to  print  Poscrips,  but  as  all  the  ansers 
I  got  hed  the  saim,  I  sposed  it  wus  best, 
times  has  gretly  changed.  Formaly  to 
knock  a  man  into  a  cocked  hat  wus  to  use 
him  up,  but  now  it  ony  gives  him  a  chance 
fur  the  cheef  madgustracy.  —  H.  B. 

DEAR  SIR,  —  You  wish  to  know  my  notions 

On  sartin  pints  thet  rile  the  land  ; 
There  's  nothin'  thet  my  natur  so  shuns 

Ez  bein'  mum  or  underhand  ; 
I  'm  a  straight-spoken  kind  o'  creetur 

Thet  blurts  right  out  wut 's  in  his  head, 
An'  ef  I  've  one  pecooler  feetur, 

It  is  a  nose  thet  wunt  be  led. 

So,  to  begin  at  the  beginnin' 

An'  come  direcly  to  the  pint, 
I  think  the  country's  underpinnm* 

Is  some  consid'ble  out  o'  jint  ; 
I  aint  agoin'  to  try  your  patience 

By  tellin'  who  done  this  or  thet, 
I  don't  make  no  insinooations, 

I  jest  let  on  I  smell  a  rat. 

Thet  is,  I  mean,  it  seems  to  me  so, 

But,  ef  the  public  think  I  'm  wrong, 
I  wunt  deny  but  wut  I  be  so,  — 

An',  fact,  it  don't  smell  very  strong  ; 
My  mind  's  tu  fair  to  lose  its  balance 

An'  say  wich  party  hez  most  sense  ; 
There  may  be  folks  o'  greater  talence 

Thet  can't  set  stiddier  on  the  fence. 

I  'm  an  eclectic  ;  ez  to  choosin' 

'Tvrixt  this  an'  thet,  I  'm  plaguy  lawth  ; 


I  leave  a  side  thet  looks  like  losin', 

But  (wile  there 's  doubt)  I  stick  to  both  j 

I  staii'  upon  the  Constitution, 

Ez    preuduut    statesmuu    say,    who  've 
planned 

A  way  to  git  the  most  profusion 
O'  chances  ez  to  ware  they  '11  stand. 

Ez  fer  the  war,  I  go  agin  it,  — 

I  mean  to  say  I  kind  o'  du,  — 
Thet  is,  I  mean  thet,  bein'  in  it, 

The  best  way  wuz  to  fight  it  thru  ; 
Not  but  wut  abstract  war  is  horrid, 

I  sign  to  thet  with  all  my  heart,  — 
But  civlyzation  doos  git  forrid 

Sometimes  upon  a  powder-cart. 

About  thet  darned  Proviso  matter 

I  never  hed  a  grain  o'  doubt, 
Nor  I  aint  one  my  sense  to  scatter 

So  'st  no  one  could  n't  pick  it  out : 
My  love  fer  North  an'  South  is  equil, 

So  I  '11  jest  answer  plump  an'  frank, 
No  matter  wut  may  be  the  sequil,  — 

Yes,  Sir,  I  am  agin  a  Bank. 

Ez  to  the  answerin'  o'  questions, 

I  'm  an  off  ox  at  bein'  druv, 
Though  I  aint  one  thet  ary  test  shuns 

'111  give  our  folks  a  helpin'  shove; 
Kind  o'  permiscoous  I  go  it 

Fer  the  holl  country,  an'  the  ground 
I  take,  ez  nigh  ez  I  can  show  it, 

Is  pooty  gen'ally  all  round. 

I  don't  appruve  o'  givin'  pledges; 

You  'd  ough'  to  leave  a  feller  free, 
An'  not  go  knockin'  out  the  wedges 

To  ketch  his  fingers  in  the  tree; 
Pledges  air  awfle  breachy  cattle 

Thet  preudunt  farmers  don't  turn  out,-— 
Ez  long  'z  the  people  git  their  rattle, 

Wut  is  there  fer  'm  to  grout  about  ? 

Ez  to  the  slaves,  there  's  no  confusion 

In  my  idees  consarnin'  them, — 
/  think  they  air  an  Institution, 

A  sort  of  —  yes.  jest  so,  —  ahem: 
Do  /  own  any  ?     Of  my  merit 

On  thet  pint  you  yourself  may  jedge; 
All  is,  I  never  drink  no  sperit, 

Nor  I  haint  never  signed  no  pledge. 

Ez  to  my  princerples,  I  glory 
In  hevin'  nothin'  o'  the  sort; 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


205 


I  aint  a  Wig,  I  aint  a  Tory, 

I  'm  jest  a  canderdate,  in  short; 

Thet  's  fair  an'  square  an'  parpeudicler 
But,  ef  the  Public  cares  a  fig 

To  hev  me  an'  thin'  in  particler, 
Wy,  I  'm  a  kind  o'  peri- Wig. 

P.  S. 

Ez  we  're  a  sort  o'  privateerin', 

O'  course,  you  know,  it 's  sheer  an' sheer, 
An'  there  is  sutthin'  wuth  your  heariu' 

I  '11  mention  in  your  privit  ear; 
Ef  you  git  me  inside  the  White  House, 

Your  head  with  ile  I  '11  kin'  o'  'nint 
By  gittin'  you  inside  the  Light-house 
'  Down  to  the  eend  o'  Jaalam  Pint. 

An'  ez  the  North  hez  took  to  brustlin* 

At  bein'  scrouged  frum  off  the  roost, 
I  '11  tell  ye  wut  '11  save  all  tusslin' 

An'  give  our  side  a  harnsome  boost,  — 
Tell  'em  thet  on  the  Slavery  question 

I  'in    RIGHT,   although    to    speak    I  'm 

lawth; 
This  gives  you  a  safe  pint  to  rest  on, 

An'  leaves  me  frontin'  South  by  North. 

[And  now  of  epistles  candidatial,  which  are 
of  two  kinds,  —  namely,  letters  of  acceptance, 
and  letters  definitive  of  position.  Our  republic, 
on  the  eve  of  an  election,  may  safely  enough  be 
called  a  republic  of  letters.  Epistolary  compo 
sition  becomes  then  an  epidemic,  which  seizes 
one  candidate  after  another,  not  seldom  cutting 
short  the  thread  of  political  life.  It  has  come 
to  such  a  pass,  that  a  party  dreads  less  the  at 
tacks  of  its  opponents  than  a  letter  from  its  can 
didate.  Litera  scripta  manet,  and  it  will  go 
hard  if  something  bad  cannot  be  made  of  it. 
General  Harrison,  it  is  well  understood,  was 
surrounded,  during  his  candidacy,  with  the  cor 
don  sanitaire  of  a  vigilance  committee.  No 
prisoner  in  Spielberg  was  ever  more  cautiously 
deprived  of  writing  materials.  The  soot  was 
scraped  carefully  from  the  chimney-places ; 
outposts  of  expert  rifle-shooters  rendered  it  sure 
death  for  any  goose  (who  came  clad  in  feathers) 
to  approach  within  a  certain  limited  distance  of 
North  Bend  ;  and  all  domestic  fowls  about  the 
premises  were  reduced  to  the  condition  of  Pla 
to's  original  man.  By  these  precautions  the 
General  was  saved.  Parva  componere  magnis, 
I  remember,  that,  when  party-spirit  once  ran 
nigh  among  my  people,  upon  occasion  of  the 
choice  of  a  new  deacon,  I,  having  my  prefer 
ences,  yet  not  caring  too  openly  to  express  them, 
made  use  of  an  innocent  fraud  to  bring  about 
that  result  which  I  deemed  most  desirable. 
My  stratagem  was  no  other  than  the  throwing  a 
copy  of  the  Complete  Letter- Writer  in  the  way 


of  the  candidate  whom  I  wished  to  defeat.  He 
caught  the  infection,  and  addressed  a  short  note 
to  his  constituents,  in  which  the  opposite  party 
detected  so  many  and  so  grave  improprieties  (he 
had  modelled  it  upon  the  letter  of  a  young  lady 
accepting  a  proposal  of  marriage),  that  he  not 
only  lost  his  election,  but,  falling  under  a  suspi 
cion  of  Sabellianism  and  I  know  not  what  (the 
widow  Endive  assured  me  that  he  was  a  Parali- 
pomenon,  to  her  certain  knowledge),  was  forced 
to  leave  the  town.  Thus  it  is  that  the  letter 
killeth. 

The  object  which  candidates  propose  to  them 
selves  in  writing  is  to  convey  no  meaning  at  all. 
And  here  is  a  quite  unsuspected  pitfall  into 
which  they  successively  plunge  headlong.  For 
it  is  precisely  in  such  cryptographies  that  man 
kind  are  prone  to  seek  for  and  find  a  wonder 
ful  amount  and  variety  of  significance.  Omne 
ignotum  pro  mirifico.  How  do  we  admire  at 
the  antique  world  striving  to  crack  those  orac 
ular  nuts  from  Delphi,  Hamnion,  and  else 
where,  in  only  one  of  which  can  I  so  much  as 
surmise  that  any  kernel  had  ever  lodged  ;  that, 
namely,  wherein  Apollo  confessed  that  he  was 
mortal.  One  Didymus  is,  moreover,  related  to 
have  written  six  thousand  books  on  the  single 
subject  of  grammar,  a  topic  rendered  only  more 
tenebrific  by  the  labors  of  his  successors,  and 
which  seems  still  to  possess  an  attraction  for 
authors  in  proportion  as  they  can  make  nothing 
of  it.  A  singular  loadstone  for  theologians, 
also,  is  the  Beast  in  the  Apocalypse,  whereof, 
in  the  course  of  my  studies,  I  have  noted  two 
hundred  and  three  several  interpretations,  each 
lethiferal  to  all  the  rest.  Non  nostrum  est 
tantas  componere  lites,  yet  I  have  myself  ven 
tured  upon  a  two  hundred  and  fourth,  which  I 
embodied  in  a  discourse  preached  on  occasion 
of  the  demise  of  the  late  usurper,  Napoleon 
Bonaparte,  and  which  quieted,  in  a  large  meas 
ure,  the  minds  of  my  people.  It  is  true  that 
my  views  on  this  important  point  were  ardently 
controverted  by  Mr.  Shear jashub  Holden,  the 
then  preceptor  of  our  academy,  and  in  other 
particulars  a  very  deserving  and  sensible  young 
man,  though  possessing  a  somewhat  limited 
knowledge  of  the  Greek  tongue.  But  his  heresy 
struck  down  no  deep  root,  and,  he  having  been 
lately  removed  by  the  hand  of  Providence,  I 
had  the  satisfaction  of  reaffirming  my  cherished 
sentiments  in  a  sermon  preached  upon  the 
Lord's  day  immediately  succeeding  his  funeral. 
This  might  seem  like  taking  an  unfair  advan 
tage,  did  I  not  add  that  he  had  made  provision 
in  his  last  will  (being  celibate)  for  the  publica 
tion  of  a  posthumous  tractate  in  support  of  his 
own  dangerous  opinions. 

I  know  of  nothing  in  our  modern  times  which 
approaches  so  nearly  to  the  ancient  oracle  as 
the  letter  of  a  Presidential  candidate.  Now, 
among  the  Greeks,  the  eating  of  beans  was 
strictly  forbidden  to  all  such  as  had  it  in  mind 
to  consult  those  expert  amphibolos^sts,  and  this 
same  prohibition  on  the  part  of  Pythagoras  to 
his  disciples  is  understood  to  imply  an  absti' 
nence  from  politics,  beans  having  been  used  as 


206 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


ballots.  That  other  explication,  quod  videlicet 
sensus  eo  cibo  obtundi  existimaret,  though  sup 
ported  pugnis  et  calcibus  by  many  of  the 
learned,  and  not  wanting  the  countenance  of 
Cicero,  is  confuted  by  the  larger  experience  of 
New  England.  On  the  whole,  I  think  it  safer 
to  apply  here  the  rule  of  interpretation  which 
now  generally  obtains  in  regard  to  antique  cos 
mogonies,  myths,  fables,  proverbial  expressions, 
and  knotty  points  generally,  which  is,  to  find  a 
common-sense  meaning,  and  then  select  what 
ever  can  be  imagined  the  most  opposite  there 
to.  In  this  way  we  arrive  at  the  conclusion, 
that  the  Greeks  objected  to  the  questioning  of 
candidates.  And  very  properly,  if,  as  I  con 
ceive,  the  chief  point  be  not  to  discover  what  a 
person  in  that  position  is,  or  what  he  will  do, 
but  whether  he  can  be  elected.  Vos  exem- 
plaria  Grceca  nocturna  versale  manu,  versate 
diurna. 

But,  since  an  imitation  of  the  Greeks  in  this 
particular  (the  asking  of  questions  being  one 
chief  privilege  of  freemen)  is  hardly  to  be 
hoped  for,  and  our  candidates  will  answer, 
whether  they  are  questioned  or  not,  I  would 
recommend  that  these  ante-electionary  dia 
logues  should  be  carried  on  by  symbols,  as 
were  the  diplomatic  correspondences  of  the 
Scythians  and  Macrobii,  or  confined  to  the 
language  of  signs,  like  the  famous  interview  of 
Panurge  and  Goatsnose.  A  candidate  might 
then  convey  a  suitable  reply  to  all  committees 
of  inquiry  by  closing  one  eye,  or  by  presenting 
them  with  a  phial  of  Egyptian  darkness  to  be 
speculated  upon  by  their  respective  constituen 
cies.  These  answers  would  be  susceptible  of 
whatever  retrospective  construction  the  exigen 
cies  of  the  political  campaign  might  seem  to 
demand,  and  the  candidate  could  take  his  posi 
tion  on  either  side  of  the  fence  with  entire  con 
sistency.  Or,  if  letters  must  be  written,  profit 
able  use  might  be  made  of  the  Dighton  rock 
hieroglyphic  or  the  cuneiform  script,  every  fresh 
decipherer  of  which  is  enabled  to  educe  a  differ 
ent  meaning,  whereby  a  sculptured  stone  or 
two  supplies  us,  and  will  probably  continue  to 
supply  posterity,  with  a  very  vast  and  various 
body  of  authentic  history.  For  even  the  brief 
est  epistle  in  the  ordinary  ehirography  is  dan 
gerous.  There  is  scarce  any  style  so  compressed 
that  superfluous  words  may  not  be  detected  in 
it.  A  severe  critic  might  curtail  that  famous 
brevity  of  Caesar's  by  two  thirds,  drawing  his 
pen  through  the  supererogatory  veni  and  vidi. 
Perhaps,  after  all,  the  surest  footing  of  hope  is 
to  be  found  in  the  rapidly  increasing  tendency 
to  demand  less  and  less  of  qualification  in  can 
didates.  Already  have  statesmanship,  experi 
ence,  and  the  possession  (nay,  the  profession, 
even)  of  principles  been  rejected  as  superfluous, 
and  may  not  the  patriot  reasonably  hope  that 
the  ability  to  write  will  follow  ?  At  present, 
there  may  be  death  in  pot-hooks  as  well  as  pots, 
the  loop  of  a  letter  may  suffice  for  a  bow-string, 
and  all  the  dreadful  heresies  of  Antislavery 
may  lurk  in  a  flourish.  —  H.  W.] 


No.  VIII 

A   SECOND   LETTER   FROM 
B.  SAWIN,  ESQ. 

[!N  the  following  epistle,  we  behold  Mr. 
Sawin  returning,  a  miles  emeritus,  to  the  bosom 
of  his  family.  Quantum  mutatus  !  The  good 
Father  of  us  all  had  doubtless  intrusted  to  the 
keeping  of  this  child  of  his  certain  faculties  of 
a  constructive  kind.  He  had  put  in  him  a  share 
of  that  vital  force,  the  nicest  economy  of  every 
minute  atom  of  which  is  necessary  to  the  per 
fect  development  of  Humanity.  He  had  given 
him  a  brain  and  heart,  and  so  had  equipped  his 
soul  with  the  two  strong  wings  of  knowledge 
and  love,  whereby  it  can  mount  to  hang  its  nest 
under  the  eaves  of  heaven.  And  this  child,  so 
dowered,  he  had  intrusted  to  the  keeping  of  his 
vicar,  the  State.  How  stands  the  account  of 
that  stewardship?  The  State,  or  Society  (call 
her  by  what  name  you  will),  had  taken  no  man 
ner  of  thought  of  him  till  she  saw  him  swept 
out  into  the  street,  the  pitiful  leavings  of  last 
night's  debauch,  with  cigar-ends,  lemon-par 
ings,  tobacco-quids,  slops,  vile  stenches,  and 
the  whole  loathsome  next-morning  of  the  bar 
room,  —  an  own  child  of  the  Almighty  God  1  I 
remember  him  as  he  was  brought  to  be  christ 
ened,  a  ruddy,  rugged  babe  ;  and  now  there  he 
wallows,  reeking,  seething,  —  the  dead  corpse, 
not  of  a  man,  but  of  a  soul,  —  a  putrefying 
lump,  horrible  for  the  life  that  is  in  it.  Comes 
the  wind  of  heaven,  that  good  Samaritan,  and 
parts  the  hair  upon  his  forehead,  nor  is  too  nice 
to  kiss  those  parched,  cracked  lips  ;  the  morn 
ing  opens  upon  him  her  eyes  full  of  pitying  sun 
shine,  the  sky  yearns  down  to  him,  —  and  there 
he  lies  fermenting.  O  sleep  !  let  me  not  pro 
fane  thy  holy  name  by  calling  that  stertorous 
unconsciousness  a  slumber !  By  and  by  comes 
along  the  State,  God's  vicar.  Does  she  say, 
"My  poor,  forlorn  foster-child!  Behold  here 
a  force  which  I  will  make  dig  and  plant  and 
build  for  me"?  Not  so,  but,  "Here  is  a  re 
cruit  ready-made  to  my  hand,  a  piece  of  de 
stroying  energy  lying  unprofitably  idle."  So 
she  claps  an  ugly  gray  suit  on  him,  puts  a  mus 
ket  in  his  grasp,  and  sends  him  off,  with  Guber 
natorial  and  other  godspeeds,  to  do  duty  as  a 
destroyer. 

I  made  one  of  the  crowd  at  the  last  Mechan 
ics'  Fair,  and,  with  the  rest,  stood  gazing  in 
wonder  at  a  perfect  machine,  with  its  soul  of 
fire,  its  boiler-heart  that  sent  the  hot  blood 
pulsing  along  the  iron  arteries,  and  its  thews  of 
steel.  And  while  I  was  admiring  the  adapta 
tion  of  means  to  end,  the  harmonious  involu 
tions  of  contrivance,  and  the  never-bewildered 
complexity,  I  saw  a  grimed  and  greasy  fellow, 
the  imperious  engine's  lackey  and  drudge, 
whose  sole  office  was  to  let  fall,  at  intervals,  & 
drop  or  two  of  oil  upon  a  certain  joint.  Then 
my  soul  said  within  me,  See  there  a  piece  of 
mechanism  to  which  that  other  you  marvel  at  is 
but  as  the  rude  first  effort  of  a  child,  —  a  force 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


207 


-which  not  merely  suffices  to  set  a  few  wheels  in 
motion,  but  which  can  send  an  impulse  all 
through  the  infinite  future,  —  a  contrivance, 
not  for  turning  out  pins,  or  stitching  button 
holes,  but  for  making  Hamlets  and  Lears.  And 
yet  this  thing  of  iron  shall  be  housed,  waited 
on,  guarded  from  rust  and  dust,  and  it  shall  be 
a  crime  but  so  much  as  to  scratch  it  with  a  pin  ; 
while  the  other,  with  its  fire  of  God  in  it,  shall 
be  buffeted  hither  and  thither,  and  finally  sent 
carefully  a  thousand  miles  to  be  the  target  for  a 
Mexican  cannon-ball.  Unthrifty  Mother  State  ! 
My  heart  burned  within  me  for  pity  and  indig 
nation,  and  I  renewed  this  covenant  with  my 
own  soul,  —  In  aliis  mansuetus  ero,  a£,  in  blas- 
phemiis  contra  Christum,  non  ita.  — H.  W. 

I  SPOSE  you  wonder  ware  I  be;  I  can't  tell, 

fer  the  soul  o'  me, 
Exacly   ware    I   be  myself,  —  meanin'    by 

thet  the  holl  o'  me. 
Wen  I  left  hum,  I  bed  two  legs,  an'  they 

worn't  bad  ones  neither, 
(The  scaliest  trick  they  ever  played  wuz 

bringin'  on  me  hither,) 
Now  one  on  'em  's  I  dunno  ware;  —  they 

thought  I  wuz  adyin', 
An'  sawed  it  off  because  they  said  't  wuz 

kin'  o'  mortify  in'  ; 
I  Jm  willin'  to  believe  it  wuz,  an'  yit  I  don't 

see,  nuther, 
Wy  one  shoud   take  to  feelin'  cheap  a  min- 

nit  sooner  'n  t'  other, 
Sence    both    wuz    equilly    to    blame;    but 

things  is  ez  they  be ; 
It  took  on  so  they  took  it  off,  an'  thet 's 

enough  fer  me: 
There  's  one  good  thing,  though,  to  be  said 

about  my  wooden  new  one,  — 
The  liquor  can't  git  into  it  ez  't  used  to  in 

the  true  one; 
So  it  saves  drink ;  an'  then,  besides,  a  feller 

could  n't  beg 
A  gretter  blessin'  then  to  hev  one  oilers 

sober  peg; 
It 's  true  a  chap  's  in  want  o'  two  fer  fol- 

lerin'  a  drum, 
But  alJ  the  march  I  'm  up  to  now  is  jest  to 

Kingdom  Come. 

I  've  lost  one  eye,  but  thet 's  a  loss  it 's  easy 
to  supply 

Out  o'  the  glory  thet  I  've  gut,  fer  thet  is 
all  my  eye; 

An*  one  is  big  enough,  I  guess,  by  dili 
gently  usin'  it, 

To  sec  all  I  shall  ever  git  by  way  o'  pay  fer 
losin'  it; 


Off'cers  I  notice,  who  git  paid  fer  all  our 

thumps  an'  kickiiis, 
Du  wal  by  keepin*  single  eyes  arter  the 

fattest  pickins; 
So,  ez  the  eye  's  put  fairly  out,  I  '11  larn  to 

go  without  it, 
An'  not  allow  myself  to  be  no  gret  put  out 

about  it. 
Now,  le'  me  see,  thet  is  n't  all;  I  used,  'fore 

leavin'  Jaalam, 
To  count  things  on  my  fmger-eends,  but 

sutthin'  seems  to  ail  'em: 
Ware  's  my  left  hand  ?     Oh,  darn  it,  yes, 

I  recollect  wut  's  come  on  't ; 
I  haint  no  left  arm  but  my  right,  an'  thet 's 

gut  jest  a  thumb  on  't; 
It  aint  so  hendy  ez  it  wuz  to  cal'late  a  sum 

on  't. 
I  've  bed  some  ribs  broke,  —  six  (I  b'lieve), 

—  I  haint  kep'  no  account  on  'em; 
Wen  pensions  git  to  be  the  talk,  I  '11  settle 

the  amount  on  'em. 
An'  now  I  'm  speakin'  about  ribs,  it  kin'  o' 

brings  to  mind 
One  thet  I  could  n't  never  break,  —  the  one 

I  lef  behind; 
Ef  you  should  see  her,  jest  clear  out  the 

spout  o'  your  invention 
An'  pour  the  longest  sweetniu'  in  about  an 

annooal  pension, 
An'  kin'  o'  hint  (in  case,  you  know,  the 

critter  should  refuse  to  be 
Consoled)  I  aint  so  'xpensive  now  to  keep 

ez  wut  I  used  to  be; 
There 's   one  arm  less,  ditto  one   eye,  an* 

then  the  leg  thet 's  wooden 
Can   be    took   off   an'    sot   away   wenever 

ther  's  a  puddin'. 

I  spose  you  think  I  'm  comin'  back  ez  op- 

perlunt  ez  thunder, 
With  shiploads   o'  gold  images  an'  varus 

sorts  o'  plunder; 
Wal,    'fore  I  vullinteered,  I   thought  this 

country  wuz  a  sort  o' 
Canaan,   a   reg'lar  Promised  Land  flowin' 

with  rum  an'  water, 
Ware  propaty  growed  up  like  time,  without 

no  cultivation, 
An'  gold  wuz  dug  ez  taters  be  among  our 

Yankee  nation, 
Ware   nateral    advantages    were    pufficly 

amazin', 

Ware  every  rock  there  wuz  about  with  pre 
cious  stuns  wuz  blazin', 


208 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


Ware  mill-sites   filled   the  country  up   ez 

thick  ez  you  could  cram  'em, 
An'  desput  rivers  run  about  a  beggiu'  folks 

to  dam  'em; 
Then  there  were  meetinhouses,  tu,  chockf  ul 

o'  gold  an'  silver 
Thet  you  could  take,  an'  no   one  could  n't 

hand  ye  in  no  bill  fer;  — 
Thet 's  wut  I  thought  afore  I  went,  thet  's 

wut  them  fellers  told  us 
Thet  stayed  to  hum  an'  speechified  an'  to 

the  buzzards  sold  us; 
I   thought  thet   gold-mines   could  be  gut 

cheaper  than  Chiny  asters, 
An'  see  myself  acomin'  back  like  sixty  Ja 
cob  Astors; 
But  sech  idees  soon  melted  down  an'  did  n't 

leave  a  grease-spot; 
I  vow  my  holl  sheer  o'  the  spiles  would  n't 

come  nigh  a  V  spot; 
Although,  most  anywares  we  've  ben,  you 

need  n't  break  no  locks, 
Nor  run  no  kin'  o'  risks,  to  fill  your  pocket 

full  o'  rocks. 
I  'xpect  I  mentioned  in  my  last  some  o'  the 

nateral  feeturs 
O'  this  all-fiered  buggy  hole  in  th'  way  o' 

awfle  creeturs, 
But  I  fergut  to  name  (new  things  to  speak 

on  so  abounded) 
How  one  day  you  '11  most  die  o'  thust,  an' 

'fore  the  next  git  drownded- 
The  clymit  seems  to  me  jest  like  a  teapot 

made  o'  pewter 
Our   Preudence  hed,  thet  would   n't  pour 

(all  she  could  du)  to  suit  her; 
Fust   place    the    leaves    'ould    choke    the 

spout,  so  's  not  a  drop  'ould  dreen 

out, 
Then  Prude  'ould  tip  an'  tip  an'  tip,  till  the 

holl  kit  bust  clean  out, 
The   kiver-hinge-pin   bein'  lost,  tea-leaves 

an'  tea  an'  kiver 
'ould  all  come  down  kerswosh  !  ez  though 

the  dam  bust  in  a  river. 
Jest  so  't  is  here;  holl  months  there  aint  a 

day  o'  rainy  weather, 
An'  jest  ez  th'   officers  'ould  be  a  layin' 

heads  together 
Ez  t'  how  they  'd  mix  their  drink  at  sech  a 

milingtary  deepot,  — 
'T  would  pour  ez  though  the  lid  wuz  off  the 

everlastin'  teapot. 
The  cons'quence  is,  thet  I  shall  take,  wen 

I  'm  allowed  to  leave  here, 


One  piece  o'  propaty  along,  an'  thet  's  the 

shakin'  fever; 
It 's  reggilar  employment,  though,  an'  thet 

aiiit  thought  to  harm  one, 
Nor   't  aint   so   tiresome   ez   it   wuz   with 

t'other  leg  an'  arm  on; 
An'  it  's  a  consolation,  tu,  although  it  doos 

n't  pay, 
To  hev  it  said  you  're  some  gret  shakes  in 

any  kin'  o'  way. 
'T  worn't  very  long,  I  tell  ye  wut,  I  thought 

o'  fortin-makin',  — 
One  day  a  reg'lar  shiver-de-freeze,  an'  next 

ez  good  ez  bakin',  — 
One  day  abrilin'  in  the  sand,  then  smoth'rin' 

in  the  mashes,  — 
Git  up  all  sound,  be  put  to  bed  a  mess  o' 

hacks  an'  smashes. 
But  then,  thinks  I,  at  any  rate  there  's  glory 

to  be  hed,  — 
Thet 's  an  investment,  arter  all,  thet  may  n't 

turn  out  so  bad ; 
But  somehow,  wen  we  'd  fit  an'  licked,  I 

oilers  found  the  thanks 
Gut  kin'  o'  lodged  afore  they  come  ez  low 

down  ez  the  ranks; 
The   Gin'rals   gut   the   biggest   sheer,  the 

Cunnles  next,  an'  so  on,  — 
We  never  gut  a  blasted  mite  o'  glory  ez  I 

know  on; 
An'  spose  we  hed,  I  wonder  how  you're 

goin'  to  contrive  its 
Division  so  's   to   give  a  piece  to  twenty 

thousand  privits; 
Ef  you  should  multiply  by  ten  the  portion 

o'  the  brav'st  one, 
You  would  n't  git  more  'n  half  enough  to 

speak  of  on  a  grave-stun; 
We   git  the  licks,  —  we   're  jest  the  grist 

thet 's  put  into  War's  hoppers ; 
Leftenants  is  the  lowest  grade  thet  helps 

pick  up  the  coppers. 
It  may  suit  folks  thet  go  agin  a  body  with 

a  soul  in  't, 
An'  aint  contented  with  a  hide  without  a 

bagnet  hole  in  't; 
But  glory  is  a  kin'  o'  thing  I  sha'  n't  pursue 

no  furder, 
Coz  thet 's  the  offc'ers'  parquisite,— yourn  's 

on'y  jest  the  murder. 

Wai,  arter  I  gin  glory  up,  thinks  I  at  least 

there  's  one 
Thing  in  the  bills  we  aint  hed  yit,  an'  thet 's 

the  GLORIOUS  FUN: 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


209 


Ef  once  we  git  to  Mexico,  we  fairly  may 

persuiue  we 
All  day  an'  night  shall  revel  in  the  halls  o' 

Montezumy. 
I  '11  tell  ye  wut  my  revels  wuz,  an'  see  how 

you  would  like  'em; 
We  never  gut  inside  the  hall:  the  nighest 

ever  /  come 
Wuz  stan'in'  sentry  in  the  sun  (an',  fact,  it 

seemed  a  cent'ry) 
A    ketchin'  smells  o'  biled  an'  roast  thet 

come  out  thru  the  entry, 
An'  hearin'  ez  I  sweltered  thru  my  passes 

an'  repasses, 
A  rat-tat-too  o'  knives  an'  forks,  a  clinkty- 

clink  o'  glasses: 
I  can't  tell  off  the  bill  o'  fare  the  Gin'rals 

hed  inside ; 
All  I  know  is,  thet  out  o'  doors  a  pair  o' 

soles  wuz  fried, 
An'  not  a  hunderd  miles  away  frum  ware 

this  child  wuz  posted, 
A  Massachusetts  citizen  wuz  baked  an'  biled 

an'  roasted ; 
The  on'y  thing  like  revellin'  thet  ever  come 

to  me 
Wuz  bein'  routed  out  o'  sleep  by  thet  darned 

revelee. 

They  say  the  quarrel 's  settled  now;  fer  my 
part  I  've  some  doubt  on  't, 

't  '11  take  more  fish-skin  than  folks  think  to 
take  the  rile  clean  out  on  't; 

At  any  rate  I  'm  so  used  up  I  can't  do  no 
more  fightin', 

The  on'y  chance  thet 's  left  to  me  is  politics 
or  writin'  ; 

Now,  ez  the  people  's  gut  to  hev  a  miling- 
tary  man, 

An'  I  aint  nothin'  else  jest  now,  I  've  hit 
upon  a  plan; 

The  can'idatin'  line,  you  know,  'ould  suit 
me  to  a  T, 

An*  ef  I  lose,  't  wunt  hurt  my  ears  to  lodge 
another  flea; 

So  I  '11  set  up  ez  can'idate  fer  any  kin'  o' 
office, 

(I  mean  fer  any  thet  includes  good  easy- 
cheers  an'  soffies; 

Fer  ez  tu  runnin'  fer  a  place  ware  work  's 
the  time  o'  day, 

You  know  thet  's  wut  I  never  did,  —  ex 
cept  the  other  way;) 

Ef  it  's  the  Presidential  cheer  fer  wich  I  M 
better  run, 


Wut  two  legs  any  wares  about  could  keep 

up  with  my  one  ? 
There  aint  no  kin'  o'  quality  in  can'idates, 

it  's  said, 
So    useful   ez   a   wooden   leg,  —  except   a 

wooden  head; 
There  's  nothin'   aint   so   poppy lar  —  (wy, 

it  's  a  parfect  sin 
To  think  wut  Mexico   hez  paid  fer  Saiity 

Anny's  pin;)  — 
Then  I  haint  gut  no  princerples,  an',  sence 

I  wuz  knee-high, 

I  never  did  hev  any  gret,  ez  you  can  tes 
tify; 
I  'm  a  decided  peace-man,  tu,  an'  go  agin 

the  war,  — 
Fer  now  the  holl  on  't  's  gone  an'  past,  wut 

is  there  to  go  for  ? 
Ef,  wile  you  're  'lectioneerin'  round,  some 

curus  chaps  should  beg 
To   know  my   views  o'  state   affairs,   jest 

answer  WOODEN  LEG  ! 
Ef  they  aint  settisfied  with  thet,  an'  kin'  o 

pry  an'  doubt 
An'  ax  fer  sutthin'  deffynit,  jest  say  ONE 

EYE    PUT   OUT  ! 

Thet  kin'  o'  talk  I  guess  you'll  find  11 

answer  to  a  charm, 
An'  wen  you  're  druv  tu  nigh  the  wall,  hoi' 

up  my  missin'  arm; 
Ef  they  should  nose  round  fer  a  pledge,  put 

on  a  vartoous  look 
An'  tell  'em  thet  's  percisely  wut  I  never 

gin  nor  —  took  ! 

Then  you  can   call  me   "  Timbertoes,"  — 

thet  's  wut  the  people  likes; 
Sutthin'      combinin'     morril     truth    with 

phrases  sech  ez  strikes; 
Some  say  the  people  's  fond  o'  this,  or  thet, 

or  wut  you  please,  — 
I  tell  ye  wut  the  people  want  is  jest  correct 

idees; 
"  Old  Timbertoes,"  you  see,  's  a  creed  it  's 

safe  to  be  quite  bold  on, 
There  's  nothin'  in  't  the  other  side  can  any 

ways  git  hold  on; 

It  's  a  good  tangible  idee,  a  sutthin'  to  em 
body 
Thet  valooable  class  o'  men  who  look  thru 

brandy-toddy; 
It   gives  a  Party  Platform,  tu,  jest   level 

with  the  mind 
Of    all    right-thinkin',   honest    folks   thet 

mean  to  go  it  blind; 


210 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


Then  there  air  other  good  hooraws  to  dror 

on  ez  you  need  'em, 
Sech  ez   the   ONE-EYED  SLARTERER,    the 

BLOODY  BlRDOFREDUM : 

Them  's  wut  takes  hold  o'  folks  thet  think, 

ez  well  ez  o'  the  masses, 
An'  makes  you  sartin  o'  the  aid  o'  good 

men  of  all  classes. 

There  's  one  thing  I  'm  in  doubt  about;  in 

order  to  be  Presidunt, 
It  's  absolutely  ne'ssary  to  be  a  Southern 

residunt ; 
The  Constitution  settles  thet,  an'  also  thet 

a  feller 
Must  own  a  nigger  o'  some  sort,  jet  black, 

or  brown,  or  yeller. 
Now  I  haint  no  objections  agin  particklar 

climes, 
Nor  agin  owiiin'  anythin'  (except  the  truth 

sometimes), 
But,  ez  I  haint  no  capital,  up  there  among 

ye,  maybe, 
You  might  raise  funds  enough  fer  me  to 

buy  a  low-priced  baby, 
An'  then  to  suit  the  No'thern  folks,  who 

feel  obleeged  to  say 
They  hate  an'  cus  the  very  thing  they  vote 

fer  every  day, 
Say  you  're  assured  I  go  full  but  fer  Lib- 

baty's  diffusion 
An'  made  the  purchis  on'y  jest  to  spite  the 

Institootion;  — 
But,  golly  !  there  's  the  currier's  boss  upon 

the  pavement  pawin'  ! 
I  '11  be  more  'xplicit  in  my  next. 

Yourn, 

BlRDOFREDUM  SAWIN. 

[We  have  now  a  tolerably  fair  chance  of  esti 
mating  how  the  balance-sheet  stands  between 
our  returned  volunteer  and  glory.  Supposing 
the  entries  to  be  set  down  on  both  sides  of  the 
account  in  fractional  parts  of  one  hundred,  we 
shall  arrive  at  something  like  the  following  re 
sult  :  — 

B.    SAWIN,    Esq.,  in  account   with    (BLANK) 

GLORY. 

Cr.  Dr. 

By  loss  of  one  leg  .  .  .  20  To    one    675th     three 

"   do.        one  arm    .  .  15  cheers    in   Fan- 

"    do.        four  fingers    5  euil  Hall  ....  30 

"    do.        one  eye    .  .  10  "      do.     do.     on     oc- 

"    the  breaking  of  six  casion  of  presen- 

ribs 6  tation  of   sword 

"    having:    served    nn~  to       Colonel 

derColonolCush-  Wright 25 

ing  one  month  .  .  44 

100  55 


Brought  forward  .  .  .  100          Brouyht  forward    ...  55 
To    one    suit    of    gray 
clothes    (ingeni 
ously   unbecom 
ing)  15 

1  musical  enter- 
tainments(drum 
and  fife  six 
months) 5 

"      one    dinner    after 

return 1 

"  chance  of  pen 
sion  1 

"  privilege  of  draw 
ing  longbow  dur 
ing  rest  of  nat 
ural  life  ....  23 


E.  E. 


100 


100 


It  should  appear  that  Mr.  Sawin  found  the 
actual  feast  curiously  the  reverse  of  the  bill 
of  fare  advertised  in  Faneuil  Hall  and  other 
places.  His  primary  object  seems  to  have  been 
the  making  of  his  fortune.  Qucerenda  pecunia 
primum,  virtus  post  nummos.  He  hoisted  sail 
for  Eldorado,  and  shipwrecked  on  Point  Tribu 
lation.  Quid  non  mortalia  pectora  cogis,  auri 
sacra  fames?  The  speculation  has  sometimes 
crossed  my  mind,  in  that  dreary  interval  of 
drought  which  intervenes  between  quarterly 
stipendiary  showers,  that  Providence,  by  the 
creation  of  a  money-tree,  might  have  simplified 
wonderfully  the  sometimes  perplexing  problem 
of  human  life.  We  read  of  bread-trees,  the 
butter  for  which  lies  ready-churned  in  Irish 
bogs.  Milk-trees  we  are  assured  of  in  South 
America,  and  stout  Sir  John  Hawkins  testifies 
to  water-trees  in  the  Canaries.  Boot-trees  bear 
abundantly  in  Lynn  and  elsewhere  ;  and  I  have 
seen,  in  the  entries  of  the  wealthy,  hat-trees 
with  a  fair  show  of  fruit.  A  family-tree  I  once 
cultivated  myself,  and  found  therefrom  but  a 
scanty  yield,  and  that  quite  tasteless  and  in- 
mitritious.  Of  trees  bearing  men  we  are  not 
without  examples ;  as  those  in  the  park  of 
Louis  the  Eleventh  of  France.  Who  has  for 
gotten,  moreover,  that  olive-tree,  growing  in 
the  Athenian's  back-garden,  with  its  strange 
uxorious  crop,  for  the  general  propagation  of 
which,  as  of  a  new  and  precious  variety,  the 
philosopher  Diogenes,  hitherto  uninterested  in 
arboriculture,  was  so  zealous  ?  In  the  sylva  of 
our  own  Southern  States,  the  females  of  my 
family  have  called  my  attention  to  the  china- 
tree.  Not  to  multiply  examples,  I  will  barely 
add  to  my  list  the  birch-tree,  in  the  smaller 
branches  of  which  has  been  implanted  so 
miraculous  a  virtue  for  communicating  the 
Latin  and  Greek  languages,  and  which  may 
well,  therefore,  be  classed  among  the  trees  pro 
ducing  necessaries  of  life,  —  venerabile  donum 
fatalis  virgce.  That  money-trees  existed  in  the 
golden  age  there  want  not  prevalent  reasons  for 
our  believing.  For  does  not  the  old  proverb, 
when  it  asserts  that  money  does  not  grow  on 
every  bush,  imply  a  fortiori  that  there  were 
certain  bushes  which  did  produce  it  ?  Again, 
there  is  another  ancient  saw  to  the  effect  that 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


211 


money  is  the  root  of  all  evil.  From  which  two 
adages  it  may  be  safe  to  infer  that  the  afore 
said  species  of  tree  first  degenerated  into  a 
shrub,  then  absconded  underground,  and  finally, 
in  our  iron  age,  vanished  altogether.  In  favor 
able  exposures  it  may  be  conjectured  that  a 
specimen  or  two  survived  to  a  great  age,  as  in 
the  garden  of  the  Hesperides ;  and,  indeed, 
what  else  could  that  tree  in  the  {Sixth  ^Eneid 
have  been,  with  a  branch  whereof  the  Trojan 
hero  procured  admission  to  a  territory,  for  the 
entering  of  which  money  is  a  surer  passport 
than  to  a  certain  other  more  profitable  and  too 
foreign  kingdom  ?  Whether  these  speculations 
of  mine  have  any  force  in  them,  or  whether 
they  will  not  rather,  by  most  readers,  be 
deemed  impertinent  to  the  matter  in  hand,  is  a 
question  which  I  leave  to  the  determination  of 
an  indulgent  posterity.  That  there  were,  in 
more  primitive  and  happier  times,  shops  where 
money  was  sold,  —  and  that,  too,  on  credit  and 
at  a  bargain,  —  I  take  to  be  matter  of  demon 
stration.  For  what  but  a  dealer  in  this  article 
was  that  ^Eolus  who  supplied  Ulysses  with 
motive-power  for  his  fleet  in  bags  ?  what  that 
Ericus,  King  of  Sweden,  who  is  said  to  have 
kept  the  winds  in  his  cap  ?  what,  in  more  re 
cent  times,  those  Lapland  Nornas  who  traded  in 
favorable  breezes  ?  All  which  will  appear  the 
more  clearly  when  we  consider,  that,  even  to 
this  day,  raising  the  wind  is  proverbial  for  rais 
ing  money,  and  that  brokers  and  banks  were 
invented  by  the  Venetians  at  a  later  period. 

And  now  for  the  improvement  of  this  digres 
sion.  I  find  a  parallel  to  Mr.  Sawin's  fortune 
in  an  adventure  of  my  own.  For,  shortly  after 
I  had  first  broached  to  myself  the  before-stated 
natural-historical  and  archasological  theories,  as 
I  was  passing,  hcec  negotia  penitus  mecum  revol- 
vens,  through  one  of  the  obscure  suburbs  of  our 
New  England  metropolis,  my  eye  was  attracted 
by  these  words  upon  a  signboard,  —  CHEAP 
CASH-STORE.  Here  was  at  once  the  confirma 
tion  of  my  speculations,  and  the  substance  of  my 
hopes.  Here  lingered  the  fragment  of  a  happier 
past,  or  stretched  out  the  first  tremulous  organic 
filament  of  a  more  fortunate  future.  Thus 
glowed  the  distant  Mexico  to  the  eyes  of  Sawin, 
as  he  looked  through  the  dirty  pane  of  the 
recruiting-office  window,  or  speculated  from  the 
summit  of  that  mirage-Pisgah  which  the  imps 
of  the  bottle  are  so  cunning  to  raise  up.  Al 
ready  had  my  Alnaschar-fancy  (even  during 
that  first  half-believing  glance)  expended  in  vari 
ous  useful  directions  the  funds  to  be  obtained 
by  pledging  the  manuscript  of  a  proposed  vol 
ume  of  discourses.  Already  did  a  clock  orna 
ment  the  tower  of  the  Jaalam  meeting-house,  a 
gift  appropriately,  but  modestly,  commemorated 
in  the  parish  and  town  records,  both,  for  now 
many  years,  kept  by  myself.  Already  had  my 
son  Seneca  completed  his  course  at  the  Univer 
sity.  Whether,  for  the  moment,  we  may  not  be 
considered  as  actually  lording  it  over  those  Ba- 
ratarias  with  the  viceroyalty  of  which  Hope  in 
vests  us,  and  whether  we  are  ever  so  warmly 
housed  as  in  our  Spanish  castles,  would  afford 


matter  of  argument.  Enough  that  I  found  that 
signboard  to  be  no  other  than  a  bait  to  the  trap 
of  a  decayed  grocer.  Nevertheless,  I  bought  a 
pound  of  dates  (getting  short  weight  by  reason 
of  immense  flights  of  harpy  flies  who  pursued 
and  lighted  upon  their  prey  even  in  the  very 
scales),  which  purchase  I  made  not  only  with  an 
eye  to  the  little  ones  at  home,  but  also  as  a  fig 
urative  reproof  of  that  too  frequent  habit  of  my 
mind,  which,  forgetting  the  due  order  of  chro 
nology,  will  often  persuade  me  that  the  happy 
sceptre  of  Saturn  is  stretched  over  this  Astrsea- 
forsaken  nineteenth  century. 

Having  glanced  at  the  ledger  of  Glory  under 
the  title  Sawin,  B.,  let  us  extend  our  investiga 
tions,  and  discover  if  that  instructive  volume 
does  not  contain  some  charges  more  personally 
interesting  to  ourselves.  I  think  we  should 
be  more  economical  of  our  resources,  did  we 
thoroughly  appreciate  the  fact,  that,  whenever 
Brother  Jonathan  seems  to  be  thrusting  his 
hand  into  his  own  pocket,  he  is,  in  fact,  picking 
ours.  I  confess  that  the  late  muck  which  the 
country  has  been  running  has  materially  changed 
my  views  as  to  the  best  method  of  raising 
revenue.  If,  by  means  of  direct  taxation,  the 
bills  for  every  extraordinary  outlay  were  brought 
under  our  immediate  eye,  so  that,  like  thrifty 
housekeepers,  we  could  see  where  and  how  fast 
the  money  was  going,  we  should  be  less  likely 
to  commit  extravagances.  At  present,  these 
things  are  managed  in  such  a  hugger-mugger 
way,  that  we  know  not  what  we  pay  for  ;  the 
poor  man  is  charged  as  much  as  the  rich  ;  and, 
while  we  are  saving  and  scrimping  at  the  spigot, 
the  government  is  drawing  off  at  the  bung.  If 
we  could  know  that  a  part  of  the  money  we 
expend  for  tea  and  coffee  goes  to  buy  powder 
and  balls,  and  that  it  is  Mexican  blood  which 
makes  the  clothes  on  our  backs  more  costly,  it 
would  set  some  of  us  athinking.  During  the 
present  fall,  I  have  often  pictured  to  myself  a 
government  official  entering  my  study  and  hand 
ing  me  the  following  bill  :  — 

WASHINGTON,  Sept.  30,  1848. 
REV.  HOMER  WLLBUR  to  SEnric 


Dr. 

To  his  share  of  work  done  in  Mexico  on  partner 
ship  account,  sundry  jobs,  as  below. 

"  killing,  maiming  and  wounding  about  5,000 

Mexicans  ............  $2.00 

"  slaughtering  one  woman  carrying  water  to 

wounded  .............  10 

"  extra  work  on  two  different  Sabbaths  (one 
bombardment  and  one  assault),  whereby 
the  Mexicans  were  prevented  from  defiling 
themselves  with  the  idolatries  of  high  mass  3.50 

"  throwing  an  especially  fortunate  and  Prot 
estant  bombshell  into  the  Cathedral  at  Vera 
Cruz,  whereby  several  female  Papists  were 
slain  at  the  altar  ..........  50 

"  his  proportion  of  cash  paid  for  conquered  ter 

ritory  .............  1.75 

"  do.  do.  for  conquering  do  ........     1.50 

"  manuring  do.  with  new  superior  compost 

called  "  American  Citizen  "  .50 


212 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


Brought  forward $9-85 

To  extending  the  area  of  freedom  and   Protes 
tantism  01 

"  glory 01 

$9.87 
Immediate  payment  is  requested, 

N.  B.  Thankful  for  former  favors,  IT.  S. 
requests  a  continuance  of  patronage.  Orders 
executed  with  neatness  and  despatch.  Terms 
as  low  as  those  of  any  other  contractor  for  the 
same  kind  and  style  of  work. 

I  can  fancy  the  official  answering  my  look  of 
horror  with  —  "Yes,  Sir,  it  looks  like  a  high 
charge,  Sir ;  but  in  these  days  slaughtering  is 
slaughtering."  Verily,  I  would  that  every  one 
understood  that  it  was  ;  for  it  goes  about  obtain 
ing  money  under  the  false  pretence  of  being 
glory.  For  me,  I  have  an  imagination  which 
plays  me  uncomfortable  tricks.  It  happens  to 
me  sometimes  to  see  a  slaughterer  on  his  way 
home  from  his  day's  work,  and  forthwith  my 
imagination  puts  a  cocked-hat  upon  his  head  and 
epaulettes  upon  his  shoulders,  and  sets  him  up 
as  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency.  So,  also,  on 
a  recent  public  occasion,  as  the  place  assigned 
to  the  "Reverend  Clergy"  is  just  behind  that 
of  "  Officers  of  the  Army  and  Navy  "  in  pro 
cessions,  it  was  my  fortune  to  be  seated  at  the 
dinner-table  over  against  one  of  these  respecta 
ble  persons.  He  was  arrayed  as  (out  of  his  own 
profession)  only  kings,  court-officers,  and  foot 
men  are  in  Europe,  and  Indians  in  America.  NOAV 
what  does  my  over-officious  imagination  but  set 
to  work  upon  him,  strip  him  of  his  gay  livery, 
and  present  him  to  me  coatless,  his  trousers 
thrust  into  the  tops  of  a  pair  of  boots  thick  with 
clotted  blood,  and  a  basket  on  his  arm  out  of 
which  lolled  a  gore-smeared  axe,  thereby  de 
stroying  my  relish  for  the  temporal  mercies 
upon  the  board  before  me  !  —  H.  W.] 


No.  IX 

A   THIRD    LETTER    FROM 
B.    SAWIN,   ESQ. 


the  following  letter  slender  comment 
will  be  needful.  In  what  river  Selemnus  has 
Mr.  Sawin  bathed,  that  he  has  become  so 
swiftly  oblivious  of  his  former  loves  ?  From  an 
ardent  and  (as  befits  a  soldier)  confident  wooer 
of  that  coy  bride,  the  popular  favor,  we  see  him 
subside  of  a  sudden  into  the  (I  trust  not  jilted) 
Cincinnatus,  returning  to  his  plough  with  a 
goodly  sized  branch  of  willow  in  his  hand;  fig 
uratively  returning,  however,  to  a  figurative 
plough,  and  from  no  profound  affection  for  that 
honored  implement  of  husbandry  (for  which, 
indeed,  Mr.  Sawin  never  displayed  any  decided 
predilection),  but  in  order  to  be  gracefully  sum 
moned  therefrom  to  more  congenial  labors.  It 
should  seem  that  the  character  of  the  ancient 


Dictator  had  become  part  of  the  recognized 
stock  of  our  modern  political  comedy,  though, 
as  our  term  of  office  extends  to  a  quadrennial 
length,  the  parallel  is  not  so  minutely  exact  as 
could  be  desired.  It  is  sufficiently  so,  however, 
for  purposes  of  scenic  representation.  An  hum 
ble  cottage  (if  built  of  logs,  the  better)  forms 
the  Arcadian  background  of  the  stage.  This 
rustic  paradise  is  labelled  Ashland,  Jaalam, 
North  Bend,  Marshfield,  Kinderhook,  or  Baton 
Rouge,  as  occasion  demands.  Before  the  door 
stands  a  something  with  one  handle  (the  other 
painted  in  proper  perspective),  which  represents, 
in  happy  ideal  vagueness,  the  plough.  To  this 
the  defeated  candidate  rushes  with  delirious 
joy,  welcomed  as  a  father  by  appropriate  groups 
of  happy  laborers,  or  from  it  the  successful  one 
is  torn  with  difficulty,  sustained  alone  by  a 
noble  sense  of  public  duty.  Only  I  have  ob 
served,  that,  if  the  scene  be  laid  at  Baton 
Rouge  or  Ashland,  the  laborers  are  kept  care 
fully  in  the  background,  and  are  heard  to  shout 
from  behind  the  scenes  in  a  singular  tone  re 
sembling  ululation,  and  accompanied  by  a  sound 
not  unlike  vigorous  clapping.  This,  however, 
may  be  artistically  in  keeping  with  the  habits 
of  the  rustic  population  of  those  localities.  The 
precise  connection  between  agricultural  pursuits 
and  statesmanship  I  have  not  been  able,  after 
diligent  inquiry,  to  discover.  But,  that  my  in 
vestigations  may  not  be  barren  of  all  fruit,  I 
•will  mention  one  curious  statistical  fact,  which 
I  consider  thoroughly  established,  namely,  that 
no  real  farmer  ever  attains  practically  beyond  a 
seat  in  the  General  Court,  however  theoret 
ically  qualified  for  more  exalted  station. 

It  is  probable  that  some  other  prospect  has 
been  opened  to  Mr.  Sawin,  and  that  he  has  not 
made  this  great  sacrifice  without  some  definite 
understanding  in  regard  to  a  seat  in  the  cabinet 
or  a  foreign  mission.  It  maybe  supposed  that 
we  of  Jaalam  were  not  untouched  by  a  feeling  of 
villatic  pride  in  beholding  our  townsman  occu 
pying  so  large  a  space  in  the  public  eye.  And  to 
me,  deeply  revolving  the  qualifications  necessary 
to  a  candidate  in  these  frugal  times,  those  of 
Mr.  S.  seemed  peculiarly  adapted  to  a  successful 
campaign.  The  loss  of  a  leg,  an  arm.  an  eye, 
and  four  fingers  reduced  him  so  nearly  to  the 
condition  of  a  vox  et  prceterea  nihil  that  I  could 
think  of  nothing  but  the  loss  of  his  head  by 
which  his  chance  could  have  been  bettered. 
But  since  he  has  chosen  to  balk  our  suffrages, 
we  must  content  ourselves  with  what  we  can 
get,  remembering  lactucas  non  esse  dandas,  dum 
cardui  sufficiant.  — H.  W.] 

I  SPOSE  you  recollect  thet  I  explained  my 

gennle  views 
In  the  last  billet   thet  I  writ,  'way  down 

frum  Veery  Cruze, 
Jest  arter  I  'd  a  kin'  o'  ben  spontanously 

sot  up 
To  run  unannermously  fer  the  Preserden- 

tial  cup; 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


213 


O'  course  it  worn't  no  wish  o'  mine,  't  wuz 

ferflely  distressing 
But  poppiler  enthusiasm  gut  so  almighty 

pressin' 
Thet,  though  like  sixty  all  along  I  fumed 

an'  fussed  an'  sorrered, 
There  didn't  seem  no  ways  to  stop  their 

bringin'  on  me  forrerd: 
Fact   is,   they  udged    the     matter   so,    I 

could  n't  help  admittin' 
The  Father  o'  his  Country's  shoes  no  feet 

but  mine  'ould  fit  in, 
Besides  the  savin'  o'  the  soles  fer  ages  to 

succeed, 
Seein'  thet  with  one  wannut  foot,  a  pair  'd 

be  more  'n  I  need; 
AJI',   tell  ye   wut,  them   shoes  '11   want   a 

thund'rin  sight  o'  patchin', 
Ef  this  ere  fashion  is  to  last  we  've  gut  into 

o'  hatchin' 
A  pair  o'  second  Washintons  fer  every  new 

election,  — 
Though,  fer  ez  number  one  's  consarned,  I 

don't  make  no  objection. 

I  wuz  agoin'  on  to  say  thet  wen  at  fust  I  saw 
The   masses  would   stick  to  't  I  wuz  the 

Country's  father-'n-law, 
(They  would  ha'  hed  it  Father,  but  I  told 

'em  't  would  n't  du, 
Coz    thet    wuz    sutthin'    of    a   sort    they 

could  n't  split  in  tu, 
An'   Washinton   hed   hed   the    thing   laid 

fairly  to  his  door, 
Nor  darsn't  say 't   worn't  his'n,  much  ez 

sixty  year  afore,) 
But 't  aint  no  matter  ez  to  thet;  wen  I  wuz 

nomernated, 
'T  worn't  natur  but  wut  I  should  feel  con- 

sid'able  elated, 
An'  wile  the  hooraw  o'  the  thing  wuz  kind 

o'  noo  an'  fresh, 
I  thought  our  ticket  would  ha'  caird  the 

country  with  a  resh. 

Sence  I  've  come  hum,  though,  an'  looked 

round,  I  think  I  seem  to  find 
Strong  argimunts  ez  thick  ez  fleas  to  make 

me  change  my  mind; 
It 's  clear  to  any  one  whose  brain  aint  fur 

gone  in  a  phthisis, 
Thet  hail  Columby's  happy  land  is  goin' 

thru  a  crisis, 
An*   'twould  n't  noways   du    to    hev    the 

people's  mind  distracted 


By  bein'   all  to   once    by   sev'ral  pop'lar 

names  attackted; 
'T  would  save  holl  haycartloads  o'  fuss  an* 

three  four  months  o'  jaw, 
Ef  some  illustrous  paytriot  should  back  out 

an'  withdraw; 
So,  ez  I  aint  a  crooked  stick,  jest  like  — 

like  ole  (I  swow, 
I  dunno  ez   I   know  his   name)  —  I  '11   go 

back  to  my  plough. 
Wenever   an  Amerikin  distinguished  poli- 

tishin 
Begins  to  try  et  wut  they  call  definin'  his 

posishin, 
Wai,  I,  fer  one,  feel  sure  he  aint  gut  nothin' 

to  define; 
It 's  so  nine  cases  out  o'  ten,  but  jest  that 

tenth  is  mine; 
An'  't  aint  no  more  'n  is  proper  'n'  right  in 

sech  r,  sitooation 
To   hint   the   course   you   think '11   be  the 

savin'  o'  the  nation; 
To  funk  right   out  o'  p'lit'cal   strife   aint 

thought  to  be  the  thing, 
Without  you  deacon  off  the  toon  you  want 

your  folks  should  sing; 
So  I  edvise  the  noomrous  friends  thet 's  in 

one  boat  with  me 
To  jest  up  killick,  jam  right  down  their 

helium  hard  alee, 
Haul  the  sheets  taut,  an',  layin'  out  upon 

the  Suthun  tack, 
Make  fer  the  safest  port  they  can,  wich,  / 

think,  is  Ole  Zack. 

Next  thing  you  '11  want  to  know,  I  spose, 

wut  argimunts  I  seem 
To  see  thet  makes  me  think  this  ere  '11  be 

the  strongest  team; 
Fust  place,  I've  ben  consid'ble  round   in 

bar-rooms  an'  saloons 
Agetherin'  public  sentiment,  'inongst  Dem- 

mercrats  and  Coons, 
An'  't  aint  ve'y  offen  thet  I  meet  a  chap 

but  wut  goes  in 
Fer  Rough  an'  Ready,  fair  an'  square,  hufs, 

taller,  horns,  an'  skin; 
I  don't  deny  but  wut,  fer  one,  ez  fur  ez  I 

could  see, 
I  did  n't  like  at  fust  the  Pheladelphy  nom- 

ernee: 
I  could  ha'  pinted  to  a  man  thet  wuz,  I 

guess,  a  peg 
Higher  than  him,  — a  soger,  tu,  an'  with  a 

wooden  leg; 


214 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


But  every  day  with  more  an*  more  o'  Tay 
lor  zeal  I  'm  burnin', 

Seein'  wich  way  the  tide  thet  sets  to  office 
is  aturnin' ; 

Wy,  into  Bellers's  we  notched  the  votes 
down  on  three  sticks,  — 

'T  wuz  Birdofredum  one,  Cass  aught,  an' 
Taylor  twenty-six, 

An'  bein'  the  on'y  canderdate  thet  wuz 
upon  the  ground, 

They  said  't  wuz  no  more  'n  right  thet  I 
should  pay  the  drinks  all  round; 

Ef  I  'd  expected  sech  a  trick,  I  would  n't 
ha'  cut  my  foot 

By  goin'  an'  votin'  fer  myself  like  a  con 
sumed  coot; 

It  didn't  make  no  deff'rence,  though;  I 
wish  I  may  be  cust, 

Ef  Bellers  wuz  n't  slim  enough  to  say  he 
would  n't  trust  ! 

Another  pint  thet  influences  the  minds  o' 

sober  jedges 
Is  thet  the  Gin'ral  hez  n't  gut  tied  hand  an' 

foot  with  pledges; 
He  hez  n't  told  ye   wut  he  is,  an'  so  there 

aint  no  knowin' 
But  wut  he  may  turn  out  to  be  the  best 

there  is  agoin'  ; 
This,  at  the  on'y  spot  thet  pinched,  the  shoe 

directly  eases, 
Coz  every  one  is  free  to  'xpect  percisely 

wut  he  pleases : 
I  want  free-trade;  you  don't;  the  Gin'ral 

is  n't  bound  to  neither;  — 
I  vote  my  way;  you,  yourn;  an'  both  air 

sooted  to  a  T  there. 
Ole  Rough  an'  Ready,  tu,  's   a   Wig,  but 

without  bein'  ultry; 
He 's   like   a   holsome   hayin'   day,   thet 's 

warm,  but  is  n't  sultry ; 
He  's  jest  wut  I  should  call  myself,  a  kin' 

o'  scratch   ez  't  ware, 
Thet  aint  exacly  all  a  wig  nor  wholly  your 

own  hair; 
I  've  ben  a  Wig  three  weeks  myself,  jest  o' 

this  mod'rate  sort, 
An*  don't  find  them  an'  Demmercrats  so 

defferent  ez  I  thought; 
They  both  act  pooty  much  alike,  an'  push 

an'  scrouge  an'  cus; 
They  're  like  two  pickpockets  in  league  fer 

Uncle  Sam  well's  pus; 
Each  takes  a  side,  an'  then  they  squeeze 

the  ole  man  in  between  'em, 


Turn  all  his  pockets  wrong  side  out  an' 
quick  ez  lightnin'  clean  'em; 

To  nary  one  on  'em  I  'd  trust  a  secon'- 
handed  rail 

No  furder  off  'an  I  could  sling  a  bullock 
by  the  tail. 

Webster  sot  matters  right  in  thet  air  Mash- 

fiel'  speech  o'  his'n ;  — 
"  Taylor,"  sez  he,  "  aint  nary  ways  the  one 

thet  I  'd  a  chizzen, 
NOT  he  aint  fittin'  fer  the  place,  an'  like 

ez  not  he  aint 
No  more  'n  a  tough  ole  bullethead,  an'  no 

gret  of  a  saint; 
But  then,"  sez  he,  "  obsarve  my  pint,  he 's 

jest  ez  good  to  vote  fer 
Ez   though   the   greasin'  on  him  woru't  a 

thing  to  hire  Choate  fer; 
Aint  it  ez  easy  done  to  drop  a  ballot  in  a 

box 
Fer  one  ez  't  is  fer  t'  other,  fer  the  bull-dog 

ez  the  fox  ?  " 
It  takes  a  mind  like  Dannel's,  fact,  ez  big 

ez  all  ou'  doors, 
To  find  out  thet  it  looks  like  rain  arter  it 

fairly  pours; 

I  'gree  with  him,  it  aint  so  dreffle  trouble 
some  to  vote 
Fer  Taylor  arter  all,  —  it 's  jest  to  go  an' 

change  your  coat; 
Wen  he  's  once  greased,  you  '11  swaller  him 

an'  never  know  on  't,  source, 
Unless  he  scratches,  goin'  down,  with  them 

'ere  Gin'ral's  spurs. 
I  've  ben  a  votin'  Demmercrat,  ez  reg'lar 

as  a  clock, 
But  don't  find  goin'  Taylor  gives  my  narves 

no  gret  'f  a  shock; 
Truth  is,  the  cutest  leadin'  Wigs,  ever  sence 

fust  they  found 
Wich  side  the  bread  gut  buttered  on,  hev 

kep'  a  edgin'  round; 
They  kin'  o'  slipt  the  planks  frum  out  th* 

ole  platform  one  by  one 
An'    made   it   gradooally   noo,  'fore    folks 

know'd  wut  wuz  done, 
Till,  fur  'z  I  know,  there  aint  an  inch  thet 

I  could  lay  my  han'  on, 
But  I,  or  any  Demmercrat,  feels  comf'table 

to  stan'  on, 
An'  ole  Wig   doctrines  act'lly  look,  their 

occ'pants  bein'  gone, 
Lonesome  ez  s  teddies  on  a  mash  without  no 

hayricks  on. 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


215 


I  spose   it 's  time  now  I  should  give  my 

thoughts  upon  the  plan, 
Thet  chipped  the  shell  at  Buffalo,  o'  settin' 

up  ole  Van. 
I  used  to  vote  fer  Martin,  but,  I  swan,  I  'm 

clean  disgusted,  — 
He  aint  the  man  thet  I  can  say  is  fittin'  to 

be  trusted; 
He  aint  half  antislav'ry  'nough,  nor  I  aint 

sure,  ez  some  be, 
He  'd  go  in  fer  abolishin'  the  Deestrick  o' 

Columby; 
An',  now  I  come  to  racollec',  it  kin'  o'  makes 

me  sick  'z 
A  horse,  to  think  o'  wut  he  wuz  in  eighteen 

thirty-six. 
An'  then,  another  thing;  —  I  guess,  though 

mebby  I  am  wrong, 

This  Buff'lo  plaster  aint  agoin'  to  dror  al 
mighty  strong; 
Some  folks,  I  know,  hev  gut  th'  idee  thet 

No'thun  dough  '11  rise, 
Though,    'fore   I   see   it   riz   an'   baked,  I 

would  n't  trust  my  eyes; 
'T  will  take  more  emptins,  a  long  chalk, 

than  this  noo  party  's  gut, 
To  give  sech  heavy  cakes  ez  them  a  start,  I 

tell  ye  wut. 
But  even  ef  they  caird  the  day,  there  would 

n't  be  no  endurin' 
To  stan'  upon  a  platform  with  sech  critters 

ez  Van  Buren;  — 
An'  his  son  John,  tu,  I  can't  think  how  thet 

'ere  chap  should  dare 
To  speak  ez  he  doos;   wy,  they  say  he  used 

to  cuss  an'  swear  ! 
I  spose  he  never  read  the  hymn  thet  tells 

how  down  the  stairs 
A  feller  with  long  legs  wuz  throwed  thet 

would  n't  say  his  prayers. 
This  brings  me  to  another  pint:  the  leaders 

o'  the  party 
Aint  jest  sech  men  ez  I  can  act  along  with 

free  an'  hearty; 
They  aint  not  quite  respectable,  an'  wen  a 

feller's  morrils 
Don't  toe  the  straightest  kin'  o'  mark,  wy, 

him  an'  me  jest  quarrils. 
I  went  to  a  free  soil  meetin'  once,  an'  wut 

d'  ye  think  I  see  ? 
A  feller  was   aspoutin'  there  thet  act'lly 

come  to  me, 
About  two  year  ago  last  spring,  ez  nigh  ez 

I  can  jedge, 


An'  axed  me  ef  I  did  n't  want  to  sign  the 

Temprunce  pledge! 
He  's  one  o'  them  that  goes  about  an'  sez 

you  hed  n't  oughter 
Drink   nothin',   mornin',   noon,    or    night, 

stronger  'an  Taunton  water. 
There  's  one  rule  I  've  ben  guided  by,  in 

settlin'  how  to  vote,  oilers,  — 
I   take  the   side   thet  isn't  took  by  them 

consarned  teetotallers. 

Ez  fer  the  niggers,  I  've  ben  South,  an'  thet 

hez  changed  my  min'; 
A  lazier,  more  ongratef  ul  set  you  could  n't 

nowers  fin'. 
You  know  I  mentioned  in  my  last  thet  I 

should  buy  a  nigger, 
Ef  I  could  make  a  purchase  at   a  pooty 

mod'rate  figger; 
So,  ez  there  's  nothin'  in  the  world  I'm 

fonder  of  'an  gunnin', 
I  closed  a  bargain  finally  to  take  a  feller 

runnin'. 
I  shou'dered  queen's-arm  an'  stumped  out, 

an'  wen  I  come  t'  th'  swamp, 
'T  worn't  very  long  afore  I  gut  upon  the 

nest  o'  Pomp; 
I  come  acrost  a  kin'  o'  hut,  an',  playin  round 

the  door, 
Some  little  woolly-headed  cubs,  ez  many  'z 

six  or  more. 
At  fust  I  thought  o'  firm',  but  think  twice  is 

safest  oilers; 
There  aint,  thinks  I,  not  one  on  'em  but  's 

wuth  his  twenty  dollars, 
Or   would   be,    ef  I  hed  'em  back  into  a 

Christian  land,  — 
How  temptin'  all  on  'em  would  look  upon 

an  auction-stand! 
(Not  but  wut  /  hate  Slavery,  in  th'  abstract, 

stem  to  starn,  — 
I  leave  it  ware  our  fathers  did,  a  privit 

State  consarn.) 
Soon  'z  they  see  me,  they  yelled  an'  run, 

but  Pomp  wuz  out  ahoein' 
A  leetle  patch  o'  corn  he  hed,  or  else  there 

aint  no  knowin' 
He  would  n't  ha'  took  a  pop  at  me ;  but  I 

hed  gut  the  start, 
An'  wen  he  looked,  I  vow  he  groaned  ez 

though  he  'd  broke  his  heart; 
He  done  it  like  a  wite  man,  tu,  ez  uat'ral  ez 

a  pictur, 
The  imp'dunt,  pis'nous  hypocrite!  wus  'an 

a  boy  constrictur. 


2l6 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


"  You  can't  gum  me,  I  tell  ye  now,  an'  so 

you  need  n't  try, 
I  'xpect  my  eye-teeth  every  mail,  so  jest 

shet  up,"  sez  I. 
"  Don't  go  to  actin'  ugly  now,  or  else  I  '11 

let  her  strip, 
You  'd  best  draw  kindly,  seem'  'z  how  I  Ve 

gut  ye  on  the  hip; 
Besides,  you  darned  ole  fool,  it  aint  no  gret 

of  a  disaster 
To  be  benev'lently  druv  back  to  a  contented 

master, 
Ware   you  hed  Christian  priv'ledges   you 

don't  seem  quite  aware  on, 
Or  you  'd  ha'  never  run  away  from  bein' 

well  took  care  on; 
Ez  fer  kin'  treatment,  wy,  he  wuz  so  fond 

on  ye,  he  said 
He  'd  give  a  fifty  spot  right  out,  to  git  ye, 

'live  or  dead; 

Wite  folks  aint  sot  by  half  ez  much;  'mem 
ber  I  run  away, 
Wen  I  wuz  bound  to  Cap'n  Jakes,  to  Mat- 

tysqumscot  Bay; 
Don'  know  him,  likely  ?     Spose  not;  wal, 

the  mean  old  codger  went 
An'  offered  —  wut  reward,  think  ?     Wal, 

it  worn't  no  less  'n  a  cent." 

Wal,  I  jest  gut  'em  into  line,  an'  druv  'em 

on  afore  me; 

The  pis'nous  brutes,  I  'd  no  idee  o'  the  ill- 
will  they  bore  me; 
We   walked   till  som'ers   about  noon,   an* 

then  it  grew  so  hot 
I  thought  it  best  to  camp  awile,  so  I  chose 

out  a  spot 
Jest  under  a  magnoly  tree,  an'  there  right 

down  I  sot; 
Then  I  unstrapped  my  wooden  leg,  coz  it 

begun  to  chafe, 
An'  laid  it  down  'longside  o'  me,  supposin' 

all  wuz  safe; 
I  made  my  darkies  all  set  down  around  me 

in  a  ring, 
An'  sot  an'  kin'  o'  ciphered  up  how  much 

the  lot  would  bring; 
But,  wile  I  drinked  the  peaceful  cup  of  a 

pure  heart  an'  min' 
(Mixed  with  some  whiskey,  now  an'  then), 

Pomp  he  snaked  up  behin', 
An'  creepin'  grad'lly  close  tu,  ez  quiet  ez  a 

mink, 
Jest  grabbed  my  leg,  an'  then  pulled  foot, 

quicker  'an  you  could  wink, 


An',  come  to  look,  they  each  on  'em  hed 

gut  behin'  a  tree, 
An'  Pomp  poked  out  the  leg  a  piece,  jest 

so  ez  I  could  see, 
An'  yelled  to  me  to  throw  away  my  pistils 

an'  my  gun, 
Or  else   thet  they  'd  cair  off  the  leg,  an* 

fairly  cut  an'  run. 
I  vow  I  did  n't  b'lieve  there  wuz  a  decent 

alligatur 
Thet  hed  a  heart  so  destitoot  o'  common 

human  natur; 
However,  ez  there  worn't  no  help,  I  finally 

give  in 
An'  heft  my  arms  away  to  git  my  leg  safe 

back  agin. 

Pomp  gethered  all  the  weapins  up,  an'  then 

he  come  an'  grinned, 
He  showed  his  ivory  some,  I  guess,  an'  sez, 

"  You  're  fairly  pinned ; 
Jest  buckle  on  your  leg  agin,  an'  git  right 

up      '  come, 
'T  wun't  du  fer  f ammerly  men  like  me  to 

be  so  long  frum  hum." 
At  fust  I  put  my  foot  right  down  an'  swore 

I  would  n't  budge. 
"  Jest  ez  you  choose,"  sez  he,  quite  cool, 

"  either  be  shot  or  trudge." 
So   this   black-hearted   monster    took    an' 

act'lly  druv  me  back 
Along   the  very   feetmarks   o'   my  happy 

mornin'  track, 
An'  kep'  me  pris'ner  'bout  six  months,  an' 

worked  me,  tu,  like  sin, 
Till  I   hed  gut  his   corn  an'   his   Carliny 

taters  in; 
He  made  me  larn  him  readin',  tu  (although 

the  crittur  saw 
How  much  it  hut  my  morril  sense  to  act 

agin  the  law), 
So'st  he  could  read  a  Bible  he  'd  gut;  an* 

axedef  I  could  pint 
The  North  Star  out;  but  there  I  put  his 

nose  some  out  o'  jint, 
Fer  I   weeled   roun'   about   sou'west,   an', 

lookin'  up  a  bit, 
Picked  out  a  middlin'  shiny  one  an'  tole 

him  thet  wuz  it. 
Fin'lly  he  took  me  to  the  door,  an'  givin' 

me  a  kick, 
Sez,  "  Ef  you  know  wut 's  best  fer  ye,  be 

off,  now,  double-quick; 
The  winter-time  's  a  comin'  on,  an'  though 

I  gut  ye  cheap, 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


217 


You  're  so  darned  lazy,  I  don't  think  you  're 

hardly  wuth  your  keep; 
Besides,  the  childrin  's  growin'  up,  an'  you 

aint  jest  the  model 
I  'd  like  to  hev  'em  immertate,  an'  so  you  'd 

better  toddle  ! " 

Now  is  there  any  thin'  on  airth  '11  ever  prove 

to  me 
Thet  renegader  slaves  like  him  air  fit  fer 

bein'  free  ? 
D'  you  think  they  '11  suck  me  in  to  jine  the 

Buff'lo  chaps,  an'  them 
Rank  infidels  thet  go  agin  the  Scriptur'l 

cus  o'  Shem  ? 
Not  by  a  jugfull  !  sooner  'n  thet,  I  'd  go 

thru  fire  an'  water; 
Wen   I   hev  once    made   up  my   mind,   a 

meet'nhus  aint  setter; 
No,  not  though  all  the  crows  thet  flies  to 

pick  my  bones  wuz  cawin',  — 
I  guess  we  're  in  a  Christian  land,  — 

Yourn, 

BIRDOFREDUM  SAWIN. 

[Here,  patient  reader,  we  take  leave  of  each 
other,  I  trust  with  some  mutual  satisfaction.  I 
say  patient,  for  I  love  not  that  kind  which 
skims  dippingly  over  the  surface  of  the  page,  as 
swallows  over  a  pool  before  rain.  By  such  no 
pearls  shall  be  gathered.  But  if  no  pearls  there 
be  (as,  indeed,  the  world  is  not  without  example 
of  books  wherefrom  the  longest-winded  diver 
shall  bring  up  no  more  than  his  proper  handful 
of  mud),  yet  let  us  hope  than  an  oyster  or  two 
may  reward  adequate  perseverance.  If  neither 
pearls  nor  oysters,  yet  is  patience  itself  a  gem 
worth  diving  deeply  for. 

It  may  seem  to  some  that  too  much  space  has 
been  usurped  by  my  own  private  lucubrations, 
and  some  may  be  fain  to  bring  against  me  that 
old  jest  of  him  who  preached  all  his  hearers  out 
of  the  meeting-house  save  only  the  sexton,  who, 
remaining  for  yet  a  little  space,  from  a  sense 
of  official  duty,  at  last  gave  out  also,  and,  pre 
senting  the  keys,  humbly  requested  our  preacher 
to  lock  the  doors,  when  be  should  have  wholly 
relieved  himself  of  his  testimony.  I  confess  to 
a  satisfaction  in  the  self  act  of  preaching,  nor 
do  I  esteem  a  discourse  to  be  wholly  thrown 
away  even  upon  a  sleeping  or  unintelligent 
auditory.  I  cannot  easily  believe  that  the  Gos 
pel  of  Saint  John,  which  Jacques  Cartier  or 
dered  to  be  read  in  the  Latin  tongue  to  the 
Canadian  savages,  upon  his  first  meeting  with 
them,  fell  altogether  upon  stony  ground.  For 
the  earnestness  of  the  preacher  is  a  sermon  ap 
preciable  by  dullest  intellects  and  most  alien 
ears.  In  this  wise  did  Episcopius  convert  many 
to  his  opinions,  who  yet  understood  not  the 
language  in  which  he  discoursed.  The  chief 


thing  is  that  tbe  messenger  believe  that  be  has 
an  authentic  message  to  deliver.  For  counter 
feit  messengers  that  mode  of  treatment  which 
Father  John  de  Piano  Carpini  relates  to  have 
prevailed  among  the  Tartars  would  seem  ef 
fectual,  and,  perhaps,  deserved  enough.  For 
my  own  part,  I  may  lay  claim  to  so  much  of  tbe 
spirit  of  martyrdom  as  would  have  led  me  to 
go  into  banishment  with  those  clergymen  whom 
Alphpnso  tbe  Sixth  of  Portugal  drave  out  of 
his  kingdom  for  refusing  to  shorten  their  pulpit 
eloquence.  It  is  possible,  that,  having  been  in 
vited  into  my  brother  Biglow's  desk,  I  may 
have  been  too  little  scrupulous  in  using  it  for 
tbe  venting  of  my  own  peculiar  doctrines  to  a 
congregation  drawn  together  in  tbe  expectation 
and  with  the  desire  of  hearing  him. 

I  am  not  wholly  unconscious  of  a  peculiarity 
of  mental  organization  which  impels  me,  like 
the  railroad-engine  with  its  train  of  cars,  to  run 
backward  for  a  short  distance  in  order  to  obtain 
a  fairer  start.  I  may  compare  myself  to  one 
fishing  from  the  rocks  when  the  sea  runs  high, 
who,  misinterpreting  the  suction  of  the  under 
tow  for  the  biting  of  some  larger  fish,  jerks 
suddenly,  and  finds  that  he  has  caught  bottom, 
hauling  in  upon  the  end  of  bis  line  a  trail  of 
various  algce,  among  which,  nevertheless,  the 
naturalist  may  haply  find  somewhat  to  repay 
the  disappointment  of  the  angler.  Yet  have  I 
conscientiously  endeavored  to  adapt  myself  to 
the  impatient  temper  of  tbe  age,  daily  degener 
ating  more  and  more  from  the  high  standard  of 
our  pristine  New  England.  To  the  catalogue 
of  lost  arts  I  would  mournfully  add  also  that  of 
listening  to  two-hour  sermons.  Surely  we  have 
been  abridged  into  a  race  of  pygmies.  For, 
truly,  in  those  of  the  old  discourses  yet  subsist 
ing  to  us  in  print,  the  endless  spinal  column  of 
divisions  and  subdivisions  can  be  likened  to 
nothing  so  exactly  as  to  the  vertebrae  of  the 
saurians,  whence  the  theorist  may  conjecture  a 
race  of  Anakim  proportionate  to  the  withstand 
ing  of  these  other  monsters.  I  say  Anakim 
rather  than  Nephelim,  because  there  seem 
reasons  for  supposing  that  the  race  of  those 
whose  heads  (though  no  giants)  are  constantly 
enveloped  in  clouds  (which  that  name  imports) 
will  never  become  extinct.  The  attempt  to 
vanquish  the  innumerable  heads  of  one  of  those 
afore-mentioned  discourses  may  supply  us  with 
a  plausible  interpretation  of  the  second  labor  of 
Hercules,  and  his  successful  experiment  with 
fire  affords  us  a  useful  precedent. 

But  while  I  lament  the  degeneracy  of  the  age 
in  this  regard,  I  cannot  refuse  to  succumb  to  its 
influence.  Looking  out  through  my  study- 
window,  I  see  Mr.  Biglow  at  a  distance  busy  in 
gathering  his  Baldwins,  of  which,  to  judge  by 
the  number  of  barrels  lying  about  under  the 
trees,  his  crop  is  more  abundant  than  my  own, 
—  by  which  sight  I  am  admonished  to  turn  to 
those  orchards  of  the  mind  wherein  my  labors 
may  be  more  prospered,  and  apply  myself  dili 
gently  to  the  preparation  of  my  next  Sabbath's 
discourse.— H.  W.] 


218 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


MKLIBCEUS-HIPPONAX 


THE 

ttfbfe 

SECOND  SERIES. 

'Ecrriv  ap*  6  i&coTKT/ibs    cviore  TOV  KOCT/AOU  irapaTroAv 

LONGINUS. 

"  J'aimerois  mieubc  que  mon  fils  apprinst  aux  tavernes 
4  parler,  qu'aux  esc  boles  de  la  parlerie." 

MONTAIGNE. 

,,  Unfer  ©pra*  iyt  aud^  ein  ©pradj  unb  Jan  fo  roo^I  ein 
©ai  nennen  al^  Die  2ateiner  saccus." 

FISCHABT. 

"  Vim  rebus  aliquando  ipsa  verborum  humilitas  alfert." 


"  O  ma  lengo, 
Plantarey  une  estelo  a  toun  froun  encrumit  !  " 

JASMIN. 


"  Multos  enim,  quibus  loquendi  ratio  non  desit,  in- 
venias,  quos  curiose  potiua  loqui  dixeris  quam  Latine  ; 
quomodo  et  ilia  Attica  anus  Theophrastum,  hominem 
alioqui  disertissimum,  annotata  unius  aff  ectatioiie  verbi, 
hospitem  dixit,  nee  alio  se  id  deprehendisse  interrogata 
respondit,  quam  quod  nimium  Attice  loqueretur."  — 
QUINTILIANUS. 

"  Et  Anglice  sermonicari  solebat  populo,  sed  secun- 
dum  linguam  Norfolchie  ubi  natus  et  nutritus  erat." 
—  CEONICA  JOCELJNI. 

"  La  politique  est  une  pierre  attaches  au  cou  de  la 
litte~rature,  et  qui  en  moins  de  six  mois  la  submerge. 
.  .  .  Cette  politique  va  offenser  mortellement  une 
moitie'  des  lecteurs,  et  ennuyer  1'autre  qui  1'a  trouve'e 
bien  autreruent  spe"ciale  et  £nergique  dans  le  journal  du 
matin."  —  HENBI  BEYLE. 

THE  best  introduction  to  the  Second  Series 
of  the  Big-low  Papers  is  to  be  found  in  Low 
ell's  prose  papers  on  political  topics  contributed 
to  the  Atlantic  Monthly  and  the  North  Ameri 
can  Review  from  1858  to  1860,  some  of  which 
have  been  reprinted  in  the  fifth  volume  of  the 
Riverside  edition  of  his  Writings.  Just  before 
Mr.  Lincoln's  election  in  1860  he  wrote  :  "  We 
are  approaching1  a  crisis  in  our  domestic  pol 
icy  more  momentous  than  any  that  has  arisen 
since  we  became  a  nation."  The  crisis  arrived, 
and  during  1861  his  political  sagacity,  his  ar 
dent  patriotism,  his  moral  genius  were  dis 
played  in  a  series  of  essays  which  did  much  to 
enlighten  and  confirm  the  roused  spirit  of  the 
Northern  people.  But  more  was  wanting  of 
him.  His  verse  could  reach  more  ears  than 
his  or  any  other  writer's  prose.  He  was  urged 
to  write  fresh  Biglow  Papers,  and  in  a  letter 
dated  the  last  day  of  the  year  1860,  Lowell 
wrote  :  "  As  for  new  Biglow  Papers,  God  knows 
how  I  should  like  to  write  them,  if  they  would 
only  make  me  as  they  did  before.  But  I  am  so 
occupied  and  bothered  that  I  have  no  time  to 


brood,  which  with  me  is  as  needful  a  prelimi 
nary  to  hatching  anything  as  with  a  clucking 
hen.  However,  I  am  going  to  try  my  hand,  and 
see  what  comes  of  it."  It  was  a  year,  however, 
before  the  first  of  the  new  series  appeared  in 
the  Atlantic  Monthly,  and  he  wrote  of  it  to  Miss 
Norton :  "  I  have  been  writing  a  Biglow  Paper, 
and  I  feel  as  nervous  about  it  as  a  young  au 
thor  not  yet  weaned  of  public  favor.  It  was 
clean  against  my  critical  judgment,  for  I  don't 
believe  in  resuscitations,  —  we  hear  no  good  of 
the  posthumous  Lazarus,  —  but  I  may  get  into 
the  vein  and  do  some  good."  The  first  of  the 
series  was  published  in  January,  1862,  and  the 
stimulus  Lowell  needed  came  quickly  in  the 
Trent  affair,  which  drew  out  of  him  at  once 
Mason  and  Slidell :  a  Yankee  Idyll,  which  ap 
peared  in  February.  "  If  I  am  not  mistaken," 
he  wrote  to  Mr.  Fields  on  sending  it,  "it  will 
take."  The  third  followed  in  March,  and  Low 
ell  wrote  again  to  Mr.  Fields :  "  As  for  the 
Biglow  —  glad  you  like  it.  If  not  so  good  as 
the  others,  the  public  will  be  sure  to.  I  think 
well  of  the  Fable  and  believe  there  is  nothing 
exotic  therein.  I  am  going  to  kill  Wilbur 
before  long,  and  give  a  '  would-have-been ' 
obituary  on  him  in  the  American  style.  That 
is,  for  example,  '  he  wrote  no  epic,  but  if  he 
had,  he  would  have  been,'  etc.  I  don't  know 
how  many  of  these  future-conditional  geniuses 
we  have  produced  —  many  score,  certainly.  .  .  . 
Good-by-yours  —  with  a  series  of  Biglows  rising, 
like  the  visionary  kings  before  Macbeth,  to  de 
stroy  all  present  satisfaction." 

Lowell  did  not  kill  Parson  Wilbur  imme 
diately.  Three  more  numbers  followed,  the 
fourth,  fifth,  and  sixth,  in  April,  May,  and  June. 
Then  there  was  an  interval  when  the  rustic 
muse  refused  to  come  at  a  call.  "  It 's  no  use," 
the  poet  wrote  June  5, 1862,  to  Fields,  who  had 
evidently  been  asking  for  the  July  portion  ;  "  I 
reverse  the  gospel  difficulty,  and  while  the  flesh 
is  willing  enough  the  spirit  is  weak.  My 
brain  must  lie  fallow  a  spell  —  there  is  no  su 
perphosphate  for  those  worn-out  fields.  Bet 
ter  no  crop  than  small  potatoes.  I  want  to 
have  the  passion  of  the  thing  on  me  again  and 
beget  lusty  Biglows.  I  am  all  the  more  de 
jected  because  you  have  treated  me  so  well. 
But  I  must  rest  awhile.  My  brain  is  out  of 
kilter."  Mr.  Fields  returned  to  the  attack  the 
next  month,  and  Lowell  wrote  him  a  humorous 
letter  in  which  he  expressed  his  amazement  at 
having  kept  his  word  about  the  six  already 
written,  and  had  some  hopes  that  two  ideas  he 
cherished  might  come  to  something.  At  last 
he  seems  to  have  fallen  back  on  his  scheme  for 
putting  Parson  Wilbur  to  death,  and  made  it  an 
excuse  for  the  seventh  paper,  Latest  Views  of 
Mr.  Biglow,  which  appeared  in  The  Atlantic  for 
February,  1863.  Other  occupations  at  this  time 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


219 


engrossed  him,  and  he  again  wrote  to  Mr.  Fields, 
October  18,  1864  :  "  Firstly,  whar  's  Biglow  ? 
Let  echo  repeat  her  customary  observation, 
adding*  only  that  I  began  one,  but  it  would  not 
go.  I  had  idees  in  plenty,  but  all  I  could  do, 
they  would  not  marry  themselves  to  immortal 
worse.  Not  only  did  I  wish  to  write,  for  there 
was  a  chance  of  a  thousand,  but  I  wanted 
money  —  so  there  can  be  no  doubt  I  was  in 
earnest."  It  was  not  till  peace  was  imminent 
that  he  wrote  again,  the  moving-  tenth  satire, 
which  was  published  in  April,  1865.  The  final 
paper,  called  out  by  the  Johnson  retrograde 
movement,  was  published  in  The  Atlantic  for 
May,  1866.  The  papers  numbered  VIII.  and 
IX.  did  not  appear  in  print  until  the  book  was 
published  in  the  fall  of  the  same  year. 

Lowell  more  than  once  spoke  of  this  second 
series  of  Biglow  Papers  as  in  his  judgment 
better  than  the  first.  In  a  letter  to  Thomas 
Hughes  twenty  years  after  the  book  appeared, 
he  wrote  as  follows:  "Pray,  who  is  'F.  T.,' 
who  has  been  writing  about  me  in  so  friendly 
a  way  in  the  Cornhill  ?  He  is  a  little  out  now 
and  then,  but  strikes  me  as  in  the  main  judi 
cious.  He  is  wrong  about  the  second  part  of 
the  Biglow  Papers.  I  think  had  he  read  these 
first,  he  would  have  seen  they  had  more  per 
manent  qualities  than  their  predecessors,  less 
fun  and  more  humor  perhaps.  And  pray  what 
natural  scenery  would  he  have  me  describe  but 
my  own  ?  If  you  know  him,  tell  him  I  think 
two  European  birds  beat  any  of  ours,  the  nightin 
gale  and  the  blackbird.  The  lark  beats  any  of 
them  also  by  sentiment  and  association,  though 
not  vocally.  I  suppose  I  should  have  been  a 
more  poetical  poet  if  I  had  not  been  a  profes 
sor.  A  poet  should  feed  on  nothing  but  poetry 
as  they  used  to  say  a  drone  could  be  turned 
into  a  queen-bee  by  a  diet  of  bee-bread." 

When  the  book  appeared  it  bore  a  dedica 
tion  to  E.  R.  Hoar,  and  was  introduced  by  the 
essay  on  the  Yankee  form  of  English  speech, 
which,  as  we  have  seen,  he  had  long  ago  pro 
posed  writing.  This  Introduction  is  so  dis 
tinctly  an  essay  that  it  has  been  thought  best 
to  print  it  as  an  appendix  to  this  volume, 
rather  than  allow  it  to  break  in  upon  the  pages 
of  verse.  There  is,  however,  one  passage  in  it 
which  may  be  repeated  here,  since  it  bears  di 
rectly  upon  the  poem  which  serves  as  a  sort  of 
prelude  to  the  series. 

"  The  only  attempt  I  had  ever  made  at  any 
thing  like  a  pastoral  (if  that  may  be  called  an 
attempt  which  was  the  result  almost  of  pure 
accident)  was  in  The  Courtin'.  While  the  intro 
duction  to  the  First  Series  was  going  through 
the  press,  I  received  word  from  the  printer 
that  there  was  a  blank  page  left  which  must 
be  filled.  I  sat  down  at  once  and  improvised 
another  fictitious '  notice  of  the  press,'  in  which, 


because  verse  would  fill  up  space  more  cheaply 
than  prose,  I  inserted  an  extract  from  a  sup 
posed  ballad  of  Mr.  Biglow.  I  kept  no  copy 
of  it,  and  the  printer,  as  directed,  cut  it  off 
when  the  gap  was  filled.  Presently  I  began 
to  receive  letters  asking  for  the  rest  of  it, 
sometimes  for  the  balance  of  it.  I  had  none, 
but  to  answer  such  demands,  I  patched  a  con 
clusion  upon  it  in  a  later  edition.  Those  who 
had  only  the  first  continued  to  importune  me. 
Afterward,  being  asked  to  write  it  out  as  an 
autograph  for  the  Baltimore  Sanitary  Commis 
sion  Fair,  I  added  other  verses,  into  some  of 
which  I  infused  a  little  more  sentiment  in  a 
homely  way,  and  after  a  fashion  completed  it 
by  sketching  in  the  characters  and  making  a 
connected  story.  Most  likely  I  have  spoiled  it, 
but  I  shall  put  it  at  the  end  of  this  Introduc 
tion,  to  answer  once  for  all  those  kindly  impor- 
tunings." 

THE  COURTIN' 

GOD  makes  sech  nights,  all  white  an'  still 

Fur  'z  you  can  look  or  listen, 
Moonshine  an'  snow  on  field  an'  hill, 

All  silence  an'  all  glisten. 

Zekle  crep'  up  quite  unbeknown 
An'  peeked  in  thru'  the  winder, 

An'  there  sot  Huldy  all  alone, 
'ith  no  one  nigh  to  hender. 

A  fireplace  filled  the  room's  one  side 
With  half  a  cord  o'  wood  in  — 

There  war  n't  no  stoves  (tell  comfort  died) 
To  bake  ye  to  a  puddin'. 

The  wa'nut  logs  shot  sparkles  out 
Towards  the  pootiest,  bless  her, 

An'  leetle  flames  danced  all  about 
The  chiny  on  the  dresser. 

Agin  the  chimbley  crook-necks  hung, 

An'  in  amongst  'em  rusted 
The  ole  queen's-arm  thet  gran'ther  Young 

Fetched  back  f'om  Concord  busted. 

The  very  room,  coz  she  was  in, 
Seemed  warm  f'om  floor  to  ceilin', 

An'  she  looked  full  ez  rosy  agin 
Ez  the  apples  she  was  peelin'. 

'T  was  kin'  o'  kingdom-come  to  look 

On  sech  a  blessed  cretur, 
A  dogrose  blushin'  to  a  brook 

Ain't  modester  nor  sweeter. 


22O 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


He  was  six  foot  o'  man,  A  1 , 

Clear  grit  an'  human  natur', 
None  could  n't  quicker  pitch  a  ton 

Nor  dror  a  furrer  straighter. 

He  'd  sparked  it  with  full  twenty  gals, 
Hed  squired  'em,  danced  'em,  druv  'em, 

Fust  this  one,  an'  then  thet,  by  spells  — 
All  is,  he  could  n't  love  'em. 

But  long  o'  her  his  veins  'ould  run 
All  crinkly  like  curled  maple, 

The  side  she  breshed  felt  full  o'  sun 
Ez  a  south  slope  in  Ap'il. 

She  thought  no  v'ice  hed  sech  a  swing 

Ez  hisn  in  the  choir; 
My!  when  he  made  Ole  Hunderd  ring, 

She  knowed  the  Lord  was  nigher. 

An'  she  'd  blush  scarlit,  right  in  prayer, 
When  her  new  meetin'-bunnet 

Felt  somehow  thru'  its  crown  a  pair 
O'  blue  eyes  sot  upun  it. 

Thet  night,  I  tell  ye,  she  looked  some! 

She  seemed  to  've  gut  a  new  soul, 
For  she  felt  sartin-sure  he  'd  come, 

Down  to  her  very  shoe-sole. 

She  heered  a  foot,  an'  knowed  it  tu, 

A-raspin'  on  the  scraper,  — 
All  ways  to  once  her  feelins  flew 

Like  sparks  in  burnt-up  paper. 

He  kin'  o'  1'itered  on  the  mat, 

Some  doubtfle  o'  the  sekle, 
His  heart  kep'  goin'  pity-pat, 

But  hern  went  pity  Zekle. 

An'  yit  she  gin  her  cheer  a  jerk 
Ez  though  she  wished  him  furder, 

An'  on  her  apples  kep'  to  work, 
Parin'  away  like  murder. 

"You  want  to  see  my  Pa,  I  s'pose  ?  " 
"  Wai  ...  no  ...  I  come  dasignin'  " — 

"  To  see  my  Ma  ?    She 's  sprinklin'  clo'es 
Agin  to-morrer's  i'nin'." 

To  say  why  gals  acts  so  or  so, 

Or  don't,  'ould  be  persumin'; 
Mebby  to  mean  yes  an'  say  no 

Conies  nateral  to  women. 


He  stood  a  spell  on  one  foot  fust, 
Then  stood  a  spell  on  t'  other, 

An'  on  which  one  he  felt  the  wust 
He  could  n't  ha'  told  ye  nuther. 

Says  he,  "I  'd  better  call  agin;" 
Says  she,  "  Think  likely,  Mister:" 

Thet  last  word  pricked  him  like  a  pin, 
An'  .  .  .  Wai,  he  up  an'  kist  her. 

When  Ma  bimeby  upon  'em  slips, 

Huldy  sot  pale  ez  ashes, 
All  kin'  o'  suaily  roun'  the  lips 

An'  teary  roun'  the  lashes. 

For  she  was  jes'  the  quiet  kind 

Whose  naturs  never  vary, 
Like  streams  that  keep  a  summer  mind 

Snowhid  in  Jenooary. 

The  blood  clost  roun'  her  heart  felt  glued 

Too  tight  for  all  expressing 
Tell  mother  see  how  metters  stood, 

An'  gin  'em  both  her  blessin'. 

Then  her  red  come  back  like  the  tide 

Down  to  the  Bay  o'  Fundy, 
An'  all  I  know  is  they  was  cried 

In  meetin'  come  nex'  Sunday. 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 

SECOND   SERIES 
No.  I 

BIRDOFREDUM  SAWIN,  ESQ.,  TO 
MR.  HOSEA   BIGLOW 

LETTER  FROM  THE  REVEREND  HOMER 
WILBUR,  M.  A.,  ENCLOSING  THE  EPISTLE 
AFORESAID 

JAALAM,  15th  Nov.,  1861. 

IT  is  not  from  any  idle  wish  to  obtrude 
my  humble  person  with  undue  prominence 
upon  the  publick  view  that  I  resume  my 
pen  upon  the  present  occasion.  Juniores  ad 
labores.  But  having  been  a  main  instrument 
in  rescuing  the  talent  of  my  young  parish 
ioner  from  being  buried  in  the  ground,  by 
giving  it  such  warrant  with  the  world  as 
could  be  derived  from  a  name  already 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


221 


widely  known  by  several  printed  discourses 
(all  of  which  I  may  be  permitted  without  im 
modesty  to  state  have  been  deemed  worthy 
of  preservation  in  the  Library  of  Harvard 
College  by  my  esteemed  friend  Mr.  Sibley), 
it  seemed  becoming  that  I  should  not  only 
testify  to  the  genuineness  of  the  following 
production,  but  call  attention  to  it,  the 
more  as  Mr.  Biglow  had  so  long  been  silent 
as  to  be  in  danger  of  absolute  oblivion.  I 
insinuate  no  claim  to  any  share  in  the 
authorship  (vix  ea  nostra  voco)  of  the  works 
already  published  by  Mr.  Biglow,  but 
merely  take  to  myself  the  credit  of  having 
fulfilled  toward  them  the  office  of  taster 
(experto  crede),  who,  having  first  tried,  could 
afterward  bear  witness  (credenzen  it  was 
aptly  named  by  the  Germans),  an  office  al 
ways  arduous,  and  sometimes  even  danger 
ous,  as  in  the  case  of  those  devoted  persons 
who  venture  their  lives  in  the  deglutition  of 
patent  medicines  (dolus  latet  in  generalibus, 
there  is  deceit  in  the  most  of  them)  and 
thereafter  are  wonderfully  preserved  long 
enough  to  append  their  signatures  to  tes 
timonials  in  the  diurnal  and  hebdomadal 
prints.  I  say  not  this  as  covertly  glancing 
at  the  authors  of  certain  manuscripts  which 
have  been  submitted  to  my  literary  judg 
ment  (though  an  epick  in  twenty-four  books 
on  the  "  Taking  of  Jericho  "  might,  save 
for  the  prudent  forethought  of  Mrs.  Wilbur 
in  secreting  the  same  just  as  I  had  arrived 
beneath  the  walls  and  was  beginning  a 
catalogue  of  the  various  horns  and  their 
blowers,  too  ambitiously  emulous  in  longa 
nimity  of  Homer's  list  of  ships,  might,  I 
say,  have  rendered  frustrate  any  hope  I 
could  entertain  vacare  Musis  for  the  small 
remainder  of  my  days),  but  only  the  further 
to  secure  myself  against  any  imputation  of 
unseemly  forthputting.  I  will  barely  sub 
join,  in  this  connexion,  that,  whereas  Job 
was  left  to  desire,  in  the  soreness  of  his 
heart,  that  his  adversary  had  written  a 
book,  as  perchance  misanthropically  wish 
ing  to  indite  a  review  thereof,  yet  was  not 
Satan  allowed  so  far  to  tempt  him  as  to 
send  Bildad,  Eliphaz,  and  Zophar  each  with 
an  unprinted  work  in  his  wallet  to  be  sub 
mitted  to  his  censure.  But  of  this  enough. 
Were  I  in  need  of  other  excuse,  I  might 
add  that  I  write  by  the  express  desire  of 
Mr.  Biglow  himself,  whose  entire  winter 
leisure  is  occupied,  as  he  assures  me,  in  an 


swering  demands  for  autographs,  a  labor 
exacting  enough  in  itself,  and  egregiously 
so  to  him,  who,  being  no  ready  penman, 
cannot  sign  so  much  as  his  name  without 
strange  contortions  of  the  face  (his  nose, 
even,  being  essential  to  complete  success) 
and  painfully  suppressed  Saint- Vitus-dance 
of  every  muscle  in  his  body.  This,  with  his 
having  been  put  in  the  Commission  of  the 
Peace  by  our  excellent  Governor  (0,  si  sic 
omnes  /)  immediately  on  his  accession  to 
office,  keeps  him  continually  employed. 
Hand  inexpertus  loquor,  having  for  many 
years  written  myself  J.  P.,  and  being  not 
seldom  applied  to  for  specimens  of  my  chi- 
rography,  a  request  to  which  I  have  some 
times  over  weakly  assented,  believing  as  I 
do  that  nothing  written  of  set  purpose  can 
properly  be  called  an  autograph,  but  only 
those  unpremeditated  sallies  and  lively 
runnings  which  betray  the  fireside  Man  in 
stead  of  the  hunted  Notoriety  doubling  on 
his  pursuers.  But  it  is  time  that  I  should 
bethink  me  of  St.  Austin's  prayer,  libera  me 
a  meipso,  if  I  would  arrive  at  the  matter  in 
hand. 

Moreover,  I  had  yet  another  reason  for 
taking  up  the  pen  myself.  I  am  informed 
that  "  The  Atlantic  Monthly  "  is  mainly  in 
debted  for  its  success  to  the  contributions 
and  editorial  supervision  of  Dr.  Holmes, 
whose  excellent  "Annals  of  America" 
occupy  an  honored  place  upon  my  shelves. 
The  journal  itself  I  have  never  seen;  but  if 
this  be  so,  it  might  seem  that  the  recom 
mendation  of  a  brother-clergyman  (though 
par  magis  quam  similis)  should  carry  a 
greater  weight.  I  suppose  that  you  have  a 
department  for  historical  lucubrations,  and 
should  be  glad,  if  deemed  desirable,  to  for 
ward  for  publication  my  "  Collections  for 
the  Antiquities  of  Jaalam,"  and  my  (now 
happily  complete)  pedigree  of  the  Wilbur 
family  from  its  fons  et  origo,  the  Wild  Boar 
of  Ardennes.  Withdrawn  from  the  active 
duties  of  my  profession  by  the  settlement  of 
a  colleague-pastor,  the  Reverend  Jeduthun 
Hitchcock,  formerly  of  Brutus  Four-Cor 
ners,  I  might  find  time  for  further  contri 
butions  to  general  literature  on  similar 
topicks.  I  have  made  large  advances  to 
wards  a  completer  genealogy  of  Mrs.  Wil 
bur's  family,  the  Pilcoxes,  not,  if  I  know 
myself,  from  any  idle  vanity,  but  with  the 
sole  desire  of  rendering  myself  useful  in  my 


222 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


day  and  generation.  Nulla  dies  sine  lined.  I 
inclose  a  meteorological  register,  a  list  of  the 
births,  deaths,  and  marriages,  and  a  few  me 
morabilia  of  longevity  in  Jaalam  East  Parish 
for  the  last  half-century.  Though  spared 
to  the  unusual  period  of  more  than  eighty 
years,  I  find  no  diminution  of  my  faculties 
or  abatement  of  my  natural  vigor,  except  a 
scarcely  sensible  decay  of  memory  and  a 
necessity  of  recurring  to  younger  eyesight 
or  spectacles  for  the  finer  print  in  Cruden. 
It  would  gratify  me  to  make  some  further 
provision  for  declining  years  from  the 
emoluments  of  my  literary  labors.  I  had 
intended  to  effect  an  insurance  on  my  life, 
but  was  deterred  therefrom  by  a  circular 
from  one  of  the  offices,  in  which  the  sudden 
death  of  so  large  a  proportion  of  the  in 
sured  was  set  forth  as  an  inducement,  that 
it  seemed  to  me  little  less  than  a  tempting 
of  Providence.  Neque  in  summd  inopid 
levis  esse  senectus  potest,  ne  sapienti  quidem. 

Thus  far  concerning  Mr.  Biglow  ;  and 
so  much  seemed  needful  (brevis  esse  laboro) 
by  way  of  preliminary,  after  a  silence  of 
fourteen  years.  He  greatly  fears  lest  he 
may  in  this  essay  have  fallen  below  himself, 
well  knowing  that,  if  exercise  be  dangerous 
on  a  full  stomach,  no  less  so  is  writing  on  a 
full  reputation.  Beset  as  he  has  been  on 
all  sides,  he  could  not  refrain,  and  would 
only  imprecate  patience  till  he  shall  again 
have  "  got  the  hang  "  (as  he  calls  it)  of  an 
accomplishment  long  disused.  The  letter 
of  Mr.  Sawin  was  received  some  time  in 
last  June,  and  others  have  followed  which 
will  in  due  season  be  submitted  to  the  pub- 
lick.  How  largely  his  statements  are  to  be 
depended  on,  1  more  than  merely  dubitate. 
He  was  always  distinguished  for  a  tendency 
to  exaggeration,  —  it  might  almost  be  quali 
fied  by  a  stronger  term.  Fortiter  mentire, 
aliquid  hceret,  seemed  to  be  his  favorite  rule 
of  rhetoric.  That  he  is  actually  where  he 
says  he  is  the  postmark  would  seem  to  con 
firm  ;  that  he  was  received  with  the  publick 
demonstrations  he  describes  would  appear 
consonant  with  what  we  know  of  the  habits 
of  those  regions  ;  but  further  than  this  I 
venture  not  to  decide.  1  have  sometimes 
suspected  a  vein  of  humor  in  him  which 
leads  him  to  speak  by  contraries  ;  but  since, 
in  the  unrestrained  intercourse  of  private 
life,  I  have  never  observed  in  him  any 
striking  powers  of  invention,  I  am  the  more 


willing  to  put  a  certain  qualified  faith  in 
the  incidents  and  the  details  of  life  and 
manners  which  give  to  his  narratives  some 
portion  of  the  interest  and  entertainment 
which  characterizes  a  Century  Sermon. 

It  may  be  expected  of  me  that  I  should 
say  something  to  justify  myself  with  the 
world  for  a  seeming  inconsistency  with  my 
well-known  principles  in  allowing  my 
youngest  son  to  raise  a  company  for  the 
war,  a  fact  known  to  all  through  the  me 
dium  of  the  publick  prints.  I  did  reason 
with  the  young  man,  but  expellas  naturam 
fared,  tamen  usque  recurrit.  Having  myself 
been  a  chaplain  in  1812,  I  could  the  less 
wonder  that  a  man  of  war  had  sprung  from 
my  loins.  It  was,  indeed,  grievous  to  send 
my  Benjamin,  the  child  of  my  old  age  ; 
but  after  the  discomfiture  of  Manassas,  I 
with  my  own  hands  did  buckle  on  his 
armor,  trusting  in  the  great  Comforter 
and  Commander  for  strength  according  to 
my  need.  For  truly  the  memory  of  a  brave 
son  dead  in  his  shroud  were  a  greater  staff 
of  my  declining  years  than  a  living  coward 
(if  those  may  be  said  to  have  lived  who 
carry  all  of  themselves  into  the  grave  with 
them),  though  his  days  might  be  long  in 
the  land,  and  he  should  get  much  goods. 
It  is  not  till  our  earthen  vessels  are  broken 
that  we  find  and  truly  possess  the  treasure 
that  was  laid  up  in  them.  Migravi  in 
animam  meam,  I  have  sought  refuge  in  my 
own  soul  ;  nor  would  I  be  shamed  by  the 
heathen  comedian  with  his  Nequam  illud 
verbum,  bene  vult,  nisi  bene  facit.  During 
our  dark  days,  I  read  constantly  in  the 
inspired  book  of  Job,  which  I  believe  to 
contain  more  food  to  maintain  the  fibre  of 
the  soul  for  right  living  and  high  thinking 
than  all  pagan  literature  together,  though  I 
would  by  no  means  vilipend  the  study  of 
the  classicks.  There  I  read  that  Job  said  in 
his  despair,  even  as  the  fool  saith  in  his 
heart  there  is  no  God,  —  "  The  tabernacles 
of  robbers  prosper,  and  they  that  provoke 
God  are  secure."  (Job  xii.  6.)  But  I 
sought  farther  till  I  found  this  Scripture 
also,  which  I  would  have  those  perpend  who 
have  striven  to  turn  our  Israel  aside  to  the 
worship  of  strange  gods  :  "  If  I  did  de 
spise  the  cause  of  my  man-servant  or  of  my 
maid-servant  when  they  contended  with  me, 
what  then  shall  I  do  when  God  riseth  up  ? 
and  when  he  visiteth,  what  shall  I  answer 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS 


223 


him  ?  "  (Job  xxxi.  13,  14.)  On  this  text 
I  preached  a  discourse  on  the  last  day  of 
Fasting  and  Humiliation  with  general  ac 
ceptance,  though  there  were  not  wanting 
one  or  two  Laodicean  s  who  said  that  I 
should  have  waited  till  the  President  an 
nounced  his  policy.  But  let  us  hope  and 
pray,  remembering  this  of  Saint  Gregory, 
Vult  Deus  rogari,  vult  cogi,  vult  quddam  im- 
portunitate  vinci. 

We  had  our  first  fall  of  snow  on  Friday 
last.  Frosts  have  been  unusually  backward 
this  fall.  A  singular  circumstance  occurred 
in  this  town  on  the  20th  October,  in  the 
family  of  Deacon  Pelatiah  Tinkham.  On 
the  previous  evening,  a  few  moments  be 
fore  family  prayers, 


[The  editors  of  the  "  Atlantic  "  find  it  neces 
sary  here  to  cut  short  the  letter  of  their  valued 
correspondent,  which  seemed  calculated  rather 
on  the  rates  of  longevity  in  Jaalam  than  for  less 
favored  localities.  They  have  every  encourage 
ment  to  hope  that  he  will  write  again.] 

With  esteem  and  respect, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

HOMER  WILBUR,  A.  M. 

IT  's  some  consid'ble  of  a  spell   sence   I 

hain't  writ  no  letters, 
An'  ther'  's  gret  changes  hez  took  place  in 

all  polit'cle  metters; 
Some  canderdates  air  dead  an'  gone,  an' 

some  hez  ben  defeated, 
Which  'mounts   to  pooty  much  the  same; 

fer  it 's  ben  proved  repeated 
A  betch  o'  bread  thet  hain't  riz  once  ain't 

goin'  to  rise  agin, 
An'  it 's  jest  money  throwed  away  to  put 

the  emptins  in: 
But  thet 's   wut   folks  wun't  never  larn ; 

they  dunno  how  to  go, 
Arter  you   want  their  room,  no  more  'n  a 

bullet-headed  beau ; 
Ther'  's   oilers   chaps  a-hangin'  roun'  thet 

can't  see  peatime  's  past, 
Mis'ble  as  roosters  in  a  rain,  heads  down 

an'  tails  half-mast: 
It  ain't  disgraceful  bein'  beat,  when  a  holl 

nation  doos  it, 
But  Chance  is  like  an  amberill, — it  don't 

take  twice  to  lose  it. 

I  spose  you  're  kin'  o'  cur'ous,  now,  to  know 
why  I  hain't  writ. 


Wai,  I  've  ben  where  a  .litt'ry  taste  don't 

somehow  seem  to  git 
Th'  encouragement  a  feller  'd  think,  thet  's 

used  to  public  schools, 
An'  where  sech  things  ez  paper  'n'  ink  air 

clean  agin  the  rules: 
A  kind  o'  vicyvarsy   house,   built  dreffle 

strong  an'  stout, 
So  's  't    honest    people    can't   get   in,    ner 

t'  other  sort  git  out, 
An'  with  the  winders  so  contrived,  you  'd 

prob'ly  like  the  view 
Better  alookin'  in  than  out,  though  it  seems 

sing'lar,  tu; 
But  then  the  landlord  sets  by  ye,  can't  bear 

ye  out  o'  sight, 
And  locks  ye  up  ez  reg'lar  ez  an  outside 

door  at  night. 

This  world  is  awfle  contrary:  the  rope  may 

stretch  your  neck 
Thet  mebby  kep'  another  chap  frum  washin* 

off  a  wreck; 
An'  you  may  see  the  taters  grow  in  one  poor 

feller's  patch, 
So  small  no  self-respectin'  hen  thet  vallied 

time  'ould  scratch, 
So  small  the  rot  can't  find  'em  out,  an'  then 

agin,  nex'  door, 
Ez  big  ez  wut  hogs  dream  on  when  they  're 

'most  too  fat  to  snore. 
But  groutin'  ain't  no  kin'  o'  use ;  an'  ef  the 

fust  throw  fails, 

Why,  up  an'  try  agin,  thet 's  all,  —  the  cop 
pers  ain't  all  tails, 
Though  I  hev  seen  'em  when  I  thought  they 

hed  n't  no  more  head 
Than  'd  sarve  a  nussin'  Brigadier  thet  gits 

some  ink  to  shed. 

When  I  writ  last,  I  'd  ben  turned  loose  by 

thet  blamed  nigger,  Pomp, 
Ferlorner  than  a  musquash,  ef  you  'd  took 

an'  dreened  his  swamp: 
But  I  ain't  o'  the  meechin'  kind,  thet  sets 

an'  thinks  fer  weeks 
The  bottom  's  out  o'  th'  univarse  coz  their 

own  gillpot  leaks. 
I  hed  to  cross  bayous  an'  criks,  (wal,  it  did 

beat  all  natur',) 
Upon   a   kin'   o'  corderoy,   fust  log,   then 

alligator; 
Luck'ly,   the   critters    warn't  sharp-sot;  I 

guess  't  wuz  overruled 


224 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


They  'd  done  their  mornin's  marketin'  an' 

gut  their  hunger  cooled; 
Fer  missionaries  to  the  Creeks  an'  runaways 

are  viewed 
By  them  an'  folks  ez  sent  express  to  be 

their  reg'lar  food; 
Wutever  't  wuz,  they  laid  an'  snoozed  ez 

peacefully  ez  sinners, 
Meek  ez  disgestin'  deacons  be  at  ordination 

dinners ; 
Ef  any  on  'em  turned  an'  snapped,  I  let  'em 

kin'  o'  taste 
My  live-oak  leg,  an'  so,  ye  see,  ther'  warn't 

no  gret  o'  waste; 
Fer  they  found  out  in  quicker  time  than  ef 

they  'd  ben  to  college 
'T  warn't  heartier  food  then  though  't  wuz 

made  out  o'  the  tree  o'  knowledge. 
But  /  tell  you  my  other  leg  hed  larned  wut 

pizon-nettle  meant, 
An'   var'ous   other   usefle   things,  afore   I 

reached  a  settlement, 
An'  all  o'  me  thet  wuz  n't  sore  an'  sendin' 

prickles  thru  me 
Wuz  jest  the  leg  I  parted  with  in  lickin' 

Montezumy : 
A  useful  limb  it 's  ben  to  me,  an'  more  of  a 

support 
Than  wut  the  other  hez  ben,  —  coz  I  dror 

my  pension  for  't. 

Wai,  I  gut  in  at  last  where  folks  wuz  civer- 

lized  an'  white, 
Ez  I  diskivered  to  my  cost  afore  't  warn't 

hardly  night; 

Fer  'z  I  wuz  settin'  in  the  bar  a-takin'  sun- 
thin'  hot, 
An'  feelin'  like  a  man  agin,  all  over  in  one 

spot, 
A  feller  thet  sot  oppersite,  arter  a  squint  at 

me, 
Lep'  up  an'  drawed  his  peacemaker,  an', 

"  Dash  it,  Sir,"  suz  he, 
"  I  'm  doubledashed  ef  you  ain't  him  thet 

stole  my  yaller  chettle, 
(You  're  all  the  stranger  thet 's  around,)  so 

now  you  've  gut  to  settle; 
It  ain't  no  use  to  argerfy  ner  try  to  cut  up 

frisky, 
I  know  ye  ez  I  know  the  smell  of  ole  chain- 

lightnin'  whiskey; 
We  're  lor-abidin'  folks  down  here,  we  '11  fix 

ye  so  's  't  a  bar 
Would   n'   tech   ye   with   a  ten-foot  pole; 

(Jedge,  you  jest  warm  the  tar;) 


You  '11  think  you  'd  better  ha'  gut  among 

a  tribe  o'  Mongrel  Tartars, 
'fore  we  've  done  showin'  how  we  raise  our 

Southun  prize  tar-martyrs; 
A  moultin'  fallen  cherubim,  ef  he  should 

see  ye,  'd  snicker, 
Thinkin'  he  warn't  a  suckemstance.    Come, 

genlemun,  le'  *s  liquor; 
An',  Gin'ral,  when  you  've  mixed  the  drinks 

an'  chalked  'em  up,  tote  roun' 
An'  see  ef  ther'  's  a  feather-bed  (thet  's 

borryable)  in  town. 
We  '11  try  ye  fair,  ole  Grafted-Leg,  an'  ef 

the  tar  wun't  stick, 
Th'  ain't  not  a  juror  here  but  wut  '11  'quit 

ye  double-quick." 
To  cut  it  short,  I  wun't  say  sweet,  they  gi* 

me  a  good  dip, 
(They  ain't  perfessin'  Bahptists  here,)  then 

give  the  bed  a  rip,  — 
The   jury  'd  sot,  an'   quicker  thin  a  flash 

they  hetched  me  out,  a  livin' 
Extemp'ry   mammoth  turkey-chick  fer  a 

Fejee  Thanksgivin'. 
Thet   I   felt   some   stuck  up   is   wut  it's 

nat'ral  to  suppose, 
When  poppylar  enthusiasm  hed  funnished 

me  sech  clo'es; 
(Ner  't  ain't  without  edvantiges,  this  kin* 

o'  suit,  ye  see, 
It 's  water-proof,  an'  water  's  wut  I  like 

kep'  out  o'  me;) 
But  nut  content  with  thet,  they  took  a  ker- 

ridge  from  the  fence 
An'  rid  me  roun'  to  see  the  place,  entirely 

free  'f  expense, 

With  forty-'leven  new  kines  o'  sarse  with 
out  no  charge  acquainted  me, 
Gi'  me  three  cheers,  an'  vowed  thet  I  wuz 

all  their  f ahncy  painted  me ; 
They  treated  me  to  all  their  eggs;  (they 

keep  'em  I  should  think, 
Fer   sech   ovations,  pooty   long,   for  they 

wuz  mos'  distinc'  ;) 
They  starred   me  thick 'z  the  Milky-Way 

with  indiscrim'nit  cherity, 
Fer  wut  we  call  reception  eggs  air  sunthin' 

of  a  rerity; 
Green  ones  is  plentifle  anough,  skurce  wuth 

a  nigger's  getherin', 
But  your  dead-ripe  ones   ranges  high  fer 

treatin'  Nothun  bretherin; 
A   spotteder,   ring    streakeder   child  the1 

warn't  in  Uncle  Sam's 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


225 


Holl  farm,  —  a  cross  of  striped  pig  an'  one 

o'  Jacob's  lambs; 
JT  wuz    Dannil  in  the  lions'  den,  new  an' 

enlarged  edition, 
An'  every  thin'   fust-rate   o'  'ts  kind;  the' 

warn't  no  impersition. 
People  's   impulsiver  down  here  than  wut 

our  folks  to  home  be, 
An'  kin'  o'  go  it  'ith  a  resh  in  raisin'  Hail 

Columby: 
Thet  's  so :  an'  they  swarmed  out  like  bees, 

for  your  real  Southun  men's 
Time  is  n't  o'  much  more  account  than  an 

ole  settin'  hen's; 
(They  jest  work  semioccashnally,  or   else 

don't  work  at  all, 
An'  so  their  time  an'  'tention  both  air  at 

saci'ty's  call.) 
Talk     about     hospatality  !    wut     Nothun 

town  d'  ye  know 
Would  take  a  totle  stranger  up  an'  treat 

him  gratis  so  ? 
You  'd  better  b'lieve   ther'  's   nothin'  like 

this  spendin'  days  an'  nights 
Along  'ith  a  dependent  race  fer  civerlizin' 

whites. 

But  this  wuz  all  prelim'nary;  it's  so  Gran' 

Jurors  here 
Fin'  a  true  bill,  a  hendier  way  than  ourn, 

an'  nut  so  dear; 
So  arter  this  they  sentenced  me,  to  make 

all  tight  'n'  snug, 
Afore  a  reg'lar  court  o'  law,  to  ten  years 

in  the  Jug. 
I  did  n't  make  no  gret  defence  :  you  don't 

feel  much  like  speakin', 
When,  ef  you  let  your  clamshells  gape,  a 

quart  o'  tar  will  leak  in: 
I  hev  hearn  tell  o'  winged  words,  but  pint 

o'  fact  it  tethers 
The  spoutin'  gift  to  hev  your  words  tu  thick 

sot  on  with  feathers, 
An'    Choate   ner   Webster   would   n't   ha' 

made  an  A  1  kin'  o'  speech 
Astride  a  Southun  chestnut  horse  sharper 

'n  a  baby's  screech. 
Two  year  ago  they  ketched   the  thief,  'n' 

seein'  I  wuz  innercent, 
They   jest  uncorked  an'  le'  me  run,  an'  in 

my  stid  the  sinner  sent 
To  see  how  he  liked  pork  'n'  pone  flavored 

with  wa'nut  saplin', 
An'  nary  social  priv'ledge  but  a  one-boss, 

starn-wheel  chaplin. 


When  I  come  out,  the  folks  behaved  mos' 

gen'manly  an'  harnsome; 
They  'lowed  it  would  n't  be  more  'n  right, 

ef  I  should  cuss  'n'  darn  some: 
The  Cunnle  he  apolergized;  suz  he,  "I'll 

du  wut 's  right, 
I  '11  give  ye  settisfection  now   by  shootin* 

ye  at  sight, 
An'  give  the  nigger  (when  he  's  caught),  to 

pay  him  fer  his  trickin' 
In  gittin'  the  wrong  man  took  up,  a  most 

H  fired  lickin',— 

It  's  jest  the  way  with  all  on  'em,  the  in 
consistent  critters, 

They  're  'most  enough  to  make  a  man  blas 
pheme  his  mornin'  bitters; 
I  '11  be  your  frien'  thru  thick  an'  thin  an' 

in  all  kines  o'  weathers, 
An'  all  you  '11  hev  to   pay  fer  's  jest  the 

waste  o'  tar  an'  feathers: 
A  lady  owned  the  bed,  ye  see,  a  widder,  tu, 

Miss  Shennon; 
It  wuz  her  mite ;  we  would  ha'  took  another, 

ef  ther  'd  ben  one: 
We  don't  make  no  charge  for  the  ride  an* 

all  the  other  fixins. 
Le'  's   liquor;  Gin'ral,  you   can  chalk   our 

friend  for  all  the  mixins." 
A   meetin'  then   wuz    called,    where   they 

"  RESOLVED,  Thet  we  respec' 
B.  S.  Esquire  for  quallerties  o'  heart  an* 

intellec' 
Peculiar  to  Columby 's  sile,  an'  not  to  no 

one  else's, 
Thet  makes  Eurdpean  tyrans  scringe  in  all 

their  gilded  pel'ces, 
An'    doos    gret    honor    to   our    race   an* 

Southun  institootions  :  " 
(I  give  ye  jest  the  substance  o'  the  leadin* 

resolootions :) 
"  RESOLVED,   Thet    we    revere    in  him   a 

soger  'thout  a  flor, 
A  martyr  to  the  princerples  o'  libbaty  an* 

lor  : 
RESOLVED,  Thet  other  nations  all,  ef  sot 

'longside  o'  us, 
For  vartoo,  larnin',  chivverlry,  ain't  noways 

wuth  a  cuss." 
They  gut  up  a  subscription,  tu,  but  no  gret 

come  o'  ihet; 
I  'xpect  in  cairin'  of  it  roun'  they  took  a 

leaky  hat; 
Though  Southun  genelmun  ain't   slow   at 

puttin'  down  their  name, 


226 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


(When  they  can  write,)  fer  in  the  eend  it 

comes  to  jes'  the  same, 
Because,  ye  see,  't  's  the  fashion  here  to 

sign  an'  not  to  think 
A  critter  'd  be  so  sordid  ez  to  ax  'em  for 

the  chink: 
I  did  n't  call  but  jest  on  one,  an'  he  drawed 

tooth-pick  on  me, 
An'  reckoned  he  warn't  goin'  to  stan'  no 

sech  dog-gauned  econ'my; 
So  nothin'  more  wuz  realized,  'ceptin'  the 

Food-will  shown, 
't  had  ben  from  fust  to  last  a  regu 
lar  Cotton  Loan. 
It  's  a  good  way,  though,  come  to  think, 

coz  ye  enjy  the  sense 
O'  lendin'  lib'rally  to  the  Lord,  an'  nary 

red  o'  'xpense : 
Sence  then  I  've  gut  my  name  up  for  a 

gin'rous-hearted  man 
By   jes'  subscribin'  right  an'  left  on  this 

high-minded  plan; 
I've   gin  away  my  thousans  so   to  every 

Southun  sort 
O'  missions,  colleges,  an'  sech,  ner  ain't  no 

poorer  for  't. 

I  warn't  so  bad  off,  arter  all;  I  needn't 

hardly  mention 
That  Guv'ment  owed  me  quite  a  pile  for 

my  arrears  o'  pension,  — 
I  mean  the  poor,  weak  thing  we  hed :  we 

run  a  new  one  now, 
Thet  strings  a  feller  with  a  claim  up  ta  the 

nighes'  bough, 
An'  prectises    the   right   o'   man,   purtects 

down-trodden  debtors, 
Ner  wun't  hev  creditors  about  ascrougin' 

o'  their  betters: 
Jeff 's  gut  the  last  idees  ther'  is,  poscrip', 

fourteenth  edition, 
He  knows  it  takes  some  enterprise  to  run 

an  oppersition; 
Ourn   's  the    fust   thru-by-daylight   train, 

with  all  ou 'doors  for  deepot; 
Yourn   goes   so   slow  you  'd   think 't  wuz 

drawed  by  a  las'  cent'ry  teapot;  — 
Wai,  I  gut  all  on  't  paid  in  gold  afore  our 

State  seceded, 
An'  done  wal,  for  Confed'rit  bonds  warn't 

jest  the  cheese  I  needed: 
Nut  but  wut  they  're  ez  good  ez  gold,  but 

then  it 's  hard  a-breakin'  on  'em, 
An'  ignorant  folks  is  oilers  sot  an'  wun't 

git  used  to  takin'  on  'em; 


They  're  wuth  ez  much  ez  wut  they  wuz 

afore  ole  Mem'nger  signed  'em, 
An'  go  off  middlin'  wal  for  drinks,  when 

ther'  's  a  knife  behind  'em; 
We  du  miss  silver,  jes'  fer  thet  an'  ridin'  in 

a  bus, 
Now   we  've   shook  off  the    desputs   thet 

wuz  suckin'  at  our  pus; 
An*   it's   because  the   South 's   so   rich;  't 

wuz  nat'ral  to  expec' 
Supplies  o'  change  wuz  jes'  the  things  we 

should  n't  recollec'; 
We'd    ough'   to    ha'    thought    aforehan', 

though,  o'  thet  good  rule  o'  Crock 
ett's, 
For  't  's   tiresome   cairin'   cotton-bales  an' 

niggers  in  your  pockets, 
Ner  't  ain't  quite  hendy  to  pass  off  one  o' 

your  six-foot  Guineas 
An'   git   your  halves  an'  quarters  back  in 

gals  an'  pickaninnies: 
Wal,  't  ain't  quite  all  a  feller  'd  ax,  but 

then  ther  's  this  to  say, 
It's   on'y   jest   among   ourselves   thet   we 

expec'  to  pay; 
Our  system  would  ha'  caird  us  thru  in  any 

Bible  cent'ry, 
'fore  this  onscripterl  plan  come  up  o'  books 

by  double  entry; 
We  go  the  patriarkle  here  out  o'  all  sight 

an'  hearin', 
For  Jacob  warn't  a  suckemstance  to  Jeff 

at  financierin'; 
He  never  'd  thought  o'  borryin'  from  Esau 

like  all  nater 
An'   then  cornfiscatin'  all  debts  to  sech  a 

small  pertater; 
There  's  p'litickle  econ'my,  now,  combined 

'ith  morril  beauty 
Thet  saycrifices  privit  eends  (your  in'iny's, 

tu)  to  dooty  ! 
Wy,  Jeff  'd   ha'  gin  him  five  an'  won  his 

eye-teeth  'fore  he  knowed  it, 
An',  stid  o'  wastin'  pottage,  he  'd  ha'  eat  it 

up  an'  owed  it. 
But  I  wuz  goin'  on  to  say  how  I  come  here 

to  dwall  ;  — 
'Nough   said,   thet,   arter  lookin'   rouii',  I 

liked  the  place  so  wal, 
Where  niggers  doos  a  double  good,  with  us 

atop  to  stiddy  'em, 
By  bein'  proofs  o'  prophecy  an'  suckleatin* 

medium, 
Where  a  man  's  sunthin'  coz  he  's   white, 

an'  whiskey  's  cheap  ez  fleas, 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


227 


An'  the  financial  pollercy  jes'  sooted  my 

idees, 
Thet  I  friz  down  right  where  I  wuz,  mer- 

ried  the  Widder  Shennon, 
(Her  thirds  wuz  part  in  cotton-land,  part 

in  the  curse  o'  Canaan,) 
An'  here  I  be  ez  lively  ez  a  chipmunk  on  a 

wall, 
With  nothin'  to  feel  riled  about  much  later 

'n  Eddam's  fall. 

Ez  fur  ez  human  foresight  goes,  we  made 

an  even  trade: 

She  gut  an  overseer,  an'  I  a  fem'ly  ready- 
made, 
The  youngest  on  'em  's  'mos'  growed  up, 

rugged  an'  spry  ez  weazles, 
So  's  't  ther'  's  no  resk  o'  doctors'  bills  fer 

hoopin'-cough  an'  measles. 
Our    farm  's    at   Turkey-Buzzard    Roost, 

Little  Big  Boosy  River, 
Wai  located  in  all  respex,  —  fer  't  ain't  the 

chills  'n'  fever 
Thet  makes  my  writin'  seem  to  squirm;  a 

Southuner  'd  allow  I  'd 
Some  call  to  shake,  for  I've  jest  hed  to 

meller  a  new  cowhide. 
Miss  S.  is  all  'f  a  lady;  th'  ain't  no  better  on 

Big  Boosy 
Ner  one  with  more  accomplishmunts  'twixt 

here  an'  Tuscaloosy; 
She 's  an  F.  F.,  the  tallest  kind,  an*  prouder 

'n  the  Gran'  Turk, 
An'  never  hed  a  relative  thet  done  a  stroke 

o'  work; 
Hern   ain't  a  scrimpin'  fem'ly  sech  ez  you 

git  up  Down  East, 
Th'  ain't  a  growed  member  on  't  but  owes 

his  thousuns  et  the  least: 
She  is  some  old ;  but  then  agin  ther'  's  draw 
backs  in  my  sheer: 
Wut  's  left  o'  me  ain't  more  'n  enough  to 

make  a  Brigadier: 
Wust  is,  thet  she  hez  tantrums  ;  she  's  like 

Seth  Moody's  gun 
(Him  thet   wuz  nicknamed  frum  his  limp 

Ole  Dot  an' Kerry  One); 
He  'd  left  her  loaded  up  a  spell,  an'  hed  to 

git  her  clear, 
So  he  onhitched,  —  Jeerusalem  !  the  middie 

o'  last  year 
Wuz  right  nex'  door  compared  to  where  she 

kicked  the  critter  tu 
(Though  jest  where  he  brought  up  wuz  wut 

no  human  never  knew); 


His  brother  Asaph  picked  her  up  an'  tied 

her  to  a  tree, 
An'  then  she  kicked  an  hour  'n'  a  half  afore 

she  'd  let  it  be: 
Wai,  Miss  S.  doos  hev  cuttins-up  an'  pourius- 

out  o'  vials, 
But  then  she  hez  her  widder's  thirds,  an' 

all  on  us  hez  trials. 
My  objec',  though,  in  writin'  now  warn't  to 

allude  to  sech, 
But  to  another  suckemstance  more  dellykit 

to  tech,— 
I  want  thet  you  should  grad'lly  break  my 

merriage  to  Jerushy, 
An'  there  's    a  heap  of  argymunts  thet  's 

emple  to  indooce  ye: 
Fust  place,  State's  Prison,  —  wal,  it  's  true 

it  warn't  fer  crime,  o'  course, 
But  then  it 's  jest  the  same  fer  her  in  gittin' 

a  disvorce ; 
Nex'  place,  my  State  's  secedin'  out  hez 

leg'lly  lef '  me  free 
To  merry  any  one  I  please,  pervidin'  it 's  a 

she; 
Fiu'lly,  I  never  wun't  come  back,  she  need 

n't  hev  no  fear  on 't, 
But  then  it's  wal  to  fix  things  right  fer 

fear  Miss  S.  should  hear  on  't; 
Lastly,  I  've  gut  religion  South,  an'  Rushy 

she  's  a  pagan 
Thet  sets  by  th'  graven  imiges  o'  the  gret 

Nothun  Dagon; 
(Now  I  hain't  seen  one  in  six  munts,  for, 

sence  our  Treashry  Loan, 
Though  yaller  boys  is  thick  anough,  eagles 

hez  kind  o'  flown;) 
An'  ef  J  wants  a  stronger  pint  than  them 

thet  I  hev  stated, 
Wy,  she  's  an  aliun  in'my  now,  an'  I  've 

been  cornfiscated,  — 
For  sence  we  've  entered  on  th'  estate  o' 

the  late  nayshnul  eagle, 
She  hain't  no  kin'  o'  right  but  jes'  wut  I 

allow  ez  legle: 
Wut  doos  Secedin'  mean,   ef  't  ain't  thet 

nat'rul  rights  hez  riz,  'n' 
Thet  wut  is  mine  's  my  own,  but  wut 's 

another  man's  ain't  his'n  ? 

Besides,  I  could  n't  do  no  else ;  Miss  S.  suz 

she  to  me, 
"  You  've  sheered  my  bed,"  [thet 's  when  I 

paid  my  interduction  fee 
To  Southun  rites,]   "  an'  kep'  your  sheer," 

[wal,  I  allow  it  sticked 


228 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


So  's  't  I  wuz  most  six  weeks  in  jail  afore  I 

gut  me  picked,] 
"Ner  never  paid  110  demmiges;   but  thet 

wun't  do  no  harm, 
Pervidin'  thet  you  '11  ondertake  to  oversee 

the  farm: 
(My  eldes'  boy  he  's  so  took  up,  wut  with 

the  Ringtail  Rangers 
An*  settin'  in  the  Jestice-Court  for  welcomin' 

o'  strangers  ; ") 

[He  sot  on  me;]  "  an'  so,  ef  you  '11  jest  on 
dertake  the  care 
Upon  a  mod'rit  sellery,  we  '11  up  an*  call  it 

square ; 
But  ef  you  can't  conclude,"  suz  she,  an'  give 

a  kin'  o'  grin, 
«  Wy,  the  Gran'  Jurymen,  I  'xpect,  '11  hev 

to  set  agin." 
That  's  the  way  metters  stood  at  fust;  now 

wut  wuz  I  to  du, 
But  jes'  to  make  the  best  on  't  an'  off  coat 

an'  buckle  tu  ? 
Ther'  ain't  a  livin'  man  thet  finds  an  income 

necessarier 
Than   me,  —  bimeby   I  '11   tell  ye   how  I 

fin'lly  come  to  merry  her. 

She  hed  another  motive,  tu:  I  mention  of  it 

here 
T'   encourage   lads   thet 's  growin'   up  to 

study  V  persevere, 
An'  show  'em  how  much  better  Jt  pays  to 

mind  their  winter-schoolin' 
Than  to  go  off  on  benders  V  sech,  an'  waste 

their  time  in  foolin'; 
Ef  'twarn't   for   studyin'  evenins,  why,  I 

never  'd  ha'  ben  here 
A    orn'ment  o'    saciety,  in  my    approprut 

spear: 
She  wanted  somebody,  ye  see,  o'  taste  an* 

cultivation, 
To  talk  along  o'  preachers  when  they  stopt 

to  the  plantation  ; 
For  folks  in  Dixie  th't  read  an'  rite,  onless 

it  is  by  jarks, 
Is  skurce  ez  wut  they  wuz  among  th'  ori- 

genle  patriarchs  ; 
To  fit  a  feller  f '  wut  they  call  the  soshle 

higherarchy, 
All  thet  you  've  gut  to  know  is  jes'  beyund 

an  evrage  darky; 
Schoolin'  's  wut  they  can't  seem  to  stan', 

they  're  tu  consarned  high-pressure, 
An'  knowin'  t'  much  might  spile  a  boy  for 

bein'  a  Secesher. 


We  hain't  no  settled   preachin'  here,  ner 

ministeril  taxes  ; 

The  min'ster's  only  settlement 's  the  carpet 
bag  he  packs  his 
Razor  an'  soap-brush  intu,  with  his  hym- 

book  an'  his  Bible,  — 
But  they  du  preach,  I  swan  to  man,  it 's 

puf'kly  indescrib'le  ! 
They   go  it   like   an    Ericsson's   ten-hoss- 

power  coleric  ingine. 
An'  make  Ole  Split-Foot  winch  an'  squirm, 

for  all  he  's  used  to  singein'  ; 
Hawkins's  whetstone  ain't  a  pinch  o'  primin' 

to  the  innards 
To  hearin'  on  'em  put  free  grace  t'  a  lot  o' 

tough  old  sinhards  ! 
But  I  must  eend  this  letter  now  :  'fore  long 

I  '11  send  a  fresh  un  ; 
I  've  lots  o'  things  to  write  about,  pertick- 

lerly  Seceshun  : 
I  'm  called  off  now  to  mission-work,  to  let 

a  leetle  law  in 
To  Cynthy's  hide  :  an'  so,  till  death, 

Yourn, 

BIRDOFREDUM  SAWIN. 


No.  II 

MASON   AND   SLIDELL: 
A  YANKEE  IDYLL 

TO  THE  EDITORS   OF  THE  ATLANTIC 
MONTHLY 

JAALAM,  6th  Jan.,  1862. 
GENTLEMEN,  —  I  was  highly  gratified  by 
the  insertion  of  a  portion  of  my  letter  in  the 
last  number  of  your  valuable  and  entertain 
ing  Miscellany,  though  in  a  type  which 
rendered  its  substance  inaccessible  even  to 
the  beautiful  new  spectacles  presented  to 
me  by  a  Committee  of  the  Parish  on  New 
Year's  Day.  I  trust  that  I  was  able  to  bear 
your  very  considerable  abridgment  of  my 
lucubrations  with  a  spirit  becoming  a  Chris 
tian.  My  third  granddaughter,  Rebekah, 
aged  fourteen  years,  and  whom  I  have 
trained  to  read  slowly  and  with  proper  em 
phasis  (a  practice  too  much  neglected  in 
our  modern  systems  of  education),  read 
aloud  to  me  the  excellent  essay  upon  "  Old 
Age,"  the  author  of  which  I  cannot  help 
suspecting  to  be  a  young  man  who  has 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


229 


never  yet  known  what  it  was  to  have  snow 
(canities  morosa)  upon  his  own  roof.  Dis 
solve  frigus,  large  super  foco  ligna  reponens, 
is  a  rule  for  the  young,  whose  wood-pile  is 
yet  abundant  for  such  cheerful  lenitives. 
A  good  life  behind  him  is  the  best  thing  to 
keep  an  old  man's  shoulders  from  shiver 
ing  at  every  breath  of  sorrow  or  ill-fortune. 
But  methinks  it  were  easier  for  an  old  man 
to  feel  the  disadvantages  of  youth  than  the 
advantages  of  age.  Of  these  latter  I  reckon 
one  of  the  chiefest  to  be  this  :  that  we  at 
tach  a  less  inordinate  value  to  our  own  pro 
ductions,  and,  distrusting  daily  more  and 
more  our  own  wisdom  (with  the  conceit 
whereof  at  twenty  we  wrap  ourselves  away 
from  knowledge  as  with  a  garment),  do 
reconcile  ourselves  with  the  wisdom  of 
God.  I  could  have  wished,  indeed,  that 
room  might  have  been  made  for  the  residue 
of  the  anecdote  relating  to  Deacon  Tink- 
ham,  which  would  not  only  have  gratified  a 
natural  curiosity  on  the  part  of  the  publick 
(as  I  have  reason  to  know  from  several 
letters  of  inquiry  already  received),  but 
would  also,  as  I  think,  have  largely  in 
creased  the  circulation  of  your  Magazine  in 
this  town.  Nihil  humani  alienum,  there  is  a 
curiosity  about  the  affairs  of  our  neighbors 
which  is  not  only  pardonable,  but  even 
commendable.  But  I  shall  abide  a  more 
fitting  season. 

As  touching  the  following  literary  effort 
of  Esquire  Biglow,  much  might  be  profit 
ably  said  on  the  topick  of  Idyllick  and  Pas 
toral  Poetry,  and  concerning  the  proper  dis 
tinctions  to  be  made  between  them,  from 
Theocritus,  the  inventor  of  the  former,  to 
Collins,  the  latest  authour  I  know  of  who 
has  emulated  the  classicks  in  the  latter 
style.  But  in  the  time  of  a  Civil  War 
worthy  a  Milton  to  defend  and  a  Lucan  to 
sing,  it  may  be  reasonably  doubted  whether 
the  publick,  never  too  studious  of  serious 
instruction,  might  not  consider  other  objects 
more  deserving  of  present  attention.  Con 
cerning  the  title  of  Idyll,  which  Mr.  Biglow 
has  adopted  at  my  suggestion,  it  may  not 
.be  improper  to  animadvert,  that  the  name 
properly  signifies  a  poem  somewhat  rustick 
in  phrase  (for,  though  the  learned  are  not 
agreed  as  to  the  particular  dialect  employed 
by  Theocritus,  they  are  universanimous  both 
as  to  its  rusticity  and  its  capacity  of  rising 
now  and  then  to  the  level  of  more  elevated 


sentiments  and  expressions),  while  it  is  also 
descriptive  of  real  scenery  and  manners. 
Yet  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  produc 
tion  now  in  question  (which  here  and  there 
bears  perhaps  too  plainly  the  marks  of  my 
correcting  hand)  does  partake  of  the  nature 
of  a  Pastoral,  inasmuch  as  the  interlocutors 
therein  are  purely  imaginary  beings,  and 
the  whole  is  little  better  than  KO.TTVOV  <ricias 
tvap.  The  plot  was,  as  I  believe,  suggested 
by  the  "  Twa  Briggs  "  of  Robert  Burns,  a 
Scottish  poet  of  the  last  century,  as  that 
found  its  prototype  in  the  "  Mutual  Com 
plaint  of  Plainstanes  and  Causey  "  by  Fer- 
gusson,  though  the  metre  of  this  latter  be 
different  by  a  foot  in  each  verse.  Perhaps 
the  Two  Dogs  of  Cervantes  gave  the  first 
hint.  I  reminded  my  talented  young  pa 
rishioner  and  friend  that  Concord  Bridge 
had  long  since  yielded  to  the  edacious  tooth 
of  Time.  But  he  answered  me  to  this  effect : 
that  there  was  no  greater  mistake  of  an 
authour  than  to  suppose  the  reader  had  no 
fancy  of  his  own  ;  that,  if  once  that  faculty 
was  to  be  called  into  activity,  it  were  better 
to  be  in  for  the  whole  sheep  than  the  shoul 
der  ;  and  that  he  knew  Concord  like  a  book, 
—  an  expression  questionable  in  propriety, 
since  there  are  few  things  with  which  he  is 
not  more  familiar  than  with  the  printed 
page.  In  proof  of  what  he  affirmed,  he 
showed  me  some  verses  which  with  others 
he  had  stricken  out  as  too  much  delaying 
the  action,  but  which  I  communicate  in  this 
place  because  they  rightly  define  "  punkin- 
seed  "  (which  Mr.  Bartlett  would  have  a 
kind  of  perch,  —  a  creature  to  which  I  have 
found  a  rod  or  pole  not  to  be  so  easily 
equivalent  in  our  inland  waters  as  in  the 
books  of  arithmetic),  and  because  it  con 
veys  an  eulogium  on  the  worthy  son  of  an 
excellent  father,  with  whose  acquaintance 
(eheu,  fugaces  anni  /  )  I  was  formerly  hon 
oured. 

"  But  nowadays  the  Bridge  ain't  wut  they  show, 
So  much  ez  Em'son,  Hawthorne,  an'  Thoreau. 
I  know  the  village,  though ;  was  sent  there  once 
A-schoolin',  'cause  to  home  I  played  the  dunce  ; 
An'  I  've  ben  sence  a  visitin'  the  Jedge, 
Whose  garding  whispers  with  the  river's  edge, 
Where  I  've  sot  raornin's  lazy  as  the  bream, 
Whose  on'y  business  is  to  head  up-stream, 
(We  call  'era  punkin-seed,)  or  else  in  chat 
Along  'th  the  Jedge,  who  covers  with  his  hat 
More  wit  an'  gumption  an'  shrewd  Yankee  sense 
Than  there  is  mosses  on  an  ole  stone  fence," 


230 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


Concerning  the  subject-matter  of  the 
verses,  I  have  not  the  leisure  at  present 
to  write  so  fully  as  I  could  wish,  my  time 
being  occupied  with  the  preparation  of  a 
discourse  for  the  forthcoming  bicentenary 
celebration  of  the  first  settlement  of  Jaa- 
lam  East  Parish.  It  may  gratify  the  pub- 
lick  interest  to  mention  the  circumstance, 
that  my  investigations  to  this  end  have  en 
abled  me  to  verify  the  fact  (of  much  his- 
torick  importance,  and  hitherto  hotly  de 
bated)  that  Shearjashub  Tarbox  was  the 
first  child  of  white  parentage  born  in  this 
town,  being  named  in  his  father's  will 
under  date  August  7th,  or  9th,  1662.  It 
is  well  known  that  those  who  advocate  the 
claims  of  Mehetable  Goings  are  unable  to 
find  any  trace  of  her  existence  prior  to  Oc 
tober  of  that  year.  As  respects  the  settle 
ment  of  the  Mason  and  Slidell  question, 
Mr.  Biglow  has  not  incorrectly  stated  the 
popular  sentiment,  so  far  as  I  can  judge  by 
its  expression  in  this  locality.  For  myself, 
I  feel  more  sorrow  than  resentment:  for  I 
am  old  enough  to  have  heard  those  talk  of 
England  who  still,  even  after  the  unhappy 
estrangement,  could  not  unschool  their  lips 
from  calling  her  the  Mother-Country.  But 
England  has  insisted  on  ripping  up  old 
wounds,  and  has  undone  the  healing  work 
of  fifty  years;  for  nations  do  not  reason, 
they  only  feel,  and  the  spretce  injuria  formce 
rankles  in  their  minds  as  bitterly  as  in  that 
of  a  woman.  And  because  this  is  so,  I  feel 
the  more  satisfaction  that  our  Government 
has  acted  (as  all  Governments  should, 
standing  as  they  do  between  the  people  and 
their  passions)  as  if  it  had  arrived  at  years 
of  discretion.  There  are  three  short  and 
simple  words,  the  hardest  of  all  to  pro 
nounce  in  any  language  (and  I  suspect  they 
were  no  easier  before  the  confusion  of 
tongues),  but  which  no  man  or  nation  that 
cannot  utter  can  claim  to  have  arrived  at 
manhood.  Those  words  are,  I  was  wrong- 
and  I  am  proud  that,  while  England  played 
the  boy,  our  rulers  had  strength  enough 
from  the  People  below  and  wisdom  enough 
from  God  above  to  quit  themselves  like 
men. 

The  sore  points  on  both  sides  have  been 
skilfully  exasperated  by  interested  and  un 
scrupulous  persons,  who  saw  in  a  war  be 
tween  the  two  countries  the  only  hope  of 
profitable  return  for  their  investment  in 


Confederate  stock,  whether  political  or 
financial.  The  always  supercilious,  often 
insulting,  and  sometimes  even  brutal  tone 
of  British  journals  and  publick  men  has 
certainly  not  tended  to  soothe  whatever 
resentment  might  exist  in  America. 

4 '  Perhaps  it  was  right  to  dissemble  your  love, 
But  why  did  you  kick  me  down  stairs  ?  " 

We  have  no  reason  to  complain  that 
England,  as  a  necessary  consequence  of  her 
clubs,  has  become  a  great  society  for  the 
minding  of  other  people's  business,  and  we 
can  smile  good-naturedly  when  she  lectures 
other  nations  on  the  sins  of  arrogance  and 
conceit;  but  we  may  justly  consider  it  a 
breach  of  the  political  convenances  which 
are  expected  to  regulate  the  intercourse  of 
one  well-bred  government  with  another, 
when  men  holding  places  in  the  ministry 
allow  themselves  to  dictate  our  domestic 
policy,  to  instruct  us  in  our  duty,  and  to 
stigmatize  as  unholy  a  war  for  the  rescue 
of  whatever  a  high-minded  people  should 
hold  most  vital  and  most  sacred.  Was 
it  in  good  taste,  that  I  may  use  the  mild 
est  term,  for  Earl  Russell  to  expound  our 
own  Constitution  to  President  Lincoln,  or 
to  make  a  new  and  fallacious  application  of 
an  old  phrase  for  our  benefit,  and  tell  us 
that  the  Rebels  were  fighting  for  indepen 
dence  and  we  for  empire  ?  As  if  all  wars 
for  independence  were  by  nature  just  and 
deserving  of  sympathy,  and  all  wars  for 
empire  ignoble  and  worthy  only  of  repro 
bation,  or  as  if  these  easy  phrases  in  any 
way  characterized  this  terrible  struggle, 
—  terrible  not  so  truly  in  any  superficial 
sense,  as  from  the  essential  and  deadly 
enmity  of  the  principles  that  underlie  it. 
His  Lordship's  bit  of  borrowed  rhetoric 
would  justify  Smith  O'Brien,  Nana  Sahib, 
and  the  Maori  chieftains,  while  it  would 
condemn  nearly  every  war  in  which  Eng 
land  has  ever  been  engaged.  Was  it  so 
very  presumptuous  in  us  to  think  that  it 
would  be  decorous  in  English  statesmen  if 
they  spared  time  enough  to  acquire  some 
kind  of  knowledge,  though  of  the  most  ele 
mentary  kind,  in  regard  to  this  country 
and  the  questions  at  issue  here,  before  they 
pronounced  so  off-hand  a  judgment  ?  Or 
is  political  information  expected  to  come 
Dogberry-fashion  in  England,  like  reading 
and  writing,  by  nature  ? 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


231 


And  now  all  respectable  England  is  won 
dering  at  our  irritability,  and  sees  a  quite 
satisfactory  explanation  of  it  in  our  na 
tional  vanity.  Suave  marimagno,  it  is  pleas 
ant,  sitting  in  the  easy-chairs  of  Downing 
Street,  to  sprinkle  pepper  on  the  raw 
wounds  of  a  kindred  people  struggling  for 
life,  and  philosophical  to  find  in  self-conceit 
the  cause  of  our  instinctive  resentment. 
Surely  we  were  of  all  nations  the  least  liable 
to  any  temptation  of  vanity  at  a  time  when 
the  gravest  anxiety  and  the  keenest  sor 
row  were  never  absent  from  our  hearts. 
Nor  is  conceit  the  exclusive  attribute  of  any 
one  nation.  The  earliest  of  English  travel 
lers,  Sir  John  Mandeville,  took  a  less  pro 
vincial  view  of  the  matter  when  he  said, 
"  For  fro  what  partie  of  the  erthe  that  men 
duellen,  other  aboveu  or  beneathen,  it  sem- 
ethe  alweys  to  hem  that  duellen  that  thei 
gon  more  righte  than  any  other  folke." 
The  English  have  always  had  their  fair 
share  of  this  amiable  quality.  We  may 
say  of  them  still,  as  the  authour  of  the 
"  Lettres  Cabalistiques  "  said  of  them  more 
than  a  century  ago,  "  Ces  derniers  disent 
naturellement  qu'il  n'y  a  qu'eux  qui  soient  esti- 
mables."  And,  as  he  also  says,  "  J'aimerois 
presque  autant  tomber  entre  les  mains  d'un 
Inquisiteur  que  d'un  Anglois  qui  me  fait  sentir 
sans  cesse  combien  il  s'estime  plus  que  moi, 
et  qui  ne  daigne  me  parler  que  pour  injurier 
ma  Nation  et  pour  m'ennuyer  du  recit  des 
grandes  qualites  de  la  sienne."  Of  this  Bull 
we  may  safely  say  with  Horace,  habetfcenum 
in  cornu.  What  we  felt  to  be  especially  in 
sulting  was  the  quiet  assumption  that  the 
descendants  of  men  who  left  the  Old  World 
for  the  sake  of  principle,  and  who  had  made 
the  wilderness  into  a  New  World  patterned 
after  an  Idea,  could  not  possibly  be  suscep 
tible  of  a  generous  or  lofty  sentiment,  could 
have  no  feeling  of  nationality  deeper  than 
that  of  a  tradesman  for  his  shop.  One 
would  have  thought,  in  listening  to  Eng 
land,  that  we  were  presumptuous  in  fancy 
ing  that  we  were  a  nation  at  all,  or  had  any 
other  principle  of  union  than  that  of  booths 
at  a  fair,  where  there  is  no  higher  notion 
of  government  than  the  constable,  or  better 
image  of  God  than  that  stamped  upon  the 
current  coin. 

It  is  time  for  Englishmen  to  consider 
whether  there  was  nothing  in  the  spirit  of 
their  press  and  of  their  leading  public  men 


calculated  to  rouse  a  just  indignation,  and 
to  cause  a  permanent  estrangement  on  the 
part  of  any  nation  capable  of  self-respect, 
and  sensitively  jealous,  as  ours  then  was,  of 
foreign  interference.  Was  there  nothing  in 
the  indecent  haste  with  which  belligerent 
rights  were  conceded  to  the  Rebels,  nothing 
in  the  abrupt  tone  assumed  in  the  Trent 
case,  nothing  in  the  fitting  out  of  Confeder 
ate  privateers,  that  might  stir  the  blood  of 
a  people  already  overcharged  with  doubt, 
suspicion,  and  terrible  responsibility  ?  The 
laity  in  any  country  do  not  stop  to  consider 
points  of  law,  but  they  have  an  instinctive 
perception  of  the  animus  that  actuates  the 
policy  of  a  foreign  nation  ;  and  in  our  own 
case  they  remembered  that  the  British 
authorities  in  Canada  did  not  wait  till  di 
plomacy  could  send  home  to  England  for 
her  slow  official  tinder-box  to  fire  the  "Car 
oline."  Add  to  this,  what  every  sensible 
American  knew,  that  the  moral  support  of 
England  was  equal  to  an  army  of  two  hun 
dred  thousand  men  to  the  Rebels,  while  it 
insured  us  another  year  or  two  of  exhaust 
ing  war.  It  was  not  so  much  the  spite  of 
her  words  (though  the  time  might  have 
been  more  tastefully  chosen)  as  the  actual 
power  for  evil  in  them  that  we  felt  as  a 
deadly  wrong.  Perhaps  the  most  imme 
diate  and  efficient  cause  of  mere  irritation 
was  the  sudden  and  unaccountable  change 
of  manner  on  the  other  side  of  the  water. 
Only  six  months  before,  the  Prince  of  Wales 
had  come  over  to  call  us  cousins ;  and  every 
where  it  was  nothing  but  "  our  American 
brethren,"  that  great  offshoot  of  British 
institutions  in  the  New  World,  so  almost 
identical  with  them  in  laws,  language,  and 
literature,  —  this  last  of  the  alliterative 
compliments  being  so  bitterly  true,  that 
perhaps  it  will  not  be  retracted  even  now. 
To  this  outburst  of  long-repressed  affection 
we  responded  with  genuine  warmth,  if  with 
something  of  the  awkwardness  of  a  poor 
relation  bewildered  with  the  sudden  tighten 
ing  of  the  ties  of  consanguinity  when  it  is 
rumored  that  he  has  come  into  a  large 
estate.  Then  came  the  Rebellion,  and, 
presto  I  a  flaw  in  our  titles  was  discovered, 
the  plate  we  were  promised  at  the  family 
table  is  flung  at  our  head,  and  we  were  again 
the  scum  of  creation,  intolerably  vulgar,  at 
once  cowardly  and  overbearing,  —  no  rela 
tions  of  theirs,  after  all,  but  a  dreggy  hy- 


232 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


brid  of  the  basest  bloods  of  Europe.  Panurge 
was  not  quicker  to  call  Friar  Johii  his 
former  friend.  I  cannot  help  thinking  of 
Walter  Mapes's  jingling  paraphrase  of  Pe- 
tronius,  — 

*'  Dummodo  sim  splendidis  vestibus  ornatus, 
Et  multa  familia  sim  cireumvallatus, 
Prudens  sum  et  sapiens  et  morigeratus, 
Et  tuus  nepos  sum  et  tu  meus  cognatus,"  — 

which  I  may  freely  render  thus :  — 

So  long  as  I  was  prosperous,  I  'd  dinners  by  the 

dozen, 
Was  well-bred,  witty,  virtuous,  and  everybody's 

cousin ; 
If  luck  should  turn,  as  well  she  may,  her  fancy 

is  so  flexile, 
Will  virtue,  eousinship,  and  all  return  with  her 

from  exile  ? 

There  was  nothing  in  all  this  to  exasper 
ate  a  philosopher,  much  to  make  him  smile 
rather;  but  the  earth's  surface  is  not  chiefly 
inhabited  by  philosophers,  and  I  revive  the 
recollection  of  it  now  in  perfect  good-hu 
mour,  merely  by  way  of  suggesting  to  our 
ci-devant  British  cousins,  that  it  would  have 
been  easier  for  them  to  hold  their  tongues 
than  for  us  to  keep  our  tempers  under  the 
circumstances. 

The  English  Cabinet  made  a  blunder, 
unquestionably,  in  taking  it  so  hastily  for 
granted  that  the  United  States  had  fallen  for 
ever  from  their  position  as  a  first-rate  power, 
and  it  was  natural  that  they  should  vent  a 
little  of  their  vexation  on  the  people  whose 
inexplicable  obstinacy  in  maintaining  free 
dom  and  order,  and  in  resisting  degradation, 
was  likely  to  convict  them  of  their  mistake. 
But  if  bearing  a  grudge  be  the  sure  mark 
of  a  small  mind  in  the  individual,  can  it  be 
a  proof  of  high  spirit  in  a  nation  ?  If  the 
result  of  the  present  estrangement  between 
the  two  countries  shall  be  to  make  us  more 
independent  of  British  twaddle  (Indomito 
nee  dira  ferens  stipendia  Tauro),  so  much 
the  better;  but  if  it  is  to  make  us  insensible 
to  the  value  of  British  opinion  in  matters 
where  it  gives  us  the  judgment  of  an  im 
partial  and  cultivated  outsider,  if  we  are  to 
shut  ourselves  out  from  the  advantages  of 
English  culture,  the  loss  will  be  ours,  and 
not  theirs.  Because  the  door  of  the  old 
homestead  has  been  once  slammed  in  our 
faces,  shall  we  in  a  huff  reject  all  future 
advances  of  conciliation,  and  cut  ourselves 
foolishly  off  from  any  share  in  the  human 


izing  influences  of  the  place,  with  its  in 
effable  riches  of  association,  its  heirlooms 
of  immemorial  culture,  its  historic  monu 
ments,  ours  no  less  than  theirs,  its  noble 
gallery  of  ancestral  portraits  ?  We  have 
only  to  succeed,  and  England  will  not  only 
respect,  but,  for  the  first  time,  begin  to 
understand  us.  And  let  us  not,  in  our  jus 
tifiable  indignation  at  wanton  insult,  forget 
that  England  is  not  the  England  only  of 
snobs  who  dread  the  democracy  they  do  not 
comprehend,  but  the  England  of  history,  of 
heroes,  statesmen,  and  poets,  whose  names 
are  dear,  and  their  influence  as  salutary  to 
us  as  to  her. 

Let  us  strengthen  the  hands  of  those 
in  authority  over  us,  and  curb  our  own 
tongues,  remembering  that  General  Wait 
commonly  proves  in  the  end  more  than  a 
match  for  General  Headlong,  and  that  the 
Good  Book  ascribes  safety  to  a  multitude, 
indeed,  but  not  to  a  mob,  of  counsellours. 
Let  us  remember  and  perpend  the  words 
of  Paulus  Emilius  to  the  people  of  Rome  ; 
that,  "  if  they  judged  they  could  manage 
the  war  to  more  advantage  by  any  other, 
he  would  willingly  yield  up  his  charge  ; 
but  if  they  confided  in  him,  they  were  not  to 
make  themselves  his  colleagues  in  his  office,  or 
raise  reports,  or  criticise  his  actions,  but,  with 
out  talking,  supply  him  with  means  and  assist 
ance  necessary  to  the  carrying  on  of  the  war  • 
for,  if  they  proposed  to  command  their  own 
commander,  they  would  render  this  expedition 
more  ridiculous  than  the  former."  (Vide 
Plutarchum  in  Vita  P.  E.}  Let  us  also  not 
forget  what  the  same  excellent  authour 
says  concerning  Perseus's  fear  of  spending 
money,  and  not  permit  the  covetousness  of 
Brother  Jonathan  to  be  the  good  fortune 
of  Jefferson  Davis.  For  my  own  part,  till 
I  am  ready  to  admit  the  Commander-in- 
Chief  to  my  pulpit,  I  shall  abstain  from 
planning  his  battles.  If  courage  be  the 
sword,  yet  is  patience  the  armour  of  a 
nation  ;  and  in  our  desire  for  peace,  let  us 
never  be  willing  to  surrender  the  Constitu 
tion  bequeathed  us  by  fathers  at  least  as 
wise  as  ourselves  (even  with  Jefferson  Davis 
to  help  us),  and,  with  those  degenerate 
Romans,  tuta  et  prcesentia  quam  vetera  et 
periculosa  matte. 

And  not  only  should  we  bridle  our  own 
tongues,  but  the  pens  of  others,  which  are 
swift  to  convey  useful  intelligence  to  the 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


233 


enemy.  This  is  no  new  inconvenience  ;  for, 
under  date,  3d  June,  1745,  General  Pep- 
perell  wrote  thus  to  Governor  Shirley  from 
Louisbourg  :  "  What  your  Excellency  ob 
serves  of  the  army's  being  made  acquainted 
with  any  plans  proposed,  until  ready  to  be 
put  in  execution,  has  always  been  disagree 
able  to  me,  and  I  have  given  many  cautions 
relating  to  it.  But  when  your  Excellency 
considers  that  our  Council  of  War  consists 
of  more  than  twenty  members,  I  am  persuaded 
you  will  think  it  impossible  for  me  to  hinder 
it,  if  any  of  them  will  persist  in  communi 
cating  to  inferior  officers  and  soldiers  what 
ought  to  be  kept  secret.  I  am  informed 
that  the  Boston  newspapers  are  filled  with 
paragraphs  from  private  letters  relating  to 
the  expedition.  Will  your  Excellency  per 
mit  me  to  say  I  think  it  may  be  of  ill  con 
sequence  ?  Would  it  not  be  convenient,  if 
your  Excellency  should  forbid  the  Printers' 
inserting  such  news  ?  "  Verily,  if  tempora 
mutantur,  we  may  question  the  et  nos  mu- 
tamur  in  illis  ;  and  if  tongues  be  leaky,  it 
will  need  all  hands  at  the  pumps  to  save 
the  Ship  of  State.  Our  history  dotes  and 
repeats  itself.  If  Sassy cus  (rather  than 
Alcibiades)  find  a  parallel  in  Beauregard, 
so  Weakwash,  as  he  is  called  by  the  brave 
Lieutenant  Lion  Gardiner,  need  not  seek 
far  among  our  own  Sachems  for  his  anti 
type. 

With  respect, 

Your  ob'  humble  serv*, 

HOMER  WILBUR,  A.  M. 

I  LOVE  to  start  out  arter  night 's  begun, 
An'  all  the  chores  about  the  farm  are  done, 
The   critters   milked   an'  foddered,    gates 

shet  fast, 
Tools    cleaned    aginst    to-morrer,    supper 

past, 

An'  Nancy  darnin'  by  her  ker'sene  lamp,  — 
I  love,  I  say,  to  start  upon  a  tramp, 
To  shake  the  kinkles  out  o'  back  an'  legs, 
An'  kind  o'  rack  my  life  off  from  the  dregs 
Thet  's  apt  to  settle  in  the  buttery-hutch 
Of  folks  thet  foller  in  one  rut  too  much  : 
Hard  work  is  good  an'  wholesome,  past  all 

doubt  ; 
But  't  ain't  so,  ef  the  mind  gits  tuckered 

out. 

Now,  bein'  born  in  Middlesex,  you  know, 
There  's  certin  spots  where  I  like  best  to 

go: 


The   Concord   road,   for   instance    (I,   for 

one, 

Most  gin'lly  oilers  call  it  John  Bull's  Run), 
The  field  o'  Lexiu'ton  where  England  tried 
The  fastest  colours  thet  she  ever  dyed, 
An'  Concord  Bridge,  thet  Davis,  when  he 

came, 
Found  was  the  bee-line  track  to  heaven  an' 

fame, 

Ez  all  roads  be  by  natur',  ef  your  soul 
Don't  sneak  thru  shuu-pikes  so  's  to  save 

the  toll. 

They  're  'most  too  fur  away,  take  too  much 

time 

To  visit  of'en,  ef  it  ain't  in  rhyme  ; 
But  the'  's  a  walk  thet 's  hendier,  a  sight, 
An'  suits  me  fust-rate  of  a  winter's  night,  — 
I  mean  the  round  whale's-back  o'  Prospect 

Hill. 
I  love  to   Piter  there  while  night   grows 

still, 

An'  in  the  twinklin'  villages  about, 
Fust  here,  then  there,  the  well-saved  lights 

goes  out, 
An'    nary   sound    but   watch  -  dogs'    false 

alarms, 
Or   muffled   cock-crows  from  the  drowsy 

farms, 
Where  some  wise   rooster   (men  act  jest 

thet  way) 
Stands  to  't  thet  moon-rise  is  the  break  o' 

day  : 
(So  Mister  Seward  sticks  a  three-months' 

pin 
Where  the  war  'd  oughto  eend,  then  tries 

agin  ; 
My  gran'ther's  rule   was   safer 'n   'tis  to 

crow  : 

Don't  never  prophesy  —  onless  ye  know.) 
I  love  to  muse  there  till  it  kind  o'  seems 
Ez  ef  the  world  went  eddyin'  off  in  dreams; 
The  northwest  wind  thet  twitches  at  my 

baird 

Blows  out  o'  sturdier  days  not  easy  scared, 
An'  the    same   moon   thet  this  December 

shines 
Starts  out  the  tents  an'  booths  o'  Putnam's 

lines  ; 
The  rail-fence  posts,  acrost  the  hill  thet 

runs, 
Turn  ghosts  o'  sogers  should'rin'  ghosts  o' 

guns  ; 

Ez  wheels  the  sentry,  glints  a  flash  o'  light, 
Along  the  firelock  won  at  Concord  Fight, 


234 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


An',  'twixt  the  silences,  now  fur,  now  nigh, 
Rings  the  sharp  chellenge,  hums  the  low 
reply. 

Ez  I  was  settin'  so,  it  warn't  long  sence, 
Mixin'  the  puffict  with  the  present  tense, 
I  heerd  two  voices  som'ers  in  the  air, 
Though,  ef  I  was  to  die,  I  can't  tell  where: 
Voices  I  call  'em:  't  was  a  kind  o'  sough 
Like  pine-trees  thet  the  wind 's  ageth'rin' 

through  ; 

An',  fact,  I  thought  it  was  the  wind  a  spell, 
Then  some  misdoubted,  could  n't  fairly  tell, 
Fust  sure,  then  not,  jest  as  you  hold  an  eel, 
I  knowed,  an'  did  n't,  —  fin'lly  seemed  to 

feel 

'T  was  Concord  Bridge  a  talkin'  off  to  kill 
With  the  Stone  Spike  thet  's  druv  thru 

Bunker's  Hill ; 

Whether 't  was  so,  or  ef  I  ou'y  dreamed, 
I  could  n't  say;  I  tell  it  ez  it  seemed. 

THE    BRIDGE 

Wai,  neighbor,  tell  us  wut  's  turned  up 
thet  's  new  ? 

You  're  younger  'n  I  be,  —  nigher  Bos 
ton,  tu  : 

An'  down  to  Boston,  ef  you  take  their 
showin', 

Wut  they  don't  know  ain't  hardly  wuth 
the  knowin*. 

There 's  sunthin'  goin'  on,  I  know  :  las' 
night 

The  British  sogers  killed  in  our  gret  fight 

(Nigh  fifty  year  they  hedn't  stirred  nor 
spoke) 

Made  sech  a  coil  you  'd  thought  a  dam  hed 
broke  : 

Why,  one  he  up  an'  beat  a  revellee 

With  his  own  crossbones  on  a  holler  tree, 

Till  all  the  graveyards  swarmed  out  like  a 
hive 

With  faces  I  hain't  seen  sence  Seventy- 
five. 

Wut  is  the  news  ?  'T  ain't  good,  or  they  'd 
be  cheerin'. 

Speak  slow  an'  clear,  for  I  'm  some  hard  o' 
hearin'. 

THE    MONIMENT 

I  don't  know  hardly  ef  it 's  good  or  bad,  — 

THE   BRIDGE 

At  wust,  it  can't  be  wus  than  wut  we  've 
had. 


THE    MONIMENT 

You  know  them  envys  thet  the   Rebbles 

sent, 
Aii'  Cap'n  Wilkes  he  berried  o'  the  Trent  ? 

THE   BRIDGE 

Wut  !  they  ha'n't  hanged  'em  ?  Then  their 

wits  is  gone  ! 
Thet's  the  sure  way  to  make  a  goose  a 

swan  ! 

THE    MONIMENT 

No  :  England  she  would  hev  'em,  Fee,  Faw, 

Fum! 
(Ez  though  she  hed  n't  fools   enough  to 

home,) 
So  they  've  returned  'em  — 

THE   BRIDGE 

Hev  they  ?     Wai,  by  heaven, 
Thet  's  the  wust  news  I  've  heerd  sence 

Seventy-seven  ! 
By  George,  I  meant  to  say,  though  I  de 

clare 
It  's  'most  enough  to  make  a  deacon  swear, 

THE    MONIMENT 

Now  don't  go  off  half-cock  :   folks  never 

gains 
By  usin' 
Come, 


sn  pepper-sarse  instid  o'  brains. 
,  neighbor,  you  don't  understan'  — 

THE   BRIDGE 

How  ?    Hey  ? 
Not  understan'  ?     Why,  wut  's  to  heiider, 

pray? 

Must  I  go  huntin'  round  to  find  a  chap 
To  tell  me  when  my  face  hez  hed  a  slap  ? 

THE   MONIMENT 

See  here  :    the  British  they  found  out  a 

flaw 

In  Cap'n  Wilkes's  readin'  o'  the  law  : 
(They  make  all  laws,  you  know,  an'  so,  o' 

course, 
It's  nateral  they  should  understan'  their 

force  :) 

He  'd  oughto  ha'  took  the  vessel  into  port, 
An'  hed  her  sot  on  by  a  reg'lar  court  ; 
She  was  a  mail-ship,  an'  a  steamer,  tu, 
An'  thet,  they  say,  hez  changed  the  pint  o! 

view, 

Coz  the  old  practice,  bein'  meant  for  sails, 
Ef  tried  upon  a  steamer,  kind  o'  fails  ; 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


235 


You   may  take    out   despatches,    but   you 

mus'  n't 
Take  nary  man  — 

THE   BRIDGE 

You  mean  to  say,  you  dus'  n't ! 
Changed   pint   o'   view !      No,  no,  —  it  's 

overboard 
With   law   an'   gospel,   when   their   ox   is 

gored  ! 

I  tell  ye,  England's  law,  on  sea  an'  land, 
Hez  oilers  ben,  "  /  've  gut  the  heaviest  hand." 
Take  nary  man  ?     Fine  preachin'  from  her 

lips! 
Why,  she   hez   taken   hunderds   from  our 


An'  would  agin,  an'  swear  she  had  a  right  to, 
Ef  we  warn't  strong  enough  to  be  per- 

lite  to. 

Of  all  the  sarse  thet  I  can  call  to  mind, 
England  doos   make  the   most  onpleasant 

kind: 
It  's   you  're  the  sinner  oilers,  she 's   the 

saint ; 
Wut  's  good 's  all  English,  all  thet  is  n't 

ain't ; 

Wut  profits  her  is  oilers  right  an'  just, 
An'  ef  you   don't   read   Scriptur   so,  you 

must ; 

She  's  praised  herself  ontil  she  fairly  thinks 
There  ain't  no  light  in  Natur  when  she 

winks  ; 
Hain't  she  the  Ten  Comman'ments  in  her 

pus  ? 
Could  the  world  stir  'thout  she  went,  tu, 

ez  nus  ? 

She  ain't  like  other  mortals,  thet 's  a  fact  : 
She  never  stopped  the  habus-corpus  act, 
Nor  specie  payments,  nor  she  never  yet 
Cut  down  the  int'rest  on  her  public  debt  ; 
She   don't   put   down   rebellions,   lets  'em 

breed, 

An*  's  oilers  willin'  Ireland  should  secede  ; 
She  's  all  thet 's  honest,  honnable,  an'  fair, 
An'  when  the  vartoos  died  they  made  her 

heir. 

THE    MONUMENT 

Wai,  wal,  two  wrongs  don't  never  make  a 

right ; 
Ef   we  're   mistaken,   own   up,   an'    don't 

fight: 

For  gracious'  sake,  ha'n't  we  enough  to  du 
'thout  gettin'  up  a  fight  with  England,  tu  ? 
She  thinks  we  're  rabble-rid  — 


THE   BRIDGE 

An*  so  we  can't 
Distinguish   'twixt   You  oughtn't  an'    You 

sha'rft! 

She  jedges  by  herself  ;  she  's  no  idear 
How  't  stiddies  folks  to  give  'em  their  fair 

sheer  : 
The  odds  'twixt   her   an'  us  is  plain  's  a 

steeple,  — 
Her  People  's  turned  to  Mob,  our  Mob  's 

turned  People. 

THE   MONIMENT 

She 's  riled  jes'  now  — 

THE   BRIDGE 

Plain  proof  her  cause  ain't  strong,  — 
The  one  thet  fust  gits  mad  's  'most  oilers 

wrong. 
Why,  sence  she  helped  in  lickin'  Nap  the 

Fust, 

An*  pricked  a  bubble  jest  agoin'  to  bust, 
With  Rooshy,   Prooshy,  Austry,  all  assist- 
in', 
Th'  ain't  nut  a  face  but  wut  she 's  shook  her 

fist  in, 
Ez  though  she  done  it   all,  an'  ten  times 

more, 

An'  nothin'  never  hed  gut  done  afore, 
Nor  never  could  agin,  'thout  she  wuz  spliced 
On  to  one  eend  an'  gin  th'  old  airth  a  hoist. 
She  is  some  punkins,  thet  I  wun't  deny, 
(For  ain't  she  some  related  to  you  V  I  ?) 
But  there  's  a  few  small  intrists  here  be 
low 

Outside  the  counter  o'  John  Bull  an'  Co, 
An'  though  they  can't  conceit  how 't  should 

be  so, 
I  guess   the   Lord  druv  down   Creation's 

spiles 

'thout  no  gret  helpin'  from  the  British  Isles, 
An'  could  contrive  to  keep  things  pooty 

stiff 
Ef  they  withdrawed   from   business   in  a 

miff; 

I  ha'n't  no  patience  with  sech  swellin'  fel 
lers  ez 

Think  God  can't  forge  'thout  them  to  blow 
the  bellerses. 

THE   MONIMENT 

You  're  oilers  quick  to  set  your  back  aridge, 
Though  't  suits  a  tom-cat  more  'n  a  sober 
bridge  : 


236 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


Don't  you  git  het  :  they  thought  the  thing 
was  planned  ; 

They  '11  cool  off  when  they  come  to  under 
stand. 

THE   BRIDGE 

Ef  tJiet  's  wut  you  expect,  you  '11  hev  to  wait  ; 
Folks  never  understand  the  folks  they  hate : 
She  '11  fin'  some  other  grievance  jest  ez  good, 
'fore  the  month  's  out,  to  git  misunderstood. 
England  cool  off  !    She  '11  do  it,  ef  she  sees 
She  's  run  her  head  into  a  swarm  o'  bees. 
I  ain't  so  prejudiced  ez  wut  you  spose  : 
I  hev  thought  England  was  the  best  thet 

goes  ; 
Remember  (no,  you   can't),   when  /  was 

reared, 
God  save  the  King  was  all  the  tune  you 

heerd  : 

But  it 's  enough  to  turn  Wachuset  roun' 
This    stumpin'    fellers   when     you    think 

they  're  down. 

THE   MONIMENT 

But,  neighbor,  ef  they  prove  their  claim  at 

law, 

The  best  way  is  to  settle,  an'  not  jaw. 
An'  don't  le'  's  mutter  'bout  the  awfle  bricks 
We  '11  give  'em,  ef  we  ketch  'em  in  a  fix  : 
That  'ere  's  most  frequently  the  kin'  o'  talk 
Of  critters  can't  be  kicked  to  toe  the  chalk; 
Your  "You'll  see  nex'  time  !"  anj  "Look 

out  btimby  !  " 

'Most  oilers  ends  in  eatin'  umble-pie. 
'T  wun't  pay  to  scringe  to  England  :  will  it 

Pay 
To  fear  thet  meaner  bully,  old  "  They  '11 

say"? 
Suppose  they  du  say  :    words   are   dreffle 

bores, 

But  they  ain't  quite  so  bad  ez  seventy-fours. 
Wut  England  wants  is  jest  a  wedge  to  fit 
Where  it  '11  help  to  widen  out  our  split  : 
She's  found  her  wedge,  an'  't ain't  for  us  to 

come 

An'  lend  the  beetle  thet 's  to  drive  it  home. 
For  growed-up  folks  like  us  't  would  be  a 

scandle, 
When  we  git  sarsed,  to  fly  right  off  the 

handle. 
England   ain't  all  bad,  coz  she   thinks  us 

blind  : 
Ef  she  can't  change  her  skin,  she  can  her 

mind  ; 
An'  we  shall  see  her  change  it  double-quick, 


Soon  ez  we  've  proved  thet  we  're  a-goin'  to 

lick. 

She  an'  Columby  's  gut  to  be  fas'  friends : 
For  the  world  prospers  by  their  privit  ends: 
'T  would  put  the  clock  back  all  o'  fifty  years 
Ef  they  should  fall  together  by  the  ears. 

THE   BRIDGE 

I  'gree   to   thet ;   she 's    nigh   us   to   wut 

France  is  ; 

But  then  she  '11  hev  to  make  the  fust  ad 
vances  ; 
We  've  gut  pride,  tu,  an'  gut  it  by  good 

rights, 

An'  ketch  me  stoopin'  to  pick  up  the  mites 
O'  condescension  she  '11  be  lettin'  fall 
When  she  finds  out  we  ain't  dead  arter  all  ! 
I  tell  ye  wut,  it  takes  more  'u  one  good  week 
Afore  my  nose  forgits  it 's  hed  a  tweak. 

THE   MONIMENT 

She  '11   come   out   right   bumby,  thet  1 11 

engage, 

Soon  ez  she  gits  to  seein'  we  're  of  age  ; 
This  talkin'  down  o'  hers  ain't  wuth  a  fuss  ; 
It 's  nat'ral  ez  nut  likin'  't  is  to  us  ; 
Ef  we  're  agoin'  to  prove  we  be  growed-up, 
'T  wun't  be  by  barkin'  like  a  tarrier  pup, 
But  turnin'  to  an'  makin'  things  ez  good 
Ez  wut  we  're  oilers  braggin'  that  we  could; 
We  're  boun'   to   be  good  friends,  an'  so 

we  'd  oughto, 
In  spite  of  all  the  fools  both  sides  the  water. 

THE   BRIDGE 

I  b'lieve  thet 's  so  ;  but  hearken  in  your 

ear, — 
I  'm  older  'n  you,  —  Peace  wun't  keep  house 

with  Fear  : 
Ef  you  want  peace,  the  thing  you  Ve  gut  tu 

du 

Is  jes'  to  show  you  're  up  to  fightin',  tu. 
/  recollect  how  sailors'  rights  was  won, 
Yard  locked  in  yard,  hot  gun-lip  kissin' 

gun  : 

Why,  afore  thet,  John  Bull  sot  up  thet  he 
Hed  gut  a  kind  o'  mortgage  on  the  sea; 
You  'd     thought    he    held    by   Gran'ther 

Adam's  will, 

An'  ef  you  knuckle  down,  he  '11  think  so  still. 
Better  thet  all  our  ships  an'  all  their  crews 
Should  sink  to  rot  in  ocean's  dreamless  ooze, 
Each  torn  flag  wavin'  chellenge  ez  it  went, 
An'  each  dumb  gun  a  brave  man's  moni- 

ment, 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


237 


Than   seek   sech   peace    ez   only   cowards 

crave  : 
Give  me  the  peace  of  dead  men  or  of  brave ! 

THE  MONIMENT 

I  say,  ole  boy,  it  ain't  the  Glorious  Fourth: 
You  'd  oughto  lamed  'fore  this  wut  talk  wuz 

worth. 

It  ain't  our  nose  thet  gits  put  out  o'  jint; 
It 's  England  thet  gives  up  her  dearest  pint. 
We  've  gut,  I  tell  ye  now,  enough  to  du 
In  our  own  fem'ly  fight,  afore  we  're  thru. 
I  hoped,   las'   spring,  jest   arter   Sumter's 

shame, 
When  every  flag-staff  flapped  its  tethered 

flame, 
An*   all   the   people,    startled  from    their 

doubt, 
Come   must'rin'   to   the   flag  with  sech  a 

shout,  — 

I  hoped  to  see  things  settled  'fore  this  fall, 
The  Rebbles  licked,  Jeff  Davis  hanged,  an' 

all; 
Then  come  Bull  Run,  an'  sence  then  I  've 

ben  waitin' 

Like  boys  in  Jennooary  thaw  for  skatin', 
Nothin'  to  du  but  watch  my  shadder's  trace 
Swing,  like  a  ship  at  anchor,  roun'  my  base, 
With  daylight's  flood  an'  ebb:  it  's  gittin' 

slow, 

An*  I  'most  think  we  'd  better  let  'em  go. 
I  tell  ye  wut,  this  war  's  a-goin'  to  cost  — 

THE  BRIDGE 

An'  I  tell  you  it  wun't  be  money  lost; 
Taxes  milks  dry,  but,  neighbor,  you  '11  allow 
Thet  havin'  things  onsettled  kills  the  cow: 
We  've  gut  to  fix  this  thing  for  good  an'  all; 
It 's  no  use  buildin'  wut 's  a-goin'  to  fall. 
I  'm  older  'n  you,  an'  I  've  seen  things  an' 

men, 

An'  my  experunce,  —  tell  ye  wut  it  's  ben: 
Folks  thet  worked  thorough  was  the  ones 

thet  thriv, 

But  bad  work  f oilers  ye  ez  long  's  ye  live ; 
You  can't  git  red  on  't;  jest  ez  sure  ez  sin, 
It  's  oilers  askin'  to  be  done  agin: 
Ef  we  should  part,  it  would  n't  be  a  week 
'Fore  your  soft-soddered  peace  would  spring 

aleak. 
We  've  turned  our  cuffs  up,  but,  to  put  her 

thru, 

We  must  git  mad  an'  off  with  jackets,  tu ; 
'T  wun't  du  to  think  thet  kiJiin'  ain't  per- 

lite,— 


You  've  gut  to  be  in  airnest,  ef  you  fight; 
Why,  two  thirds  o'  the  Rebbles  'ould  cut 

dirt, 
Ef  they  once  thought  thet  Guv'ment  meant 

to  hurt; 

An'  I  du  wish  our  Gin'rals  bed  in  mind 
The  folks  in  front  more  than  the  folks  be 
hind  ; 

You  wun't  do  much  ontil  you  think  it  's  God, 
An'  not  constitoounts,  thet  holds  the  rod; 
We  want  some  more  o'  Gideon's  sword,  I 

jedge, 

For  proclamations  ha'n't  no  gret  of  edge; 
There  's  nothin'  for  a  cancer  but  the  knife, 
Onless  you  set  by  't  more  than  by  your  life. 
/  've  seen  hard  times;  I  see  a  war  begun 
Thet  folks  thet  love  their  bellies  never  'd 

won; 
Pharo's  lean  kine  hung  on  for  seven  long 

year; 
But  when  't  was  done,  we  did  n't  count  it 

dear; 

Why,  law  an'  order,  honor,  civil  right, 
Ef  they  ain't  wuth  it,  wut  is  wuth  a  fight  ? 
I  'm  older  'n  you:  the  plough,  the  axe,  the 

mill, 

All  kin's  o'  labor  an'  all  kin's  o'  skill, 
Would  be  a  rabbit  in  a  wile-cat's  claw, 
Ef 't  warn't  for  thet  slow  critter,  'stablished 

law; 

Onsettle  thet,  an'  all  the  world  goes  whiz, 
A  screw  's  gut  loose  in  every  thin'  there  is: 
Good  buttresses  once  settled,  don't  you  fret 
An'  stir  'em;  take  a  bridge's  word  for  thet! 
Young  folks  are  smart,  but  all  ain't  good 

thet 's  new; 
I  guess  the  gran'thers  they  knowed  sunthin', 

tu. 

THE  MONIMENT 

Amen  to  thet!  build  sure  in  the  beginnin' : 
An'  then  don't  never  tech  the  underpinning 
Th'  older  a  guv'ment  is,  the  better  't  suits; 
New  ones  hunt  folks's  corns  out  like  new 

boots: 
Change  jes'  for  change,  is  like  them  big 

hotels 
Where  they  shift  plates,  an'  let  ye  live  on 

smells. 

THE  BRIDGE 

Wai,   don't  give   up  afore  the  ship  goes 

down: 
It  's   a   stiff   gale,   but   Providence   wun't 

drown; 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


An'  God  wun't  leave  us  yit  to  sink  or  swirn, 
Ef  we  don't  fail  to  du  wut  's  right  by  Him. 
This  land  o'  ourn,  I  tell  ye,  's  gut  to  be 
A  better  country  than  man  ever  see. 
I  feel  my  sperit  swellin'  with  a  cry 
Thet  seems  to  say,  "  Break  forth  an'  pro 
phesy!  " 

0  strange  New  World,  thet  yit  wast  never 

young, 
Whose  youth  from  thee  by  gripin'  need  was 

wrung, 

Brown  foundlin'  o'  the  woods,  whose  baby- 
bed 
Was  prowled  roun'  by  the  Injun's  cracklin' 

tread, 
An'  who  grew'st  strong  thru  shifts  an'  wants 

an'  pains, 
Nussed  by  stern  men  with  empires  in  their 

brains, 

Who  saw  in  vision  their  young  Ishmel  strain 
With  each  hard  hand  a  vassal  ocean's  mane, 
Thou,  skilled  by  Freedom  an'  by  gret  events 
To  pitch  new  States  ez  Old- World  men 

pitch  tents, 
Thou,  taught  by  Fate  to  know  Jehovah's 

plan 

Thet  man's  devices  can't  unmake  a  man, 
An'   whose    free   latch -string  never  was 

drawed  in 

Against  the  poorest  child  of  Adam's  kin,  — 
The  grave  's  not  dug  where  traitor  hands 

shall  lay 
In  fearful  haste  thy  murdered  corse  away! 

1  see  — 

Jest  here  some  dogs  begun  to  bark, 
So  thet  I  lost  old  Concord's  last  remark: 
I  listened  long,  but  all  I  seemed  to  hear 
Was  dead  leaves  gossipin'  on  some  birch- 
trees  near; 

But  ez  they  hed  ri't  no  gret  things  to  say, 
An'  sed  'em  often,  I  come  right  away, 
An',  walkin'  home'ards,   jest   to   pass  the 

time, 
I  put  some  thoughts  thet  bothered  me  in 

rhyme; 

I  hain't  hed  time  to  fairly  try  'em  on, 
But  here  they  be  —  it 's 

JONATHAN  TO  JOHN 

IT  don't  seem  hardly  right,  John, 
When  both  my  hands  was  full, 

To  stump  me  to  a  fight,  John,  — 
Your  cousin,  tu,  John  Bull! 


Ole  Uncle  S.  sez  he,  "  I  guess 
We  know  it  now,"  sez  he, 
"  The  lion's  paw  is  all  the  law, 
Accordin'  to  J.  B., 
Thet 's  fit  for  you  an'  me! " 

You  wonder  why  we  're  hot,  John  ? 

Your  mark  wuz  on  the  guns, 
The  neutral  guns,  thet  shot,  John, 
Our  brothers  an'  our  sons  : 
Ole  Uncle  S.  sez  he,  "  I  guess 
There  's  human  blood,"  sez  he, 
"  By  fits  an'  starts,  in  Yankee  hearts, 
Though  't  may  surprise  J.  B. 
More  'n  it  would  you  an'  me." 

Ef  1  turned  mad  dogs  loose,  John, 

On  your  front-parlor  stairs, 
Would  it  jest  meet  your  views,  John, 
To  wait  an'  sue  their  heirs  ? 
Ole  Uncle  S.  sez  he,  "I  guess, 
I  on'y  guess,"  sez  he, 
"  Thet  ef  Vattel  on  his  toes  fell, 
'T  would  kind  o'  rrle  J.  B., 
Ez  wal  ez  you  an'  me  !  " 

Who  made  the  law  thet  hurts,  John, 

Heads  1  win,  —  ditto  tails  ? 
"J.  jB."  was  on  his  shirts,  John, 
Onless  my  memory  fails. 

Ole  Uncle  S.  sez  he,  "  I  guess 
(I  'm  good  at  thet),"  sez  he, 
"  Thet  sauce  for  goose  ain't  jest  the  juice 
For  ganders  with  J.  B., 
No  more  'n  with  you  or  me  !  " 

When  your  rights  was  our  wrongs,  John, 

You  did  n't  stop  for  fuss,  — 
Britanny's  trident  prongs,  John, 
Was  good  'nough  law  for  us. 
Ole  Uncle  S.  sez  he,  "  I  guess, 
Though  physic  's  good,"  sez  he, 
"  It  does  n't  foller  thet  he  can  swaller 
Prescriptions  signed  '  J.  B.,' 
Put  up  by  you  an'  me ! " 

We  own  the  ocean,  tu,  John  : 

You  mus'  n'  take  it  hard, 
Ef  we  can't  think  with  you,  John, 
It 's  jest  your  own  back-yard. 
Ole  Uncle  S.  sez  he,  "  I  guess, 
Ef  thet 's  his  claim,"  sez  he, 
"  The  fencin'-stuff  '11  cost  enough 
To  bust  up  friend  J.  B., 
Ez  wal  ez  you  an'  me  !  " 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


239 


Why  talk  so  dreffle  big,  John, 

Of  honor  when  it  meant 

You  did  n't  care  a  fig,  John, 

But  jest  for  ten  per  cent  ? 

Ole  Uncle  S.  sez  he,  "I  guess 
He  's  like  the  rest,"  sez  he  : 
"  When  all  is  done,  it 's  number  one 
Thet  's  nearest  to  J.  B., 
Ez  wal  ez  t'  you  an'  me  ! " 

We  give  the  critters  back,  John, 

Cos  Abram  thought  'twas  right  ; 
It  warn't  your  bullyin'  clack,  John, 
Provokin'  us  to  fight. 

Ole  Uncle  S.  sez  he,  "  I  guess 
We  've  a  hard  row,"  sez  he, 
**  To  hoe  jest  now  ;  but  thet,  somehow, 
May  happen  to  J.  B., 
Ez  wal  ez  you  an'  me  ! " 

We  ain't  so  weak  an'  poor,  John, 

With  twenty  million  people, 
An'  close  to  every  door,  John, 
A  school-house  an'  a  steeple. 
Ole  Uncle  S.  sez  he,  "  I  guess, 
It  is  a  fact,"  sez  he, 
"  The  surest  plan  to  make  a  Man 
Is,  think  him  so,  J.  B., 
Ez  much  ez  you  or  me  ! " 

Our  folks  believe  in  Law,  John  ; 

An'  it 's  for  her  sake,  now, 
They  've  left  the  axe  an'  saw,  John, 
The  anvil  an'  the  plough. 

Ole  Uncle  S.  sez  he,  "  I  guess, 
Ef  't  warn't  for  law,"  sez  he, 
"  There  'd   be   one   shindy  from   here   to 

Indy  ; 

An'  thet  don't  suit  J.  B. 
(When  't  ain't  'twixt  you  an'  me  !)  " 

We  know  we  've  got  a  cause,  John, 

Thet 's  honest,  just,  an'  true  ; 
We  thought  't  would  win  applause,  John, 
Ef  nowheres  else,  from  you. 
Ole  Uncle  S.  sez  he,  "  I  guess 
His  love  of  right,"  sez  he, 
*  Hangs  by  a  rotten  fibre  o'  cotton  : 
There  's  natur'  in  J.  B., 
Ez  wal  'z  in  you  an'  me  !  " 

The  South  says,  "Poor  folks  down  !  "  John, 

An'  "All  men  up!"  say  we, — 
White,  yaller,  black,  an'  brown,  John  : 
.  Now  which  is  your  idee  ? 


Ole  Uncle  S.  sez  he,  "  I  guess, 
John  preaches  wal,"  sez  he  ; 
"  But,  sermon  thru,  an'  come  to  du, 
Why,  there  's  the  old  J.  B. 
A-crowdin'  you  an'  me  ! " 

Shall  it  be  love,  or  hate,  John  ? 

It 's  you  thet 's  to  decide  ; 
Ain't  your  bonds  held  by  Fate,  John 
Like  all  the  world's  beside  ? 
Ole  Uncle  S.  sez  he,  "  I  guess 
Wise  men  forgive,"  sez  he, 
"  But  not  forgit  ;  an'  some  time  yit 
Thet  truth  may  strike  J.  B., 
Ez  wal  ez  you  an'  me  ! " 

God  means  to  make  this  land,  John, 

Clear  thru,  from  sea  to  sea, 
Believe  an'  understand,  John, 
The  wuth  o'  bein'  free. 

Ole  Uncle  S.  sez  he,  "  I  guess, 
God's  price  is  high,"  sez  he  ; 
"  But  nothin'  else  than  wut  He  sells 
Wears  long,  an'  thet  J.  B. 
May  larn,  like  you  an'  me  ! " 


No.  Ill 

BIRDOFREDUM  SAWIN,  ESQ.,  TO 
MR.  HOSEA   BIGLOW 

With  the  following  Letter  from  the  REV 
EREND  HOMER  WILBUR,  A.  M. 

TO  THE   EDITORS   OF   THE   ATLANTIC 
MONTHLY 

JAALAM,  7th  Feb.,  1862. 
RESPECTED  FRIENDS,  —  If  I  know  my 
self,  —  and  surely  a  man  can  hardly  be 
supposed  to  have  overpassed  the  limit  of 
fourscore  years  without  attaining  to  some 
proficiency  in  that  most  useful  branch  of 
learning  (e  ccelo  descendit,  says  the  pagan 
poet),  —  I  have  no  great  smack  of  that 
weakness  which  would  press  upon  the  pub- 
lick  attention  any  matter  pertaining  to  my 
private  affairs.  But  since  the  following 
letter  of  Mr.  Sawin  contains  not  only  a 
direct  allusion  to  myself,  but  that  in  con 
nection  with  a  topick  of  interest  to  all 
those  engaged  in  the  publick  ministrations 
of  the  sanctuary,  I  may  be  pardoned  for 
touching  briefly  thereupon.  Mr.  Sawin 
was  never  a  stated  attendant  upon  my 


240 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


preaching, — never,  as  I  believe,  even  an 
occasional   one,  since  the  erection  of   the 
new   house    (where    we   now   worship)    in 
1845.     He  did,  indeed,  for  a  time,  supply 
a  not  unacceptable  bass  in  the  choir  ;  but, 
whether  on   some    umbrage   (omnibus   hoc 
vitium   est    cantoribus)    taken    against    the 
bass-viol,  then,  and  till  his  decease  in  1850 
((Kt.  77,)  under  the  charge  of  Mr.  Asaph 
Perley,  or,  as  was  reported  by  others,  on 
account  of  an  imminent  subscription  for  a 
new  bell,  he  thenceforth  absented  himself 
from  all  outward  and  visible  communion. 
Yet  he  seems  to  have  preserved  (alta  mente 
repostum),  as  it  were,  in   the   pickle  of  a 
mind  soured  by  prejudice,  a  lasting  scun 
ner,  as  he  would  call  it,  against  our  staid 
and  decent  form  of  worship  ;  for  I  would 
rather  in  that  wise  interpret  his  fling,  than 
suppose  that  any  chance  tares  sown  by  my 
pulpit  discourses   should  survive  so   long, 
while  good  seed  too  often  fails  to  root  it 
self.     1  humbly  trust  that  I  have  no  per 
sonal   feeling    in    the   matter  ;    though   I 
know   that,   if   we   sound   any   man   deep 
enough,  our  lead  shall  bring  up  the  mud 
of  human   nature    at   last.      The  Bretons 
believe  in  an   evil  spirit  which  they  call 
ar  c'houskezik,  whose  office  it  is  to  make 
the   congregation  drowsy  ;    and   though  I 
have  never  had    reason  to    think  that  he 
was  specially  busy  among   my  flock,  yet 
have  I  seen  enough  to  make  me  sometimes 
regret   the   hinged    seats    of    the    ancient 
meeting-house,    whose    lively   clatter,   not 
unwillingly  intensified  by  boys  beyond  eye 
shot  of  the  tithing-man,   served  at  inter 
vals  as  a  wholesome  reveil.     It  is  true,  I 
have    numbered    among   my   parishioners 
some  who  are  proof  against  the  prophylac- 
tick  fennel,  nay,  whose  gift  of  somnolence 
rivalled  that  of  the  Cretan  Rip  Van  Win 
kle,    Epimenides,    and   who,   nevertheless, 
complained  not  so  much  of  the  substance 
as  of  the  length  of  my  (by  them  unheard) 
discourses.     Some  ingenious  persons  of  a 
philosophick  turn  have  assured  us  that  our 
pulpits   were    set  too  high,   and   that  the 
soporifick  tendency  increased  with  the  ratio 
of  the  angle  in  which  the  hearer's  eye  was 
constrained   to   seek   the  preacher.      This 
were   a   curious    topick   for   investigation. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  some  sermons 
are   pitched    too   high,   and   I    remember 
many  struggles  with  the  drowsy  fiend  in 


my  youth.  Happy  Saint  Anthony  of  Padua, 
whose  finny  acolytes,  however  they  might 
profit,  could  never  murmur  !  Quarefremu- 
erunt  gentes?  Who  is  he  that  can  twice 
a  week  be  inspired,  or  has  eloquence  (ut 
ita  dicam)  always  on  tap  ?  A  good  man, 
and,  next  to  David,  a  sacred  poet  (himself, 
haply,  not  inexpert  of  evil  in  this  particu 
lar),  has  said,  — 

"  The  worst  speak  something  good  :  if  all  want 

sense, 
God  takes  a  text  and  preacheth  patience." 

There  are  one  or  two  other  points  in  Mr. 
Sawin's  letter  which  I  would  also  briefly 
animadvert  upon.  And  first,  concerning 
the  claim  he  sets  up  to  a  certain  superior 
ity  of  blood  and  lineage  in  the  people  of 
our  Southern  States,  now  unhappily  in  re 
bellion  against  lawful  authority  and  their 
own  better  interests.  There  is  a  sort  of 
opinions,  anachronisms  at  once  and  ana- 
chorisms,  foreign  both  to  the  age  and  the 
country,  that  maintain  a  feeble  and  buzz 
ing  existence,  scarce  to  be  called  life,  like 
winter  flies,  which  in  mild  weather  crawl 
out  from  obscure  nooks  and  crannies  to 
expatiate  in  the  sun,  and  sometimes  acquire 
vigor  enough  to  disturb  with  their  enforced 
familiarity  the  studious  hours  of  the  scholar. 
One  of  the  most  stupid  and  pertinacious 
of  these  is  the  theory  that  the  Southern 
States  were  settled  by  a  class  of  emigrants 
from  the  Old  World  socially  superior  to 
those  who  founded  the  institutions  of  New 
England.  The  Virginians  especially  lay 
claim  to  this  generosity  of  lineage,  which 
were  of  no  possible  accoxmt,  were  it  not  for 
the  fact  that  such  superstitions  are  some 
times  not  without  their  effect  on  the  course 
of  human  affairs.  The  early  adventurers 
to  Massachusetts  at  least  paid  their  pas 
sages  ;  no  felons  were  ever  shipped  thither  ; 
and  though  it  be  true  that  many  deboshed 
younger  brothers  of  what  are  called  good 
families  may  have  sought  refuge  in  Vir 
ginia,  it  is  equally  certain  that  a  great  part 
of  the  early  deportations  thither  were  the 
sweepings  of  the  London  streets  and  the 
leavings  of  the  London  stews.  It  was  this 
my  Lord  Bacon  hafl  in  mind  when  he 
wrote  :  "  It  is  a  shameful  and  unblessed 
thing  to  take  the  scum  of  people  and 
wicked  condemned  men  to  be  the  people 
with  whom  you  plant."  That  certain 
names  are  found  there  is  nothing  to  the 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


241 


purpose,  for,  even  had  an  alias  been  be 
yond  the  invention  of  the  knaves  of  that 
generation,  it  is  known  that  servants  were 
often  called  by  their  masters'  names,  as 
slaves  are  now.  On  what  the  heralds  call 
the  spindle  side,  some,  at  least,  of  the  old 
est  Virginian  families  are  descended  from 
matrons  who  were  exported  and  sold  for  so 
many  hogsheads  of  tobacco  the  head.  So 
notorious  was  this,  that  it  became  one  of 
the  jokes  of  contemporary  playwrights,  not 
only  that  men  bankrupt  in  purse  and  char 
acter  were  "food  for  the  Plantations" 
(and  this  before  the  settlement  of  New 
England),  but  also  that  any  drab  would 
suffice  to  wive  such  pitiful  adventurers. 
"  Never  choose  a  wife  as  if  you  were  going 
to  Virginia,"  says  Middleton  in  one  of  his 
comedies.  The  mule  is  apt  to  forget  all 
but  the  equine  side  of  his  pedigree.  How 
early  the  counterfeit  nobility  of  the  Old 
Dominion  became  a  topick  of  ridicule  in 
the  Mother  Country  may  be  learned  from 
a  play  of  Mrs.  Behn's,  founded  on  the  Re 
bellion  of  Bacon  :  for  even  these  kennels 
of  literature  may  yield  a  fact  or  two  to 
pay  the  raking.  Mrs.  Flirt,  the  keeper 
of  a  Virginia  ordinary,  calls  herself  the 
daughter  of  a  baronet,  "  undone  in  the  late 
rebellion,"  —  her  father  having  in  truth 
been  a  tailor,  —  and  three  of  the  Council, 
assuming  to  themselves  an  equal  splendor 
of  origin,  are  shown  to  have  been,  one  "  a 
broken  exciseman  who  came  over  a  poor 
servant,"  another  a  tinker  transported  for 
theft,  and  the  third  "  a  common  pickpocket 
often  flogged  at  the  cart's  tail."  The 
ancestry  of  South  Carolina  will  as  little 
pass  muster  at  the  Herald's  Visitation, 
though  I  hold  them  to  have  been  more 
reputable,  inasmuch  as  many  of  them  were 
honest  tradesmen  and  artisans,  in  some 
measure  exiles  for  conscience'  sake,  who 
would  have  smiled  at  the  high-flying  non 
sense  of  their  descendants.  Some  of  the 
more  respectable  were  Jews.  The  absurd 
ity  of  supposing  a  population  of  eight  mil 
lions  all  sprung  from  gentle  loins  in  the 
course  of  a  century  and  a  half  is  too  mani 
fest  for  confutation.  But  of  what  use  to 
discuss  the  matter  ?  An  expert  geneal 
ogist  will  provide  any  solvent  man  with  a 
genus  et  proavos  to  order.  My  Lord  Bur- 
leigh  used  to  say,  with  Aristotle  and  the 
Emperor  Frederick  II.  to  back  him,  that 


"  nobility  was  ancient  riches,"  whence  also 
the  Spanish  were  wont  to  call  their  nobles 
ricos  hombres,  and  the  aristocracy  of  Amer 
ica  are  the  descendants  of  those  who  first 
became  wealthy,  by  whatever  means.  Pe 
troleum  will  in  this  wise  be  the  source  of 
much  good  blood  among  our  posterity. 
The  aristocracy  of  the  South,  such  as  it  is, 
has  the  shallowest  of  all  foundations,  for 
it  is  only  skin-deep,  —  the  most  odious  of 
all,  for,  while  affecting  to  despise  trade,  it 
traces  its  origin  to  a  successful  traffick  in 
men,  women,  and  children,  and  still  draws 
its  chief  revenues  thence.  And  though,  as 
Doctor  Chamberlayne  consolingly  says  in 
his  "  Present  State  of  England,"  "  to  become 
a  Merchant  of  Foreign  Commerce,  with 
out  serving  any  Apprentisage,  hath  been 
allowed  no  disparagement  to  a  Gentleman 
born,  especially  to  a  younger  Brother,"  yet 
I  conceive  that  he  would  hardly  have 
made  a  like  exception  in  favour  of  the 
particular  trade  in  question.  Oddly  enough 
this  trade  reverses  the  ordinary  standards 
of  social  respectability  no  less  than  of 
morals,  for  the  retail  and  domestick  is  as 
creditable  as  the  wholesale  and  foreign  is 
degrading  to  him  who  follows  it.  Are  our 
morals,  then,  no  better  than  mores  after 
all  ?  I  do  not  believe  that  such  aristocracy 
as  exists  at  the  South  (for  I  hold  with 
Marius,  fortissimum  quemque  generosissi- 
mum)  will  be  found  an  element  of  any 
thing  like  persistent  strength  in  war,  — 
thinking  the  saying  of  Lord  Bacon  (whom 
one  quaintly  called  inductionis  dominus  et 
Verulamii)  as  true  as  it  is  pithy,  that  "  the 
more  gentlemen,  ever  the  lower  books  of 
subsidies."  It  is  odd  enough  as  an  histor 
ical  precedent,  that,  while  the  fathers  of 
New  England  were  laying  deep  in  religion, 
education,  and  freedom  the  basis  of  a  polity 
which  has  substantially  outlasted  any  then 
existing,  the  first  work  of  the  founders  of 
Virginia,  as  may  be  seen  in  Wingfield's 
"  Memorial,"  was  conspiracy  and  rebellion, 
—  odder  yet,  as  showing  the  changes  which 
are  wrought  by  circumstance,  that  the  first 
insurrection  in  South  Carolina  was  against 
the  aristocratical  scheme  of  the  Proprie 
tary  Government.  I  do  not  find  that  the 
cuticular  aristocracy  of  the  South  has  added 
anything  to  the  refinements  of  civilization 
except  the  carrying  of  bowie-knives  and 
the  chewing  of  tobacco,  —  a  high  -  toned 


242 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


Southern   gentleman   being  commonly  not 
only  quadrumanous  but  quidruminant. 

I  confess  that  the  present  letter  of  Mr. 
Sawin  increases  my  doubts  as  to  the  sincer 
ity  of  the  convictions  which  he  professes, 
and  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  the  triumph 
of  the  legitimate  Government,  sure  sooner 
or  later  to  take  place,  will  find  him  and  a 
large  majority  of  his  newly  adopted  fellow- 
citizens  (who  hold  with  Daedalus,  the  pri 
mal  sitter-on-the-feuce,  that  medium  tenere 
tutissimum)  original  Union  men.  The  crit 
icisms  towards  the  close  of  his  letter  on 
certain  of  our  failings  are  worthy  to  be 
seriously  perpended  ;  for  he  is  not,  as  I 
think,  without  a  spice  of  vulgar  shrewd 
ness.  Fas  est  et  ab  hoste  doceri :  there  is  no 
reckoning  without  your  host.  As  to  the 
good-nature  in  us  which  he  seems  to  gird 
at,  while  I  would  not  consecrate  a  chapel, 
as  they  have  not  scrupled  to  do  in  France, 
to  Notre  Dame  de  la  Haine  (Our  Lady  of 
Hate),  yet  I  cannot  forget  that  the  cor 
ruption  of  good-nature  is  the  generation 
of  laxity  of  principle.  Good -nature  is  our 
national  characteristick  ;  and  though  it  be, 
perhaps,  nothing  more  than  a  culpable 
weakness  or  cowardice,  when  it  leads  us  to 
put  up  tamely  with  manifold  impositions 
and  breaches  of  implied  contracts  (as  too 
frequently  in  our  publick  conveyances)  it 
becomes  a  positive  crime  when  it  leads  us 
to  look  unresentfully  on  peculation,  and  to 
regard  treason  to  the  best  Government  that 
ever  existed  as  something  with  which  a 
gentleman  may  shake  hands  without  soil 
ing  his  fingers.  I  do  not  think  the  gallows- 
tree  the  most  profitable  member  of  our 
Sylva  ;  but,  since  it  continues  to  be  planted, 
I  would  fain  see  a  Northern  limb  ingrafted 
on  it,  that  it  may  bear  some  other  fruit 
than  loyal  Tennesseeans. 

A  relick  has  recently  been  discovered  on 
the  east  bank  of  Bushy  Brook  in  North 
Jaalam,  which  I  conceive  to  be  an  inscrip 
tion  in  Runick  characters  relating  to  the 
early  expedition  of  the  Northmen  to  this 
continent.  I  shall  make  fuller  investiga 
tions,  and  communicate  the  result  in  due 
season.  Respectfully, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

HOMER  WILBUR,  A.  M. 

P.  S.  —  I  inclose  a  year's  subscription 
from  Deacon  Tinkham. 


I  HED  it  on  my  min'  las'  time,  when  I  to 

write  ye  started, 
To  tech  the  leadin'  f  eaturs  o'  my  gittin'  me 

convarted  ; 
But,  ez  my  letters  hez  to  go  clearn  roun* 

by  way  o'  Cuby, 
'T  wun't  seem  no  staler  now  than  then,  by 

th'  time  it  gits  where  you  be. 
You  know  up  North,  though  sees  an'  things 

air  plenty  ez  you  please, 
Ther'  warn't  nut  one  on  'em  thet  come  jes' 

square  with  my  idees  : 
They  all  on  'em  wuz  too  much  mixed  with 

Covenants  o'  Works, 
An'  would  hev  answered  jest  ez  wal   for 

Afrikins  an'  Turks, 
Fer  where  's  a  Christian's  privilege  an'  his 

rewards  ensuin', 
Ef  't  ain't  perfessin'  right  and  eend  'thout 

nary  need  o'  doin'  ? 
I  dessay  they  suit  workin'-folks  thet  ain't 

noways  pertic'lar, 
But    nut    your    Southun   gen'leman    thet 

keeps  his  parpendic'lar  ; 
I  don't  blame  nary  man  thet  casts  his  lot 

along  o'  his  folks, 
But  ef  you  cal'late  to  save  me,  't  must  be 

with  folks  thet  is  folks  ; 
Cov'nants  o'  works  go  'ginst  my  grain,  but 

down  here  I  've  found  out 
The  true  fus'-fem'ly  A  1   plan, — here's 

how  it  come  about. 
When  I  fus'  sot  up  with  Miss  S.,  sez  she  to 

me,  sez  she, 
"  Without  you  git  religion,  Sir,  the  thing 

can't  never  be  ; 
Nut  but  wut  I  respeck,"  sez   she,  "  your 

intellectle  part, 
But  you  wun't  noways  du  for  me  athout  a 

change  o'  heart  : 
Nothun  religion  works  wal  North,  but  it 's 

ez  soft  ez  spruce, 
Compared  to  ourn,  for  keepin'  sound,"  sez 

she,  "  upon  the  goose  ; 
A  day's  experunce  'd  prove  to  ye,  ez  easy  'z 

pull  a  trigger, 
It  takes  the  Southun  pint  o'  view  to  raise 

ten  bales  a  nigger  ; 
You  '11  fin'  thet  human  natur',  South,  ain't 

wholesome  more  'n  skin-deep, 
An'  once  't  a  darkie  's  took  with  it,  he  wun't 

be  wuth  his  keep." 
"  How    shell    I    git    it,    Ma'am  ?  "  —  sez 

I.     "Attend  the   nex'  camp-meet- 
in'," 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


243 


Sez  she,  "  an'  it  '11  come  to  ye  ez  cheap  ez 

onbleached  sheetinV 
Wai,  so  I  went  along  an'  hearn  most  an 

impressive  sarmon 

About    besprinklin'   Afriky   with    fourth- 
proof  dew  o'  Harmon  : 
He  did  n't  put  no  weaknin'  in,  but  gin  it  tu 

us  hot, 
'Z  ef  he  an'  Satan  'd  ben  two  bulls  in  one 

five-acre  lot  : 
I  don't  purtend  to  foller  him,  but  give  ye 

jes'  the  heads; 
For   pulpit   ellerkence,    you   know,   'most 

oilers  kin'  o'  spreads. 
Ham's  seed  wuz  gin  to  us  in  chairge,  an' 

should  n't  we  be  li'ble 
In  Kingdom  Come,  ef  we  kep'  back  their 

priv'lege  in  the  Bible  ? 
The  cusses  an'  the  promerses  make  one  gret 

chain,  an'  ef 
You  snake  one  link  out  here,  one  there,  how 

much  on  't  ud  be  lef '  ? 
All  things  wuz  gin  to  man  for  's  use,  his 

sarvice,  an'  delight; 
An'  don't  the  Greek  an'  Hebrew  words  thet 

mean  a  Man  mean  White  ? 
Ain't  it  belittlin'  the  Good  Book  in  all  its 

proudes'  featurs 
To  think  't  wuz  wrote  for  black  an'  brown 

an'  'lasses-colored  creaturs, 
Thet  could  n'  read  it,  ef  they  would,  nor 

ain't  by  lor  allowed  to, 
But  ough'  to  take  wut  we  think  suits  their 

naturs,  an'  be  proud  to  ? 
Warn't  it  more  prof 'table  to  bring  your  raw 

materil  thru 
Where  you  can  work  it  inta  grace  an'  inta 

cotton,  tu, 
Than  sendin'  missionaries  out  where  fevers 

might  defeat  'em, 
An'  ef  the  butcher  did  n'  call,  their  p'rish- 

ioners  might  eat  'em  ? 
An*   then,    agin,    wut    airthly   use  ?    Nor 

'twarn't  our  fault,  in  so  fur 
Ez  Yankee  skippers  would  keep  on  atotin' 

on  'em  over. 
'T  improved  the  whites  by  savin'  'em  from 

ary  need  o'  workin', 
An'  kep'  the  blacks  from  bein'  lost  thru 

idleness  an'  shirkin'  ; 
We  took  to  'em  ez  nat'ral  ez  a  barn-owl 

doos  to  mice, 
An'  hed  our  hull  time  on  our  hands  to  keep 

us  out  o'  vice; 


It  made  us  feel  ez  pop'lar  ez  a  hen  doos 

with  one  chicken, 
An'  fill  our  place  in  Natur's  scale  by  givin' 

'em  a  lickin': 
For  why  should  Csesar  git  his  dues  more  'n 

Juno,  Pomp,  an'  Cuffy  ? 
It  's  justifyin'  Ham  to  spare  a  nigger  when 

he  's  stuffy. 
Where  'd  their  soles  go  tu,  like  to  know,  ef 

we  should  let  'em  ketch 
Freeknowledgism  an'  Fourierism  an'  Speri- 

toolism  an'  sech  ? 
When  Satan  sets  himself  to  work  to  raise 

his  very  bes'  muss, 
He  scatters  roun'  onscriptur'l  views  relatin' 

to  Ones'mus. 
You  'd  ough'  to  seen,  though,  how  his  facs 

an'  argymunce  an'  figgers 
Drawed  tears  o'  real  conviction  from  a  lot 

o'  pen'tent  niggers! 
It    warn't   like   Wilbur's    meetin',    where 

you  're  shet  up  in  a  pew, 
Your  dickeys  sorrin'  off  your  ears,  an'  bilin' 

to  be  thru; 
Ther'  wuz  a  tent  clost  by  thet  hed  a  kag  o' 

sunthin'  in  it, 
Where  you  could  go,  ef  you  wuz  dry,  an' 

damp  ye  in  a  minute; 
An'  ef  you  did  dror  off  a  spell,  ther'  wuz 

n't  no  occasion 
To    lose  the  thread,    because,  ye  see,  he 

bellered  like  all  Bashan. 
It 's  dry  work  follerin'  argymunce  an'  so, 

'twix'  this  an'  thet, 
I  felt  conviction  weighin'  down  somehow 

inside  my  hat; 
It  growed  an'  growed  like  Jonah's  gourd, 

a  kin'  o'  whirlin'  ketched  me, 
Ontil  I  fin'lly  clean  gin  out  an'  owned  up 

thet  he  'd  fetched  me; 
An'  when  nine  tenths  o'  th'  perrish  took  to 

tumblin'  roun'  an'  hollerin', 
I  did  n'  fin'  no  gret  in  th'  way  o'  turnin'  tu 

an'  follerin'. 
Soon  ez  Miss  S.  see  thet,  sez  she,  "  Thet  's 

wut  I  call  wtith  seein' ! 
Thet 's  actin'  like  a  reas'nable  an'  intellectle 

bein'  ! " 
An'  so  we  fin'lly  made  it  up,  concluded  to 

hitch  bosses, 

An'  here  I  be  'n  my  ellermunt  among  crea 
tion's  bosses; 
Arter  I  'd  drawed   sech   heaps   o'  blanks, 

Fortin  at  last  hez  sent  a  prize, 


244 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


An'  chose  me  for  a  shinin'  light  o'  mission 
ary  entaprise. 

This  leads  me  to  another  pint  on  which  I  've 

changed  my  plan 
O'   thinkin'   so    's    't   I    might   become   a 

straight-out  Southun  man. 
Miss  S.  (her  maiden  name  wuz  Higgs,  o' 

the  fus'  fem'ly  here) 
On  her  Ma's  side  's  all  Juggernot,  on  Pa's 

all  Cavileer, 
An'  sence  I  've  merried  into  her  an'  stept 

into  her  shoes, 
It  ain't  more  'n  nateral  thet  I  should  mod- 

derfy  my  views: 
I've   ben   a-readin'  in  Debow  ontil  I  've 

fairly  gut 
So  'nlightened  thet  I  'd  full  ez  lives  ha'  ben 

a  Dook  ez  nut; 
An'  when  we  've  laid  ye  all  out  stiff,  an' 

Jeff  hez  gut  his  crown, 
An'  comes  to  pick  his  nobles  out,  wun't  this 

child  be  in  town  ! 
We  '11  hev  an  Age  o'  Chivverlry  surpassin' 

Mister  Burke's, 
Where  every  fem'ly  is  fus'-best  an'  nary 

white  man  works: 
Our  system  's  sech,  the  thing  '11  root  ez  easy 

ez  a  tater; 
For  while  your  lords  in  furrin  parts  ain't 

noways  marked  by  natur', 
Nor  sot  apart  from  ornery  folks  in  featurs 

nor  in  figgers, 
Ef  ourn  '11  keep  their  faces  washed,  you  '11 

know  'em  from  their  niggers. 
Ain't  sech   things    wuth   secedin'   for,   an' 

gittin'  red  o'  you 
Thet  waller  in  your  low  idees,  an'  will   tell 

all  is  blue  ? 
Fact  is,  we  air  a  diff'rent  race,  an'  I,  for 

one,  don't  see, 
Sech  havin'  oilers  ben  the  case,  how  w'  ever 

did  agree. 
It's   sunthin'   thet    you    lab'rin'-folks   up 

North  hed  ough'  to  think  on, 
Thet  Higgses  can't  bemean  themselves  to 

rulin'  by  a  Lincoln, — 
Thet  men,  (an'  guv'nors,  tu,)  thet  hez  sech 

Normal  names  ez  Pickens, 
Accustomed  to  no  kin'  o'  work,  Jthout  't  is 

to  givin'  lickins, 
Can't   measure   votes   with  folks  thet  get 

their  livins  from  their  farms, 
An'  prob'ly  think  thet  Law  's  ez  good  ez 

hevin'  coats  o'  arms. 


Sence  I  've  ben  here,  I  've  hired  a  chap  to 

look  about  for  me 
To   git   me   a   trausplantable    an'   thrifty 

fem'ly-tree, 
An'  he  tells  me  the  Sawins  is  ez  much  o' 

Normal  blood 
Ez  Pickens  an'  the  rest  on  'em,  an'  older  'n 

Noah's  flood. 
Your   Normal   schools  wun  't   turn  ye  into 

Normals,  for  it 's  clear, 
Ef  eddykatin'  done   the  thing,  they  'd  be 

some  skurcer  here. 
Pickenses,  Boggses,    Pettuses,    Magoffins, 

Letchers,  Polks, — 
Where  can  you  scare  up  names  like  them 

among  your  mudsill  folks  ? 
Ther  's  nothin'  to  compare  with  'em,  you  'd 

fin',  ef  you  should  glance, 
Among  the  tip-top   femerlies   in  Englan', 

nor  in  France  : 
I've    hearn    frum    'sponsible    men    whose 

word    wuz    full     ez    good  's    their 

note, 
Men  thet  can  run  their  face  for  drinks,  an' 

keep  a  Sunday  coat, 
That  they  wuz  all  on  'em  come  down,  an' 

come  down  pooty  fur, 
From     folks     thet,    'thout    their     crowns 

wuz   on,   ou'   doors  would  n'  never 

stir, 
Nor  thet  ther'  warn't  a  Southun   man  but 

wut  wuz  primy  fashy 
O'  the  bes'  blood  in  Europe,  yis,  an'  Af riky 

an'  Ashy: 
Sech  bein'  the  case,  is  't  likely  we  should 

bend  like  cotton  wickin', 
Or  set  down  under  anythin'  so  low-lived  ez 

a  lickin'  ? 
More'n  this, — hain't  we  the  literatoor  an 

science,  tu,  by  gorry  ? 
Hain't   we   them   intellectle    twins,    them 

giants,  Simms  an'  Maury, 
Each  with  full  twice  the  ushle  brains,  like 

nothin'  thet  I  know, 
'thout  't  wuz  a  double-headed  calf  I  see 

once  to  a  show  ? 

For  all  thet,  I  warn't  jest  at  fust  in  favor 

o'  secedin'  ; 
I  wuz  for   layin'  low   a   spell   to   find  out 

where  't  wuz  leadin', 
For  hevin'  South-Carliny  try  her  hand  at 

sepritnationin', 
She  takin'  resks  an'  findin'  funds,  an'  we  co- 

operationin',  — 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


245 


I  mean  a  kin'  o'  hangin'  roun'  an'  settin'  on 

the  fence, 
Till  Prov'dunce  pin  ted  how  to   jump  an' 

save  the  most  expense; 
I   recollected   thet   'ere    mine   o'   lead   to 

Shiraz  Centre 
Thet  bust  up  Jabez  Pettibone,  an'  didn't 

want  to  ventur' 
'Fore  I  wuz  sartin  wut  come  out  ud  pay  for 

wut  went  in, 
For  swappin'  silver  off  for  lead  ain't  the 

sure  way  to  win; 
(An',  fact,  it  doos  look  now  ez  though  — 

but  folks  must  live  an'  larn  — 
We  should  git  lead,  an'  more  'n  we  want, 

out  o'  the  Old  Consarn;) 
But  when  I  see  a  man  so  wise  an'  honest 

ez  Buchanan 
A-lettin'  us   hev  all  the  forts  an'  all  the 

arms  an'  cannon, 
Admittin'  we  wuz  nat'lly  right  an'  you  wuz 

nat'lly  wrong, 
Coz  you  wuz  lab'rin'-folks  an'  we  wuz  wut 

they  call  bong-tong, 
An'  coz  there  warn't  no  fight  in  ye  more  'n 

in  a  mashed  potater, 
While  two  o'  us  can't  skurcely  meet  but 

wut  we  fight  by  natur', 
An'  th'  ain't  a  bar-room  here  would  pay  for 

openin'  on  't  a  night, 
Without  it  giv  the  priverlege  o'  bein'  shot 

at  sight, 
Which  proves  we   're   Natur's  noblemen, 

with  whom  it  don't  surprise 
The  British  aristoxy   should  feel  boun'  to 

sympathize,  — 
Seem'  all  this,  an'  seem',  tu,  the  thing  wuz 

strikin'  roots 
While  Uncle  Sam  sot   still  in  hopes   thet 

some  one  'd  bring  his  boots, 
I  thought  th'  ole  Union's  hoops  wuz   off, 

an*  let  myself  be  sucked  in 
To  rise  a  peg  an'  jine  the  crowd  thet  went 

for  reconstructin',  — 
Thet  is  to  hev  the  pardnership  under  th' 

ole  name  continner 
Jest  ez  it  wuz,  we  drorrin'  pay,  you  findin' 

bone  an'  sinner,  — 
On'y  to  put  it  in  the  bond,  an'  enter  't  in 

the  journals, 
Thet  you  're  the  nat'ral  rank  an'  file,  an' 

we  the  nat'ral  kurnels. 

Now  this  I  thought  a  fees'ble   plan,  thet 
'ud  work  smooth  ez  grease, 


Suitin'  the  Nineteenth  Century  an'  Upper 

Ten  idees, 
An'  there  I  meant  to  stick,  an'  so  did  most 

o'  th'  leaders,  tu, 
Coz  we  all  thought  the  chance  wuz  good  o' 

puttin'  on  it  thru  ; 
But  Jeff  he  hit  upon  a  way  o'  helpin'  on  us 

forrard 
By  bein'  unannermous,  —  a  trick  you  ain't 

quite  up  to,  Norrard. 
A  Baldin  hain't  no  more  'f  a  chance  with 

them  new  apple-corers 
Than  folks's  oppersition  views  aginst  the 

Ringtail  Roarers  ; 
They  '11  take  'em  out  on  him  'bout  east,  — 

one  canter  on  a  rail 
Makes  a  man  feel  unannermous  ez  Jonah 

in  the  whale  ; 
Or  ef  he  's  a  slow-moulded  cuss  thet  can't 

seem  quite  t'  'gree, 
He  gits  the  noose  by  tellergraph  upon  the 

nighes'  tree  :" 
Their  mission-work  with  Afrikins  hez  put 

'em  up,  thet 's  sartin, 
To  all  the  mos'  across-lot  ways  o'  preachin' 

an'  convartin' ; 
I  '11  bet  my  hat  th'  ain't  nary  priest,  nor  all 

on  'em  together, 
Thet  cairs  conviction  to  the  min'  like  Rev- 

eren'  Taranfeather  ; 

Why,  he  sot  up  with  me  one  night,  an'  la 
bored  to  sech  purpose, 
Thet  (ez   an    owl   by  daylight  'mongst   a 

flock  o'  teazin'  chirpers 
Sees  clearer  'n  mud  the  wickedness  o'  eatin* 

little  birds) 
I  see  my  error  an'  agreed  to  shen  it  arter- 

wurds  ; 
An'  I  should  say,  (to  jedge  our  folks  by 

facs  in  my  possession,) 
Thet  three 's  Unannermous  where  one  's  a 

'Riginal  Secession  ; 
So  it 's  a  thing  you  fellers  North  may  safely 

bet  your  chink  on, 
Thet   we  're    all   water-proofed     agin   th' 

usurpin'  reign  o'  Lincoln. 

Jeff 's  some.   He  's  gut  another  plan  thet  hez 

pertic'lar  merits, 
In  givin'  things  a  cheerfle  look  an'  stiffnin* 

loose-hung  sperits  ; 
For  while  your  million  papers,  wut  with 

lyin'  an'  discussin', 
Keep  folks's  tempers  all  on  eend  a-fumin' 

an'  a-fussiu', 


246 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


A-wondrin'    this    an'    guessin'    thet,    an' 

dreadin'  every  night 
The   breechin'   o'  the   Univarse  '11   break 

afore  it 's  light, 
Our  papers  don't  purtend  to  print  on'y  wut 

Guv'ment  choose, 
An'  thet  insures  us  all  to  git  the  very  best 

o'  noose  : 
Jeff  hez  it  of  all  sorts  an'  kines,  an'  sarves 

it  out  ez  wanted, 

So  's  't  every  man  gits  wut  he  likes  an'  no 
body  ain't  scanted  ; 
Sometimes    it 's    vict'ries    (they  're    'bout 

all    ther'    is    that's    cheap    down 

here,) 
Sometimes  it 's  France  an'  England  on  the 

jump  to  interfere. 
Fact  is,  the  less  the  people  know  o'  wut 

ther'  is  a-doin', 
The  hendier  't  is  for   Guv'ment,  sence   it 

benders  trouble  brewin'  ; 
An*  noose  is  like  a  shinplaster,  —  it 's  good, 

ef  you  believe  it, 
Or,  wut 's  all  same,  the  other  man  thet 's 

goin'  to  receive  it : 
Ef  you  've  a  son  in  th'  army,  wy,  it 's  com- 

fortin'  to  hear 
He  '11  hev  no  gretter  resk  to  run  than  seein' 

th'  in'my's  rear, 
Coz,  ef  an  F.  F.  looks  at  'em,  they  oilers 

break  an'  run, 
Or  wilt  right   down  ez  debtors  will  thet 

stumble  on  a  dun, 
(An*  this,  ef  an'thin',  proves  the  wuth  o' 

proper  fem'ly  pride, 
Fer  sech  mean  shucks  ez  creditors  are  all 

on  Lincoln's  side)  ; 
Ef  I  hev  scrip  thet  wun't  go  off  no  more  'n 

a  Belgin  rifle, 
An'  read  thet  it 's  at  par  on  'Change,  it 

makes  me  feel  deli'fle; 
It's  cheerin',  tu,  where    every  man  mus' 

fortify  his  bed, 
To  hear  thet  Freedom  's  the  one  thing  our 

darkies  mos'ly  dread, 
An'  thet  experunce,  time  'n'  agin,  to  Dixie's 

Land  hez  shown 
Ther'  's  nothin'  like  a  powder-cask  fer  a 

stiddy  corner-stone  ; 
Ain't  it  ez  good  ez  nuts,  when  salt  is  sellin' 

by  the  ounce 
For  its  own  weight  in  Treash'ry-bons,  (ef 

bought  in  small  amounts,) 
When   even  whiskey 's   gittin'   skurce  an 

sugar  can't  be  found, 


To  know  thet  all  the  ellerrnents  o'  luxury 

abound  ? 
An'  don't  it  glorify  sal'-pork,  to  come  to 

understand 
It 's  wut  the  Kichmon'  editors  call  fatness 

o'  the  land  ! 
Nex'  thing  to  knowin'  you  're  well  off  is 

nut  to  know  when  y*  ain't ; 
An'   ef  Jeff   says  all's  goin'  wal,  who'll 

ventur'  t'  say  it  ain't  ? 

This  cairn  the  Constitooshun  roun'  ez  Jeff 

doos  in  his  hat 
Is  hendier  a  dreffle  sight,  an'  comes  more 

kin'  o'  pat. 
I  tell  ye  wut,  my  jedgment  is  you  're  pooty 

sure  to  fail, 
Ez  long  'z  the  head  keeps  turnin'  back  for 

counsel  to  the  tail  : 
Th'  advantiges  of   our   consarn   for  bein' 

prompt  air  gret, 
While,  'long  o'  Congress,  you  can't  strike, 

'f  you  git  an  iron  het  ; 
They  bother   roun'  with  argooin',  an*  va- 

r'ous  sorts  o'  foolin', 
To  make  sure  ef  it 's  leg'lly  het,  an'  all  the 

while  it 's  coolin', 
So  's  't  when  you  come  to  strike,  it  ain't  no 

gret  to  wish  ye  j'y  on, 
An'  hurts  the  hammer  'z  much  or  more  ez 

wut  it  doos  the  iron, 
Jeff  don't  allow  no  jawin'-sprees  for  three 

months  at  a  stretch, 
Knowin'  the  ears  long  speeches   suits  air 

mostly  made  to  metch  ; 
He  jes'  ropes  in  your  tonguey  chaps  an' 

reg'lar  ten-inch  bores 
An'  lets  'em  play  at  Congress,  ef  they  '11 

du  it  with  closed  doors  ; 
So  they  ain't  no  more  bothersome  than  ef 

we  'd  took  an'  sunk  'em, 
An'  yit  en  j'y  th'   exclusive   right  to   one 

another's  Buncombe 
'thout  doin'  nobody  no  hurt,  an'  'thout  its 

costin'  nothin', 
Their  pay  bein'  jes'  Confedrit  funds,  they 

findin'  keep  an'  clothin' ; 
They  taste  the  sweets  o'  public  life,  an* 

plan  their  little  jobs, 
An'  suck  the  Treash'ry  (no  gret  harm,  for 

it 's  ez  dry  ez  cobs,) 
An'  go  thru  all  the  motions  jest  ez  safe  ez 

in  a  prison, 
An'  hev  their  business  to  themselves,  while 

Buregard  hez  hisn  : 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


247 


Ez  long  'z  he  gives  the  Hessians  fits,  com 
mittees  can't  make  bother 
'bout  whether  't  's  done  the  legle  way  or 

whether  't 's  done  tother. 
An'  /  tell  you  you  've  gut  to  larn  thet  War 

ain't  one  long  teeter 
Betwixt  /  wan'  to  an'  'Twun't  du,  debatin' 

like  a  skeetur 
Afore  he  lights,  —  all  is,  to  give  the  other 

side  a  millin', 
An'  arter  thet 's  done,  th'  ain't  no  resk  but 

wut  the  lor  '11  be  willin'  ; 
No  metter  wut  the  guv'ment  is,  ez  nigh  ez 

I  can  hit  it, 
A  lickin'  's  constitooshunal,  pervidin'   We 

don't  git  it. 
Jeff  don't  stan'  dilly-dallyin',  afore  he  takes 

a  fort, 
(With  no  one  in,)  to  git  the  leave  o'  the 

nex'  Soopreme  Court, 
Nor  don't  want  f orty-'leven  weeks  o'  jawin' 

an'  expounding 
To  prove  a  nigger  hez  a  right  to  save  him, 

ef  he  's  drowndin'  ; 
Whereas  ole  Abe  'ud  sink  afore  he  'd  let  a 

darkie  boost  him, 
Ef  Taney  should  n't  come  along  an'  hed  n't 

iuterdooced  him. 
It  ain't  your  twenty  millions  thet  '11  ever 

block  Jeff's  game, 
But  one  Man  thet  wun't  let  'em  jog  jest  ez 

he  's  takin'  aim  : 
Your  numbers  they  may  strengthen  ye  or 

weaken  ye,  ez  't  heppens 
They  're    willin'   to   be    helpiii'   hands   or 

wuss-'n-nothin'  cap'ns. 

I  've  chose  my  side,  an'  't  ain't  no  odds  ef  I 

wuz  drawed  with  magnets, 
Or  ef  I  thought  it  prudenter  to  jine  the 

nighes'  bagnets  ; 
I  've  made  my   ch'ice,   an'   ciphered   out, 

from  all  I  see  an'  heard, 
Th'  ole  Constitooshun  never  'd  git  her  decks 

for  action  cleared, 
Long  'z  you  elect   for   Congressmen   poor 

shotes  thet  want  to  go 
Coz  they  can't  seem  to  git  their  grub  no 

otherways  than  so, 
An'  let  your  bes'  men  stay  to  home  coz  they 

wun't  show  ez  talkers, 
Nor  can't  be  hired  to  fool  ye  an'  sof'-soap 

ye  at  a  caucus,  — 
Long  'z  ye  set  by  Rotashun  more  'n  ye  do 

by  folks's  merits, 


Ez  though  experunce   thriv  by  change  o' 

sile,  like  corn  an'  kerrits,  — 
Long  'z  you  allow  a  critter's  "  claims  "  coz, 

spite  o'  shoves  an'  tippins, 
He 's    kep'    his    private    pan   jest    where 

'twould    ketch    inos'    public    drip- 
pin's,  — 
Long  'z  A.  '11  turn  tu  an'  grin'  B.  's  exe,  ef 

B.  '11  help  him  grin'  hisn, 
(An'  thet's  the  main  idee  by  which  your 

leadiu'  men  hev  risen,)  — 
Long  'z  you  let  ary  exe  be  groun',  'less  't  is 

to  cut  the  weasan' 
O'  sneaks  thet  dunno  till  they  're  told  wut 

is  an'  wut  ain't  Treason,  — 
Long  'z  ye  give  out  commissions  to  a  lot  o' 

peddlin'  drones 
Thet  trade  in  whiskey  with  their  men  an* 

skin  'em  to  their  bones,  — 
Long  'z  ye  sift  out  "  safe  "  canderdates  thet 

no  one  ain't  afeard  on 
Coz  they  're  so  thund'rin'  eminent  for  bein* 

never  heard  on, 
An'  hain't  no  record,  ez   it 's   called,  for 

folks  to  pick  a  hole  in, 
Ez  ef  it  hurt  a  man  to  hev  a  body  with  a 

soul  in, 
An'  it  wuz  ostentashun  to  be  showin'  on  't 

about, 
When  half  his  feller-citizens  contrive  to  du 

without,  — 
Long  'z  you  suppose  your  votes  can  turn 

biled  kebbage  into  brain, 
An'  ary  man  thet 's  pop'lar  's  fit  to  drive  a 

lightnin'-train,  — 
Long  'z  you  believe  democracy  means  /  'wi 

ez  good  ez  you  be, 
An'  that  a  feller  from  the  ranks  can't  be  a 

knave  or  booby,  — 
Long  'z  Congress  seems  purvided,  like  yer 

street-cars  an'  yer  'busses, 
With  oilers  room  for  jes'  one  more  o'  your 

spiled-in-bakin'  cusses, 
Dough  'thout  the  emptins  of  a  soul,  an'  yit 

with  means  about  'em 
(Like    essence-peddlers  J)    thet  '11    make 

folks  long  to  be  without  'em, 
Jes  heavy  'nough   to  turn  a  scale  thet  's 

doubtfle  the  wrong  way, 
An'  make  their  nat'ral  arsenal  o'  bein'  nasty 

Pa7>  — 

Long  'z  them  things  last,  (an'  7  don't  see 
no  gret  signs  of  improvin',) 

1  A  rustic  euphemism  for  the  American  variety  of 
the  Mephitis.  H.  W. 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


I  sha'n't  up  stakes,  not  hardly  yit,  nor  't 
would  n't  pay  for  movin' ; 

For,  'fore  you  lick  us,  it  '11  be  the  long'st 
day  ever  you  see. 

Yourn,  (ez  I  'xpec'  to  be  nex'  spring,) 

B.,  MARKISS  o'  BIG  BOOSY. 


No.  IV 

A  MESSAGE  OF   JEFF  DAVIS    IN 
SECRET  SESSION 

Conjecturally  reported  by  H.  BIGLOW 

TO  THE   EDITORS   OF   THE   ATLANTIC 

MONTHLY 

JAALAM,  10  March,  1862. 
GENTLEMEN, — My  leisure  has  been  so 
entirely  occupied  with  the  hitherto  fruitless 
endeavour  to  decypher  the  Runick  inscrip 
tion  whose  fortunate  discovery  I  mentioned 
in  my  last  communication,  that  I  have  not 
found  time  to  discuss,  as  I  had  intended, 
the  great  problem  of  what  we  are  to  do  with 
slavery,  —  a  topick  on  which  the  publick 
mind  in  this  place  is  at  present  more  than 
ever  agitated.  What  my  wishes  and  hopes 
are  I  need  not  say,  but  for  safe  conclusions 
I  do  not  conceive  that  we  are  yet  in  posses 
sion  of  facts  enough  on  which  to  bottom 
them  with  certainty.  Acknowledging  the 
hand  of  Providence,  as  I  do,  in  all  events, 
I  am  sometimes  inclined  to  think  that  they 
are  wiser  than  we,  and  am  willing  to  wait 
till  we  have  made  this  continent  once  more 
a  place  where  freemen  can  live  in  security 
and  honour,  before  assuming  any  further 
responsibility.  This  is  the  view  taken  by 
my  neighbour  Habakkuk  Sloansure,  Esq., 
the  president  of  our  bank,  whose  opinion  in 
the  practical  affairs  of  life  has  great  weight 
with  me,  as  I  have  generally  found  it  to  be 
justified  by  the  event,  and  whose  counsel, 
had  I  followed  it,  would  have  saved  me 
from  an  unfortunate  investment  of  a  con 
siderable  part  of  the  painful  economies  of 
half  a  century  in  the  Northwest-Passage 
Tunnel.  After  a  somewhat  animated  discus 
sion  with  this  gentleman  a  few  days  since,  I 
expanded,  on  the  audi  alteram  partem  prin 
ciple,  something  which  he  happened  to  say 
by  way  of  illustration,  into  the  following 
fable. 


FESTINA  LENTE 

ONCE  on  a  time  there  was  a  pool 
Fringed  all  about  with  flag-leaves  cool 
And  spotted  with  cow-lilies  garish, 
Of  frogs  and  pouts  the  ancient  parish. 
Alders  the  creaking  redwings  sink  on, 
Tussocks  that  house  blithe  Bob  o'  Lincoln 
Hedged  round  the  unassailed  seclusion, 
Where  muskrats  piled  their  cells  Carthusian  ; 
And  many  a  moss-embroidered  log, 
The  watering-place  of  summer  frog, 
Slept  and  decayed  with  patient  skill, 
As  watering-places  sometimes  will. 

Now  in  this  Abbey  of  Theleme, 

Which  realized  the  fairest  dream 

That  ever  dozing  bull-frog  had, 

Sunned  on  a  half-sunk  lily-pad, 

There  rose  a  party  with  a  mission 

To  mend  the  polliwogs'  condition, 

Who  notified  the  selectmen 

To  call  a  meeting  there  and  then. 

"  Some  kind  of  steps,"  they  said,  "are  needed : 

They  don't  come  on  so  fast  as  we  did: 

Let  's  dock  their  tails  ;  if  that  don't  make  'em 

Frogs  by  brevet,  the  Old  One  take  'em  ! 

That  boy,  that  came  the  other  day 

To  dig  some  flag-root  down  this  way, 

His  jack-knife  left,  and  't  is  a  sign 

That  Heaven  approves  of  our  design : 

'T  were  wicked  not  to  urge  the  step  on, 

When  Providence  has  sent  the  weapon." 

Old  croakers,  deacons  of  the  mire, 
That  led  the  deep  batrachian  choir, 
Uk  !    Uk  !    Caronk  !  with  bass  that  might 
Have  left  Lablache's  out  of  sight, 
Shook  nobby  heads,  and  said,  "  No  go ! 
You  'd  better  let  'em  try  to  grow : 
Old  Doctor  Time  is  slow,  but  still 
He  does  know  how  to  make  a  pill." 

But  vain  was  all  their  hoarsest  bass, 
Their  old  experience  out  of  place, 
And  spite  of  croaking  and  entreating, 
The  vote  was  carried  in  marsh-meeting. 

"  Lord  knows,"  protest  the  polliwogs, 

"  We  're  anxious  to  be  grown-up  frogs ; 

But  don't  push  in  to  do  the  work 

Of  Nature  till  she  prove  a  shirk  ; 

'T  is  not  by  jumps  that  she  advances, 

But  wins  her  way  by  circumstances : 

Pray,  wait  awhile,  until  you  know 

We  're  so  contrived  as  not  to  grow ; 

Let  Nature  take  her  own  direction, 

And  she  '11  absorb  our  imperfection ; 

You  might  n't  like  'em  to  appear  with,  t 

But  we  must  have  the  things  to  steer  with.  ' 

"  No,"  piped  the  party  of  reform, 
"  All  great  results  are  ta'en  by  storm  ; 
Fate  holds  her  best  gifts  till  we  show 
We  Ve  strength  to  make  her  let  them  go; 
The  Providence  that  works  in  history, 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


249 


And  seems  to  some  folks  such  a  mystery, 
Does  not  creep  slowly  on  incog., 
But  moves  by  jumps,  a  mighty  frog ; 
No  more  reject  the  Age's  chrism, 
Your  queues  are  an  anachronism  ; 
No  more  the  Future's  promise  mock, 
But  lay  your  tails  upon  the  block, 
Thankful  that  we  the  means  have  voted 
To  have  you  thus  to  frogs  promoted." 

The  thing  was  done,  the  tails  were  cropped, 

And  home  each  philotadpole  hopped, 

In  faith  rewarded  to  exult, 

And  wait  the  beautiful  result. 

Too  soon  it  came  ;  our  pool,  so  long 

The  theme  of  patriot  bull-frog's  song, 

Next  day  was  reeking,  fit  to  smother, 

With  heads  and  tails  that  missed  each  other,  — 

Here  snoutless  tails,  there  tailless  snouts ; 

The  only  gainers  were  the  pouts. 

MORAL 

From  lower  to  the  higher  next, 
Not  to  the  top,  is  Nature's  text ; 
And  embryo  Good,  to  reach  full  stature, 
Absorbs  the  Evil  in  its  nature. 

I  think  that  nothing  will  ever  give  per 
manent  peace  and  security  to  this  continent 
but  the  extirpation  of  Slavery  therefrom, 
and  that  the  occasion  is  nigh  ;  but  I  would 
do  nothing  hastily  or  vindictively,  nor  pre 
sume  to  jog  the  elbow  of  Providence.  No 
desperate  measures  for  me  till  we  are  sure 
that  all  others  are  hopeless,  —flectere  si  ne- 
queo  SUPEROS,  Acheronta  movebo.  To  make 
Emancipation  a  reform  instead  of  a  revolu 
tion  is  worth  a  little  patience,  that  we  may 
have  the  Border  States  first,  and  then  the 
non-slaveholders  of  the  Cotton  States,  with 
us  in  principle,  —  a  consummation  that 
seems  to  be  nearer  than  many  imagine. 
Fiat  justitia,  mat  ccdum,  is  not  to  be  taken 
in  a  literal  sense  by  statesmen,  whose  prob 
lem  is  to  get  justice  done  with  as  little  jar 
as  possible  to  existing  order,  which  has  at 
least  so  much  of  heaven  in  it  that  it  is  not 
chaos.  Our  first  duty  toward  our  enslaved 
brother  is  to  educate  him,  whether  he  be 
white  or  black.  The  first  need  of  the  free 
black  is  to  elevate  himself  according  to  the 
standard  of  this  material  generation.  So 
soon  as  the  Ethiopian  goes  in  his  chariot,  he 
will  find  not  only  Apostles,  but  Chief 
Priests  and  Scribes  and  Pharisees  willing 
to  ride  with  him. 

"  Nil  habet  infelix  paupertas  durius  in  se 
Quam  quod  ridicules  homines  facit." 

I  rejoice  in  the  President's  late  Message, 


which  at  last  proclaims  the  Government 
on  the  side  of  freedom,  justice,  and  sound 
policy. 

As  I  write,  comes  the  news  of  our  dis 
aster  at  Hampton  Roads.  I  do  not  un 
derstand  the  supineness  which,  after  fair 
warning,  leaves  wood  to  an  unequal  conflict 
with  iron.  It  is  not  enough  merely  to  have 
the  right  on  our  side,  if  we  stick  to  the  old 
flint-lock  of  tradition.  I  have  observed 
in  my  parochial  experience  Qiaud  ignarus 
mali)  that  the  Devil  is  prompt  to  adopt  the 
latest  inventions  of  destructive  warfare, 
and  may  thus  take  even  sucb  a  three-decker 
as  Bishop  Butler  at  an  advantage.  It  is 
curious,  that,  as  gunpowder  made  armour 
useless  on  shore,  so  armour  is  having  its 
revenge  by  baffling  its  old  enemy  at  sea  ; 
and  that,  while  gunpowder  robbed  land 
warfare  of  nearly  all  its  picturesqueness 
to  give  even  greater  stateliness  and  sub 
limity  to  a  sea-fight,  armour  bids  fair  to 
degrade  the  latter  into  a  squabble  between 
two  iron-shelled  turtles. 

Yours,  with  esteem  and  respect, 

HOMER  WILBUR,  A.  M. 

p.  g.  —  I  had  wellnigh  forgotten  to  say 
that  the  object  of  this  letter  is  to  enclose  a 
communication  from  the  gifted  pen  of  Mr. 
Biglow. 

I  SENT  you  a  messige,  my  friens,  t'  other 

day, 

To  tell  you  I  'd  nothin'  pertickler  to  say  : 
't  wuz  the  day  our  new  nation  gut  kin'  o* 

stillborn, 

So't   wuz   my   pleasant   dooty   t' acknow 
ledge  the  corn, 

An'  I  see  clearly  then,  ef  I  did  n't  before, 
Thet  the  augur  in  inauguration  means  bore. 
I  need  n't  tell  you  tbet   my  messige  wuz 

written 
To  diffuse   correc'  notions  in  France  an' 

Gret  Britten, 

An'  agin  to  impress  on  the  poppy lar  mind 
The  comfort  an'  wisdom  o'  goin'  it  blind,  — 
To  say  thet  I  did  n't  abate  not  a  hooter 
O'  my  faith  in  a  happy  an'  glorious  futur', 
Ez  rich  in  each  soshle  an'  p'litickle  blessin' 
Ez  them  thet  we  now  hed  the  joy  o'  pos 
sessing 

With  a  people  united,  an'  longin'  to  die 
For  wut  we  call  their  country,  without  ask- 
in'  why, 


250 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


An'  all  the  gret   things  we    concluded   to 

slope  For 
Ez  much  within  reach   now   ez   ever  —  to 

hope  for. 
We  've  gut  all  the  ellerments,  this  very 

hour, 
Thet  make  up   a  fus'-class,  self-governin' 

power: 
We  've  a  war,  an'  a  debt,  an'  a  flag;  an'  ef 

this 
Ain't  to  be  inderpendunt,  why,  wut  on  airth 

is? 
An'  nothin'   now   henders   our   takin'   our 

station 
Ez    the   freest,    enlightenedest,    civerlized 

nation, 

Built  up  on  our  bran'-new  politickle  thesis 
Thet  a  Gov'ment's  fust  right  is  to  tumble 

to  pieces,  — 

I  say  nothin'  henders  our  takin'  our  place 
Ez  the  very  fus'-best  o'  the  whole  human 

race, 

A  spittin'  tobacker  ez  proud  ez  you  please 
On   Victory's    bes'   carpets,    or   loafin'   at 

ease 

In  the  Tool'ries  front-parlor,  discussin'  af 
fairs 
With  our  heels  on  the  backs  o'  Napoleon's 

new  chairs, 
An'    princes    a-mixin'    our    cocktails    an' 

slings,  — 

Excep',  wal,  excep'  jest  a  very  few  things, 
Sech  ez  navies  an'  armies  an'  wherewith  to 

Pay> 

An*  gettin'  our  sogers  to  run  t'  other  way, 
An'  not  be  too  over-pertickler  in  tryin' 
To  hunt  up  the  very  las'  ditches  to  die  in. 

Ther'  are  critters  so  base  thet  they  want  it 

explained 
Jes'  wut  is   the   totle  amount  thet  we  Ve 

gained, 

Ez  ef  we  could  maysure  stupendous  events 
By  the  low  Yankee  stan'ard  o'  dollars  an' 

cents: 
They  seem  to  forgit,  thet,  sence  last  year 

revolved, 
We  've   succeeded  in  gittin'   seceshed  an' 

dissolved, 
An'  thet  no  one  can't  hope  to  git  thru  dis- 

solootion 
'thout  some  kin'  o'  strain  on  the  best  Con- 

stitootion. 
Who  asks  for  a  prospec'  more  flettrin'  an' 

bright, 


When   from  here  clean  to  Texas  it  's   all 

one  free  fight  ? 
Hain't  we  rescued  from  Seward  the  gret 

leadin'  featurs 
Thet  makes  it  wuth  while  to  be  reasonin' 

creaturs  ? 
Hain't  we  saved  Habus  Coppers,  improved 

it  in  fact, 
By  suspendin'  the    Unionists    'stid   o'   the 

Act? 
Ain't  the   laws   free   to   all  ?     Where   on 

airth  else  d'  ye  see 
Every  freeman  improvin'  his  own  rope  an' 

tree? 
Ain't  our  piety  sech    (in  our  speeches  an* 

messiges) 
Ez  t'  astonish  ourselves  in  the  bes'-com- 

posed  pessiges, 
An'  to  make  folks  thet  knowed  us  in   th' 

ole  state  o'  things 

Think   convarsion  ez  easy  ez  drinkin'  gin- 
slings  ? 

It  's  ne'ssary  to  take  a  good  confident  tone 
With  the  public;   but  here,  jest  amongst 

us,  I  own 
Things  look  blacker  'n  thunder.     Ther'  's 

no  use  denyiii' 
We  're  clean  out  o'  money,  an'  'most  out  o' 

lyin'  ; 
Two  things  a  young  nation  can't  mennage 

without, 
Ef  she  wants  to  look  wal  at  her  fust  comin' 

out; 
For  the  fust   supplies   physickle  strength, 

while  the  second 
Gives  a  morril  edvantage  thet  's  hard  to  be 

reckoned: 
For  this  latter   I  'm  willin'  to  du  wut  I 

can; 
For  the  former  you  '11  hev  to  consult  on  a 

plan, — 
Though  our  fust  want  (an'  this  pint  I  want 

your  best  views  on) 

Is  plausible  paper  to  print  I.  O.  U.s  on. 
Some   gennlemen  think   it  would  cure  all 

our  cankers 
In  the  way  o'  finance,  ef  we   jes'   hanged 

the  bankers; 
An'  I  own  the  proposle  'ud  square  with  my 

views, 
Ef  their  lives  wuz  n't  all  thet  we  'd  left 

'em  to  lose. 
Some  say  thet  more   confidence  might  be 

inspired, 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


25' 


Ef  we  voted  our   cities   an'  towns   to   be 

fired,  — 

A  plan  thet  'ud  suttenly  tax  our  endurance, 
Coz  't  would  be  our  own  bills  we  should 

git  for  th'  insurance; 
But    cinders,   no   metter   how   sacred   we 

think  'era, 
Might  n't    strike   furrin    minds    ez    good 

sources  of  income, 
Nor  the  people,  perhaps,  would  n't  like  the 

eclaw 

O'  bein'  all  turned  into  paytriots  by  law. 
Some  want  we  should  buy  all  the    cotton 

an'  burn  it, 
On  a  pledge,   when   we  've   gut   thru    the 

war,  to  return  it,  — 
Then  to  take  the  proceeds  an'  hold  them  ez 

security 

For  an  issue  o*  bonds  to  be  met  at  maturity 
With  an  issue  o'  notes  to  be  paid  in  hard 

cash 
On  the  fus'  Monday  follerin'  the   'tarnal 

Allsmash: 
This  hez  a  safe  air,  an',  once  hold  o'  the 

gold, 
'ud  leave  our  vile  plunderers   out   in  the 

cold, 
An'  might  temp'  John  Bull,  ef  it  warn't  for 

the  dip  he 
Once  gut  from  the  banks  o'  my  own  Mas- 

sissippi. 
Some  think  we  could  make,  by  arrangin' 

the  figgers, 

A  hendy  home-currency  out  of  our  niggers; 
But  it  wun't  du  to  lean  much  on  ary  sech 

staff, 
For  they  're  gittin'  tu  current  a'ready,  by 

half. 

One  gennleman  says,  ef  we  lef  our  loan 

out 
Where  Floyd  could  git  hold  on 't  he  'd  take 

it,  no  doubt; 
But  't  ain't  jes'  the  takin,  though  't  hez  a 

good  look, 
We  mus'  git  sunthin'  out  on  it  arter  it 's 

took, 
An'  we  need  now  more  'n  ever,  with  sorrer 

I  own, 

Thet  some  one  another  should  let  us  a  loan, 
Sence  a  soger  wun't  fight,  on'y  jes'  while 

he  draws  his 
Pay  down  on  the  nail,  for  the  best  of  all 

causes, 


'thout  askin'  to  know    wut   the   quarrel   's 

about,  — 
An'  once  come  to  thet,  why,  our  game  is 

played  out. 
It  's  ez  true  ez  though  I  should  n't  never 

hev  said  it, 
Thet  a  hitch  hez  took  place  in  our  system 

o'  credit; 
I  swear  it 's  all  right  in  my  speeches  an' 

messiges, 
But  ther'  's  idees  afloat,  ez  ther'  is  about 

sessiges  : 
Folks  wun't  take  a  bond  ez  a  basis  to  trade 

on, 
Without  nosin'  round  to  find  out  wut  it 's 

made  on, 
An'  the  thought  more  an'  more  thru  the 

public  min'  crosses 
Thet  our  Treshry  hez  gut  'mos'  too  many 

dead  bosses. 
Wut 's  called  credit,  you  see,  is  some  like 

a  balloon, 
Thet  looks   while  it 's  up  'most  ez  harn- 

some  'z  a  moon, 
But  once  git  a  leak  in  't,  an'  wut  looked  so 

grand 
Caves  righ'  down  in  a  jiffy  ez  flat  ez  your 

hand. 
Now  the  world  is  a  dreffle  mean  place,  for 

our  sins, 
Where  ther'  ollus  is   critters   about   with 

long  pins 
A-prickin'  the  bubbles  we  've  blowed  with 

sech  care, 
An'  provin'  ther'  's  nothin'  inside  but  bad 

air  : 
They  're  all  Stuart  Millses,  poor- white  trash, 

an'  sneaks, 
Without  no  more  chivverlry  'n  Choctaws  or 

Creeks, 
Who  think  a  real  gennleman's  promise  to 

pay 

Is  meant  to  be  took  in  trade's  ornery  way  : 
Them  fellers  an'  I  could  n'  never  agree  ; 
They  're  the  nateral   foes  o'  the   Soutnun 

Idee; 
I  'd  gladly  take  all  of  our  other  resks  on 

me 
To  be  red  o'  this  low-lived  politikle  'con- 

'my! 

Now  a  dastardly  notion  is  gittin'  about 
Thet  our  bladder  is  bust  an'  the  gas  oozin' 
out, 


252 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


An'  oiiless  we  can  mennage  in  some  way  to 

stop  it, 
Why,    the   thing's   a   gone   coon,  an'  we 

might  ez  wal  drop  it. 
Brag  works  wal  at  fust,  but  it  ain't  jes'  the 

thing 
For   a   stiddy   inves'ment   the    shiners   to 

bring, 
An'   votin'    we  're    prosp'rous   a   hundred 

times  over 
Wun't  change  bein'  starved  into  livin'  in 

clover. 
Manassas  done  sunthiu'  tow'rds  drawin'  the 

wool 
O'er  the  green,  antislavery  eyes  o'  John 

Bull: 
Oh,    warn't   it   a  godsend,  jes'  when  sech 

tight  fixes 
Wuz    crowdin'    us     mourners,     to    throw 

double-sixes  ! 
I  wuz  tempted  to  think,  an'  it  wuz  n't  no 

wonder, 
Ther'  wuz   reelly  a  Providence,  —  over  or 

under,  — 
When,    all   packed    for   Nashville,  I   fust 

ascertained 
From  the  papers  up  North  wut  a  victory 

we  'd  gained, 
't  wuz  the  time  for  diffusin'  correc'  views 

abroad 
Of  our  union  an'  strength  an'  relyin'   on 

God; 
An',  fact,  when  I  'd  gut  thru  my  fust  big 

surprise, 
I  much  ez  half  b'lieved  in  my  own  tallest 

lies, 
An'   conveyed   the    idee    thet    the    whole 

Southun  popperlace 
Wuz  Spartans  all  on  the  keen  jump  for 

Thermopperlies, 
Thet  set  on  the  Lincolnites'  bombs  till  they 

bust, 
An'  fight  for  the   priv'lege   o'   dyin'    the 

fust; 
But  Roanoke,  Bufort,  Millspring,  an'  the 

rest 
Of  our  recent  starn-foremost  successes  out 

West, 
Hain't  left  us  a  foot  for  our   swellin'  to 

stand  on,  — 
We  Ve  showed  too  much  o'  wut  Buregard 

calls  abandon, 
For  all   our   Thermopperlies    (an'   it 's   a 

marcy 


We  hain't  hed  no  more)  hev  ben  clean  vicy- 

varsy, 
An'  wut  Spartans  wuz  lef '  when  the  battle 

wuz  done 
Wuz  them  thet  wuz  too  unambitious  to  run. 

Oh,  ef  we  hed  on'y  jes'  gut  Reecognition, 
Things  now  would  ha'  ben  in  a  different 

position  ! 
You  'd  ha'  hed  all  you  wanted  :  the  paper 

blockade 
Smashed   up    into    toothpicks  ;    unlimited 

trade 
In  the  one  thing  thet 's  ueedfle,  till  niggers, 

I  swow, 
Hed  ben  thicker  '11  provisional  shin-plasters 

now ; 
Quinine  by  the  ton  'ginst  the  shakes  when 

they  seize  ye  ; 

Nice  paper  to  coin  into  C.  S.  A.  specie  ; 
The  voice  of  the  driver  'd  be  heerd  in  our 

land, 
An'  the  univarse  scringe,  ef  we  lifted  our 

hand  : 
Would  n't  thet  be  some  like  a  fulfillin'  the 

prophecies, 
With  all  the  fus'  fern 'lies  in  all  the  fust 

offices  ? 
't  wuz  a  beautiful  dream,  an'  all  sorrer  is 

idle,— 
But  ef  Lincoln  would  ha'  hanged  Mason  an' 

Slidell ! 
For  would  n't  the  Yankees  hev  found  they  'd 

ketched  Tartars, 
Ef  they  'd  raised  two  sech  critters  as  them 


into 


marty 


Mason  wuz  F.  F.  V.,  though  a  cheap  card 
to  win  on, 

But  t'  other  was  jes'  New  York  trash  tc« 
begin  on  ; 

They  ain't  o'  no  good  in  Eurdpean  pellices, 

But  think  wut  a  help  they  'd  ha'  ben  on 
their  gallowses  ! 

They'd  ha'  felt  they  wuz  truly  fulfillin* 
their  mission, 

An'  oh,  how  dog-cheap  we  'd  ha'  gut  Ree 
cognition  ! 

But    somehow    another,    wutever    we  've 

tried, 
Though   the   the'ry 's   fust-rate,    the   facs 

Wun't  coincide  : 
Facs  are  contrary  'z  mules,  an'  ez  hard  in 

the  mouth, 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


253 


An'  they  all  us  hev  showed  a  mean  spite  to 

the  South. 

Sech  bein'  the  case,  we  hed  best  look  about 
For  some  kin'  o'  way  to  slip  our  necks  out  : 
Le'  's  vote  our  las'  dollar,  ef  one  can  be 

found, 
(An',   at   any   rate,    votin'   it  hez  a   good 

sound,)  — 
Le'  's  swear  thet  to  arms  all  our  people  is 

flyin', 
(The  critters  can't  read,  an'  wun't  know 

how  we  're  lyin',)  — 
Thet  Toombs  is  advancin'  to  sack  Cincin- 

nater, 
With  a  rovin'  commission  to  pillage    an' 

slahter,  — 
Thet  we  've  throwed  to  the  winds  all  regard 

for  wut  's  lawfle, 

An'  gone  in  for  sunthin'  promiscu'sly  awfle. 
Ye  see,  hitherto,  it's  our  own  knaves  an' 

fools 
Thet   we  've  used,  (those  for  whetstones, 

an'  t'  others  ez  tools,) 

An'  now  our  las'  chance  is  in  puttin'  to  test 
The  same  kin'  o'  cattle  up  North  an'  out 

West,— 
Your  Belmonts,  Vallandighams,  Woodses, 

an'  sech, 
Poor  shotes  thet  ye  could  n't  persuade  us 

to  tech, 
Not  in  ornery  times,  though  we  're  willin' 

to  feed  'em 
With  a  nod  now  an'  then,  when  we  happen 

to  need  'em  ; 
Why,  for  my  part,  I  'd  ruther  shake  hands   1 

with  a  nigger 
Than  with  cusses  that  load  an'  don't  darst   ! 

dror  a  trigger; 
They  're   the   wust   wooden   nutmegs    the 

Yankees  perdooce, 
Shaky  everywhcres  else,  an'  jes'  sound  on 

the  goose; 
They  ain't  wuth  a  cuss,  an'  I  set  nothin'  by 

'em, 
But  we  're  in  sech  a  fix  thet   I  s'pose  we 

mus'  try  'em. 
I  —    But,  Gennlemen,  here  's  a  despatch 

jes'  come  in 
Which  shows  thet  the  tide  's  begun  turnin' 

agin',  — 
Gret  Cornfedrit  success  !    C'lumbus  eeva- 

cooated! 
I  mus'  run  down  an'  hev  the  thing  properly 

stated, 
An'  show  wut  a  triumph  it  is,  an'  how  lucky 


To  fin'lly  git  red  o'  thet  cussed  Kentucky,  — 
An'  how,  sence  Fort  Douelson,  winuin*  the 

day 
Consists  in  triumphantly  gittin'  away. 

No.  V 

SPEECH  OF  HONOURABLE  PRE 
SERVED  DOE  IN  SECRET  CAU 
CUS 

TO   THE   EDITORS  OF  THE   ATLANTIC 
MONTHLY 

JAALAM,  12th  April,  1862. 
GENTLEMEN,  —  As  I  cannot  but  hope 
that  the  ultimate,  if  not  speedy,  success  of 
the  national  arms  is  now  sufficiently  ascer 
tained,  sure  as  I  am  of  the  righteousness  of 
our  cause  and  its  consequent  claim  on  the 
blessing  of  God,  (for  1  would  not  show  a 
faith  inferior  to  that  of  the  Pagan  historian 
with  his  Facile  evenit  quod  Dis  cordi  est,)  it 
seems  to  me  a  suitable  occasion  to  withdraw 
our  minds  a  moment  from  the  confusing  din 
of  battle  to  objects  of  peaceful  and  per 
manent  interest.  Let  us  not  neglect  the 
monuments  of  preterite  history  because 
what  shall  be  history  is  so  diligently  mak 
ing  under  our  eyes.  Cras  ingens  iterabimus 
cequor  •  to-morrow  will  be  time  enough  for 
that  stormy  sea  ;  to-day  let  me  engage  the 
attention  of  your  readers  with  the  Runick 
inscription  to  whose  fortunate  discovery  I 
have  heretofore  alluded.  Well  may  we  say 
with  the  poet,  Multa  renascuntur  qu.ce,  jam 
cecidere.  And  I  would  premise,  that,  al 
though  I  can  no  longer  resist  the  evidence 
of  my  own  senses  from  the  stone  before 
me  to  the  ante-Columbian  discovery  of  this 
continent  by  the  Northmen,  gens  inclytissima, 
as  they  are  called  in  a  Palermitan  inscrip 
tion,  written  fortunately  in  a  less  debatable 
character  than  that  which  I  am  about  to 
decipher,  yet  I  would  by  no  means  be  un 
derstood  as  wishing  to  vilipend  the  merits 
of  the  great  Genoese,  whose  name  will 
never  be  forgotten  so  long  as  the  inspiring 
strains  of  "Hail  Columbia"  shall  continue 
to  be  heard.  Though  he  must  be  stripped 
also  of  whatever  praise  may  belong  to  the 
experiment  of  the  egg,  which  I  find  prover 
bially  attributed  by  Castilian  authors  to  a 
certain  Juanito  or  Jack,  (perhaps  an  off 
shoot  of  our  giant-killing  my  thus,)  his  name 


254 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


will  still  remain  one  of  the  most  illustrious 
of  modern  times.  But  the  impartial  histo 
rian  owes  a  duty  likewise  to  obscure  merit, 
and  my  solicitude  to  render  a  tardy  justice 
is  perhaps  quickened  by  my  having  known 
those  who,  had  their  own  field  of  labour 
been  less  secluded,  might  have  found  a 
readier  acceptance  with  the  reading  publick. 
I  could  give  an  example,  but  I  forbear : 
forsitan  nostris  ex  ossibus  oritur  ultor. 

Touching  Runick  inscriptions,  I  find  that 
they  may  be  classed  under  three  general 
heads:  1°.  Those  which  are  understood  by 
the  Danish  Royal  Society  of  Northern  An 
tiquaries,  and  Professor  Rafn,  their  Secre 
tary;  2°.  Those  which  are  comprehensible 
only  by  Mr.  Rafn;  and  3°.  Those  which 
neither  the  Society,  Mr.  Rafn,  nor  anybody 
else  can  be  said  in  any  definite  sense  to  un 
derstand,  and  which  accordingly  offer  pe 
culiar  temptations  to  enucleating  sagacity. 
These  last  are  naturally  deemed  the  most 
valuable  by  intelligent  antiquaries,  and  to 
this  class  the  stone  now  in  my  possession 
fortunately  belongs.  Such  give  a  pictur 
esque  variety  to  ancient  events,  because 
susceptible  oftentimes  of  as  many  interpre 
tations  as  there  are  individual  archaeologists ; 
and  since  facts  are  only  the  pulp  in  which 
the  Idea  or  event-seed  is  softly  imbedded 
till  it  ripen,  it  is  of  little  consequence  what 
colour  or  flavour  we  attribute  to  them, 
provided  it  be  agreeable.  Availing  myself 
of  the  obliging  assistance  of  Mr.  Arphaxad 
Bowers,  an  ingenious  photographick  artist, 
whose  house-on-wheels  has  now  stood  for 
three  years  on  our  Meeting-House  Green, 
with  the  somewhat  contradictory  inscrip 
tion, —  "our  motto  is  onward"  —  I  have 
sent  accurate  copies  of  my  treasure  to 
many  learned  men  and  societies,  both  na 
tive  and  European.  I  may  hereafter  com 
municate  their  different  and  (me  judice) 
equally  erroneous  solutions.  I  solicit  also, 
Messrs.  Editors,  your  own  acceptance  of 
the  copy  herewith  enclosed.  I  need  only 
premise  further,  that  the  stone  itself  is  a 
goodly  block  of  metamorphick  sandstone, 
and  that  the  Runes  resemble  very  nearly 
the  ornithichnites  or  fossil  bird-tracks  of 
Dr.  Hitchcock,  but  with  less  regularity  or 
apparent  design  than  is  displayed  by  those 
remarkable  geological  monuments.  These 
are  rather  the  non  bene  junctarum  discordia 
semina  rerum.  Resolved  to  leave  no  door 


open  to  cavil,  I  first  of  all  attempted  the 
elucidation  of  this  remarkable  example  of 
lithick  literature  by  the  ordinary  modes, 
but  with  no  adequate  return  for  my  labour. 
I  then  considered  myself  amply  justified 
in  resorting  to  that  heroick  treatment  the 
felicity  of  which,  as  applied  by  the  great 
Bentley  to  Milton,  had  long  ago  enlisted 
my  admiration.  Indeed,  I  had  already  made 
up  my  mind,  that,  in  case  good  fortune 
should  throw  any  such  invaluable  record 
in  my  way,  I  would  proceed  with  it  in  the 
following  simple  and  satisfactory  method. 
After  a  cursory  examination,  merely  suf 
ficing  for  an  approximative  estimate  of  its 
length,  I  would  write  down  a  hypothetical 
inscription  based  upon  antecedent  probabil 
ities,  and  then  proceed  to  extract  from  the 
characters  engraven  on  the  stone  a  meaning 
as  nearly  as  possible  conformed  to  this  a 
priori  product  of  my  own  ingenuity.  The 
result  more  than  justified  my  hopes,  inas 
much  as  the  two  inscriptions  were  made 
without  any  great  violence  to  tally  in  all 
essential  particulars.  I  then  proceeded, 
not  without  some  anxiety,  to  my  second 
test,  which  was,  to  read  the  Runick  letters 
diagonally,  and  again  with  the  same  success. 
With  an  excitement  pardonable  under  the 
circumstances,  yet  tempered  with  thankful 
humility,  I  now  applied  my  last  and  sever 
est  trial,  my  experimentum  crucis.  I  turned 
the  stone,  now  doubly  precious  in  my  eyes, 
with  scrupulous  exactness  upside  down. 
The  physical  exertion  so  far  displaced  my 
spectacles  as  to  derange  for  a  moment  the 
focus  of  vision.  I  confess  that  it  was  with 
some  tremulousness  that  I  readjusted  them 
upon  my  nose,  and  prepared  my  mind  to 
bear  with  calmness  any  disappointment 
that  might  ensue.  But,  O  albo  dies  notanda 
lapillo  !  what  was  my  delight  to  find  that 
the  change  of  position  had  effected  none  in 
the  sense  of  the  writing,  even  by  so  much 
as  a  single  letter!  I  was  now,  and  justly,  as 
I  think,  satisfied  of  the  conscientious  exact 
ness  of  my  interpretation.  It  is  as  follows: 

HEBE 

BJARNA  GRIMOLFSSON 

FIRST  DRANK   CLOUD-BROTHER 

THROUGH     CHILD-OF-LAND-AND- 

WATER : 

that  is,  drew  smoke  through  a  reed  stem. 
In  other  words,  we  have  here  a  record  of 
the  first  smoking  of  the  herb  Nicotiana  Ta* 


THE  BIGLOW   PAPERS 


255 


bacum  by  an  European  on  this  continent. 
The  probable  results  of  this  discovery  are 
so  vast  as  to  baffle  conjecture.  If  it  be 
objected,  that  the  smoking  of  a  pipe  would 
hardly  justify  the  setting  up  of  a  memorial 
stone,  I  answer,  that  even  now  the  Moquis 
Indian,  ere  he  takes  his  first  whiff,  bows 
reverently  toward  the  four  quarters  of  the 
sky  in  succession,  and  that  the  loftiest 
monuments  have  been  reared  to  perpetuate 
fame,  which  is  the  dream  of  the  shadow  of 
smoke.  The  Saga,  it  will  be  remembered, 
leaves  this  Bjarna  to  a  fate  something  like 
that  of  Sir  Humphrey  Gilbert,  on  board  a 
sinking  ship  in  the  "  wormy  sea,"  having 
generously  given  up  his  place  in  the  boat  to 
a  certain  Icelander.  It  is  doubly  pleasant, 
therefore,  to  meet  with  this  proof  that  the 
brave  old  man  arrived  safely  in  Vinland, 
and  that  his  declining  years  were  cheered 
by  the  respectful  attentions  of  the  dusky 
denizens  of  our  then  uninvaded  forest. 
Most  of  all  was  I  gratified,  however,  in 
thus  linking  forever  the  name  of  my  native 
town  with  one  of  the  most  momentous 
occurrences  of  modern  times.  Hitherto 
Jaalam,  though  in  soil,  climate,  and  geo 
graphical  position  as  highly  qualified  to  be 
the  theatre  of  remarkable  historical  inci 
dents  as  any  spot  on  the  earth's  surface, 
has  been,  if  I  may  say  it  without  seem 
ing  to  question  the  wisdom  of  Providence, 
almost  maliciously  neglected,  as  it  might 
appear,  by  occurrences  of  world-wide  inter 
est  in  want  of  a  situation.  And  in  matters 
of  this  nature  it  must  be  confessed  that 
adequate  events  are  as  necessary  as  the 
votes  sacer  to  record  them.  Jaalam  stood 
always  modestly  ready,  but  circumstances 
made  no  fitting  response  to  her  generous 
intentions.  Now,  however,  she  assumes  her 
place  on  the  historick  roll.  I  have  hitherto 
been  a  zealous  opponent  of  the  Circean  herb, 
but  I  shall  now  reexamiue  the  question 
without  bias. 

I  am  aware  that  the  Rev.  Jonas  Tutchel, 
in  a  recent  communication  to  the  "  Bogus 
Four  Corners  Weekly  Meridian,"  has  en 
deavored  to  show  that  this  is  the  sepulchral 
inscription  of  Thorwald  Eriksson,  who,  as 
is  well  known,  was  slain  in  Vinland  by  the 
natives.  But  I  think  he  has  been  misled  by 
a  preconceived  theory,  and  cannot  but  feel 
that  he  has  thus  made  an  ungracious  return 
for  my  allowing  him  to  inspect  the  stone 


with  the  aid  of  my  own  glasses  (he  having 
by  accident  left  his  at  home)  and  in  my 
own  study.  The  heathen  ancients  might 
have  instructed  this  Christian  minister  in 
the  rites  of  hospitality;  but  much  is  to  be 
pardoned  to  the  spirit  of  self-love.  He  must 
indeed  be  ingenious  who  can  make  out  the 
words  her  hvilir  from  any  characters  in  the  in 
scription  in  question,  which,  whatever  else 
it  may  be,  is  certainly  not  mortuary.  And 
even  should  the  reverend  gentleman  succeed 
in  persuading  some  fantastical  wits  of  the 
soundness  of  his  views,  I  do  not  see  what  use 
ful  end  he  will  have  gained.  For  if  the  Eng 
lish  Courts  of  Law  hold  the  testimony  of 
gravestones  from  the  burial-grounds  of  Pro 
testant  dissenters  to  be  questionable,  even 
where  it  is  essential  in  proving  a  descent, 
I  cannot  conceive  that  the  epitaphial  asser 
tions  of  heathens  should  be  esteemed  of 
more  authority  by  any  man  of  orthodox 
sentiments. 

At  this  moment,  happening  to  cast  my 
eyes  upon  the  stone,  whose  characters  a 
transverse  light  from  my  southern  window 
brings  out  with  singular  distinctness,  an 
other  interpretation  has  occurred  to  me, 
promising  even  more  interesting  results.  I 
hasten  to  close  my  letter  in  order  to  follow 
at  once  the  clue  thus  providentially  sug- 


I  inclose,  as  usual,  a  contribution  from 
Mr.  Biglow,  and  remain, 

Gentlemen,  with  esteem  and  respect, 
Your  Obedient  Humble  Servant, 
HOMER  WILBUR,  A.  M. 

I  THANK  ye,  my  frien's,  for  the  warmth  o* 
your  greetin': 

Ther'  's  few  airthly  blessin's  but  wut  's  vain 
an'  fleetin'; 

But  ef  ther'  is  one  thet  hain't  no  cracks  an' 
flaws, 

An'  is  wuth  goin'  in  for,  it  's  pop'lar  ap 
plause; 

It  sends  up  the  sperits  ez  lively  ez  rockets, 

An'  I  feel  it  —  wal,  down  to  the  eend  o'  my 
pockets. 

Jes*  lovin'  the  people  is  Canaan  in  view, 

But  it 's  Canaan  paid  quarterly  t'  hev  'em 
love  you; 

It  's  a  blessin'  thet 's  breakin'  out  ollus  in 
fresh  spots; 

It  's  a-f  ollerin'  Moses  'thout  losin'  the  flesh- 
pots. 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


But,  Gennlemen,  'scuse  me,  I  ain't  sech  a 

raw  cus 

Ez  to  go  luggin'  ellerkence  into  a  caucus,  — 
Thet  is,  into  one  where  the  call  compre- 

hen's 
Nut  the  People  in  person,  but  on'y  their 

frien's; 

I  'm  so  kin'  o'  used  to  convincin'  the  masses 
Of   th'  edvantage   o'   bein'   self-governin' 

asses, 
I  forgut  thet  we  're  all  o'  the  sort  thet  pull 

wires 
An'  arrange  for  the  public  their  wants  an' 

desires, 
An'  thet  wut  we  hed  met  for  wuz  jes'  to 

agree 
Wut  the  People's  opinions  in  futur'  should 

be. 

Now,  to  come  to  the  nub,  we  've  ben  all 

disappinted, 

An'  our  leadin'  idees  are  a  kind  o'  disjinted, 
Though,   fur   ez   the   nateral    man    could 

discern, 
Things  ough'  to  ha'  took  most  an  oppersite 

turn. 

But  The'ry  is  jes'  like  a  train  on  the  rail, 
Thet,  weather  or  no,  puts  her  thru  without 

fail, 
While    Fac'  's    the    ole    stage    thet    gits 

sloughed  in  the  ruts, 
An'  hez  to  allow  for  your  darned  efs  an' 

buts, 

An'  so,  nut  intendin'  no  pers'nal  reflections, 
They    don't  —  don't    nut  allus,  thet  is,  — 

make  connections: 
Sometimes,  when  it  really  doos  seem  thet 

they  'd  oughter 
Combine   jest   ez    kindly  ez  new  rum  an' 

water, 
Both  '11  be  jest  ez  sot  in  their  ways  ez  a 

bagnet, 

Ez  otherwise-minded  ez  th'  eends  of  a  mag 
net, 
An'  folks  like  you  V  me,  thet  ain't  ept  to 

be  sold, 
Git  somehow  or  'nother  left  out  in  the  cold. 

I  expected  'fore  this,  'thout  no  gret  of  a  row, 
Jeff  D.  would  ha'  ben  where  A.  Lincoln  is 

now, 

With  Taney  to  say  't  wuz  all  legle  an'  fair, 
An'  a  jury  o'  Deemocrats  ready  to  swear 
Thet  the  ingin  o'  State  gut  throwed  into 

the  ditch 


By  the  fault  o'  the  North  in  misplacin'  the 

switch. 
Things  wuzripenin'  fust-rate  with  Buchanan 

to  nuss  'em; 

But  the  People  —  they  would  n't  be  Mexi 
cans,  cuss  'em! 
Ain't  the  safeguards  o'  freedom  upsot,  'z 

you  may  say, 
Ef   the   right   o'  rev'lution  is  took  clean 

away  ? 

An*  doos  n't  the  right  primy-fashy  include 
The  bein'  entitled  to  nut  be  subdued  ? 
The  feet  is,  we  'd  gone  for  the  Union  so 

strong, 
When  Union  meant  South  ollus  right  anj 

North  wrong, 
Thet  the  People  gut  fooled  into  thinkin'  it 

might 
Worry  on  middlin'  wal  with  the  North  in 

the  right. 
We  might  ha'  ben  now  jest  ez  prosp'rous  ez 

France, 

Where  p'litikle  enterprise  hez  a  fair  chance, 
An'  the  People  is  heppy  an'  proud  et  this 

hour, 
Long  ez  they  hev  the  votes,  to  let  Nap  hev 

the  power; 
But  our  folks  they  went  an'  believed  wut 

we  'd  told  'em 
An',  the  flag  once  insulted,  no  mortle  could 

hold  'em. 
'T  wuz  pervokin'  jest  when  we  wuz  cert'in 

to  win,  — 

An'  I,  for  one,  wun't  trust  the  masses  agin: 
For  a  People  thet  knows  much  ain't  fit  to 

be  free 
In  the   self-cockin',  back-action  style  o' 

J.  D. 

I  can't  believe  now  but  wut  half  on  't  is 

lies; 
For  who  'd  thought  the  North  wuz  agoin* 

to  rise, 

Or  take  the  pervokin 'est  kin'  of  a  stump, 
'thout  't  wuz  sunthin1  ez  pressin'  ez  Ga- 

br'el'slas'  trump? 
Or  who  'd  ha'  supposed,  arter  sech  swell 

an'  bluster 
'bout  the  lick-ary-ten-on-ye  fighters  they  'd 

muster, 
Raised   by   hand   on    briled    lightnin',    ez 

op'lent  'z  you  please 

In  a  primitive  furrest  o'  femmily-trees,  — 
Who  'd  ha'  thought  thet  them  Southun- 

ers  ever  'ud  show 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


Starns  with  pedigrees  to  'em  like  theirn  to 

the  foe, 

Or,  when  the  vamosin'  come,  ever  to  find 
Nat'ral  masters  in   front  an'  mean  white 

folks  behind  ? 
By  ginger,  ef  I  'd  ha'  known  half  I  know 

now, 
When  I  wuz  to  Congress,  I  would  n't,  I 

swow, 
Hev  let  'em   cair  on  so   high-minded  an' 

sarsy, 
'thout  some  show  o'  wut  you  may  call  vicy- 

varsy. 

To  be  sure,  we  wuz  under  a  contrac'  jes'  then 
To  be  dreffle  forbearin'  towards   Southun 

men  ; 
We  lied  to  go  sheers  in  preservin'  the  bel- 

lance  : 
An'  ez  they  seemed  to  feel  they  wuz  wastin' 

their  tellents 
'thout  some  un  to  kick,  't  warn't  more  'n 

proper,  you  know. 
Each  should   funnish   his  part ;   an'  sence 

they  found  the  toe, 
An'  we  wuz  n't  cherubs  —  wal,  we  found 

the  buffer, 
For   fear  thet    the    Compromise    System 

should  suffer. 

I  wun't  say  the   plan   hed  n't  onpleasant 

featurs,  — 
For  men  are  perverse  an'  onreasonin'  crea- 

turs, 
An'  forgit  thet  in  this  life  't  ain't  likely  to 

heppen 
Their   own   privit   fancy   should   ollus   be 

cappen,  — 
But  it  worked  jest  ez  smooth  ez  the  key  of 

a  safe, 
An'  the  gret   Union  bearin's  played   free 

from  all  chafe. 
They  warn't  hard  to  suit,  ef  they  hed  their 

own  way, 
An*  we    (thet   is,  some  on  us)  made  the 

thing  pay  : 
't  wuz  a  fair  give-an'-take  out  of   Uncle 

Sam's  heap  ; 
Ef  they  took  wut  warn't  theirn,  wut  we 

give  come  ez  cheap  ; 

The  elect  gut   the   offices  down  to   tide- 
waiter, 
The   people   took    skinnin'   ez   mild   ez   a 

tater, 
Seemed   to   choose  who   they  wanted  tu, 

footed  the  bills, 


An'  felt  kind  o'  'z  though  they  wuz  havin' 

their  wills, 
Which  kep'  'em  ez  harmless  an'  cherfle  ez 

crickets, 
While  all  we  invested  wuz  names  on  the 

tickets  : 
Wal,   ther'  's   nothin',   for   folks   fond   o' 

lib'ral  consumption 
Free  o'  charge,  like  democ'acy  tempered 

with  gumption  ! 

Now  warn't  thet  a  system  wuth  pains  in 

presarvin', 
Where   the   people    found   jints   an'  their 

f rien's  done  the  carvin',  — 
Where  the  many  done  all  o'  their  thinkin' 

by  proxy, 
An'  were  proud  on  't  ez  long  ez   't  wuz 

christened  Democ'cy,  — 
Where  the  few  let  us  sap  all  o'  Freedom's 

foundations, 
Ef  you  call  it  reformin'  with  prudence  an' 

patience, 
An'  were   willin'  Jeff's  snake-egg  should 

hetch  with  the  rest, 
Ef   you   writ  "  Constitootional "  over  the 

nest? 
But  it  's  all  out  o'  kilter,  ('t  wuz  too  good  to 

last,) 


An'  all  ies'  by  J.  D.'s  perceedin'  too  fast  ; 
Ef  he  'd 

more, 


on'y  hung  on  for  a  month  or  two 


We  'd  ha'  gut  things  fixed  nicer  'n  they  hed 

ben  before  : 

Afore  he  drawed  off  an'  lef  all  in  confu 
sion, 
We  wuz  safely  entrenched  in  the  ole  Con- 

stitootion, 
With   an   outlyin',   heavy-gun,   casemated 

fort 
To  rake  all  assailants,  —  I  mean  th'  S.  J. 

Court. 
Now  I  never  '11  acknowledge  (nut  ef  you 

should  skin  me) 
't  wuz  wise  to  abandon  sech  works  to  the 

in'my, 
An'  let  him  fin'  out  thet  wut  scared  him  so 

long, 
Our  whole  line   of  argyments,  lookin'  so 

strong, 
All  our  Scriptur  an'  law,  every  the'ry  an' 

fac', 
Wuz  Quaker  -guns   daubed  with   Pro-sla* 

very  black. 
Why,  ef  the  Republicans  ever  should  git 


258 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


Andy  Johnson  or  some  one  to  lend  'em  the 


wit 

An'  the  spunk  jes'  to  mount  Constitootion 
an'  Court 

With  Coltimbiad  guns,  your  real  ekle-rights 
sort, 

Or  drill  out  the  spike  from  the  ole  Declara 
tion 

Thet  can  kerry  a  solid  shot  clearn  rouii' 
creation, 

We  'd  better  take  maysures  for  shettin'  up 
shop, 

An'  put  off  our  stock  by  a  vendoo  or  swop. 

But  they  wun't  never  dare  tu  ;  you  '11  see 

'em  in  Edom 

'fore  they  ventur'  to  go  where  their  doc 
trines  'ud  lead  'em  : 
They  've  ben  takin'  our  princerples  up  ez 

we  dropt  'em, 
An'  thought  it  wuz  terrible  'cute  to  adopt 

'em; 
But  they'll  fin'  out  'fore  long  thet  their 

hope  's  ben  deceivin'  'em, 
An'  thet  princerples   ain't  o'  no   good,  ef 

you  b'lieve  in  'em  ; 

It  makes  'em  tu  stiff  for  a  party  to  use, 
Where  they  'd  ongh'  to  be  easy  'z  an  ole 

pair  o'  shoes. 
If  we  say  'n  our  pletform  thet  all  men  are 

brothers, 
We  don't  mean  thet  some  folks  ain't  more 

so  'n  some  others  ; 
An'  it's  wal  understood  thet  we  make  a 

selection, 
An'  thet  brotherhood  kin'  o'  subsides  arter 

'lection. 
The   fust  thing   for   sound   politicians   to 

larn  is, 
Thet  Truth,  to  dror  kindly  in  all  sorts  o' 

harness, 
Mus'  be  kep'  in  the  abstract,  —  for,  come 

to  apply  it, 
You  're  ept  to  hurt  some  folks's  interists 

by  it. 
Wal,  these  'ere  Republicans  (some  on  'em) 

ects 
Ez  though  gineral  mexims  'ud  suit  speshle 

facts  ; 
An'  there  's  where  we  '11  nick  'em,  there  's 

where  they  '11  be  lost : 
For  applyin'  your  princerple  's  wut  makes 

it  cost, 

An'  folks  don't  want  Fourth  o'  July  t'  in 
terfere 


With  the  busiuess-consarns  o'  the  rest  o' 

the  year, 
No  more  'n  they  want  Sunday  to  pry  an1 

to  peek 
Into   wut   they  are   doin'  the  rest  o'  the 

week. 

A   ginooine    statesman    should   be   on  his 

guard, 
Ef  he  must  hev  beliefs,  nut  to  b'lieve  'era 

tu  hard  ; 
For,  ez  sure  ez  he  does,  he  '11  be  blartin' 

'em  out 
'thout  regardin'  the  natur'  o'  man  more  'n 

a  spout, 
Nor  it  don't  ask  much  gumption  to  pick 

out  a  flaw 
In  a  party  whose  leaders  are  loose  in  the 

jaw  : 

An'  so  in  our  own  case  I  ventur'  to  hint 
Thet  we  'd  better  nut  air  our  perceedin's  in 

print, 

Nor  pass  resserlootions  ez  long  ez  your  arm 
Thet  may,  ez  things  heppen  to  turn,  du  us 

harm  ; 

For  when  you  've  done  all  your  real  mean- 
in'  to  smother, 
The  darned  things  '11  up  an'  mean  suntbin' 

or  'nother. 
Jeff 'son  prob'ly  meant  wal  with  his  "  born 

free  an'  ekle," 
But  it 's  turned  out  a  real  crooked  stick  in 

the  sekle  ; 
It 's  taken  full  eighty-odd  year  —  don't  you 

see?  — 
From  the  pop'lar  belief  to  root  out  thet 

idee, 
An',  arter  all,  suckers  on  't  keep  buddin* 

forth 
In   the   nat'lly  onprincipled   mind   o'   the 

North. 

No,  never  say  nothin'  without  you  're  com 
pelled  tu, 
An'  then  don't  say  nothin'  thet  you  can  be 

held  tu,  • 
Nor   don't   leave   no   friction-idees    layin* 

loose 
For  the  ign'ant  to  put  to  incend'ary  use. 

You  know  I  'm  a  feller  thet  keeps  a  skinned 

eye 

On  the  leetle  events  thet  go  skurryin'  by, 
Coz  it 's  of'ner  by  them  than  by  gret  ones 

you  '11  see 
Wut  the  p'litickle  weather  is  likely  to  be. 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


259 


Now   I   don't  think  the  South 's   more  'n 

begun  to  be  licked, 
But  I  du  think,  ez  Jeff  says,  the  wind-bag  's 

gut  pricked  ; 
It  '11  blow  for  a  spell  an'  keep  puffin'  an' 

wheeziu', 
The    tighter    our    army    an'    navy    keep 

squeezin',  — 
For  they  can't  help  spread-eaglein'  long  'z 

ther'  's  a  mouth 
To  blow  Enfield's  Speaker  thru  lef  at  the 

South. 
But  it 's  high  time  for  us  to  be  settin'  our 

faces 

Towards  reconstructin'  the  national  basis, 
With  an  eye  to  beginnin'  agin  on  the  jolly 

ticks 
We  used  to  chalk  up  'hind  the  back-door  o' 

politics  ; 
An*  the  fus'  thing  's  to  save  wut  of  Slav'ry 

ther'  's  lef 
Arter  this  (I  mus'  call  it)  imprudence  o' 

Jeff: 
For  a  real  good  Abuse,  with  its  roots  fur 

an'  wide, 
Is  the  kin'  o'  thing  I  like  to  hev  on  my 

side  ; 
A  Scriptur'  name  makes  it  ez  sweet  ez  a 

rose, 
An*  it 's  tougher  the  older  an'   uglier  it 

grows  — 
(I  ain't  speakin'  now  o'  the  righteousness 

of  it, 
But  the  p'litickle  purchase  it  gives  an'  the 

profit). 

Things    look    pooty    squally,   it    must   be 

allowed, 
An*  I  don't  see  much  signs  of  a  bow  in  the 

cloud  : 
Ther'  's   too   many  Deemocrats  —  leaders 

wut 's  wuss  — 
Thet  go   for    the    Union    'thout    carin'   a 

cuss 
Ef  it  helps  ary  party  thet  ever  wuz  heard 

on, 
So  our  eagle  ain't  made  a  split  Austrian 

bird  on. 
But  ther'  's  still  some  consarvative  signs  to 

be  found 
Thet  shows  the  gret  heart  o'  the  People  is 

sound  : 

(Excuse  me  for  usin'  a  stump-phrase  agin, 
But,  once  in  the  way  on  't,  they  will  stick 

like  sin  :) 


There  's  Phillips,  for  instance,  hez  jes* 
ketched  a  Tartar 

In  the  Law-'n'-Order  Party  of  ole  Cincin- 
nater  ; 

An'  the  Compromise  System  ain't  gone  out 
o'  reach, 

Long  'z  you  keep  the  right  limits  on  free 
dom  o'  speech. 

'T  warn't  none  too  late,  neither,  to  put  on 
the  gag, 

For  he  's  dangerous  now  he  goes  in  for  the 
flag. 

Nut  thet  I  altogether  approve  o'  bad  eggs^ 

They  're  mos'  gin'lly  argymunt  on  its  las' 
legs,  — 

An'  their  logic  is  ept  to  be  tu  indiscrimi 
nate, 

Nor  don't  ollus  wait  the  right  objecs  to 
'liminate  ; 

But  there  is  a  variety  on  'em,  you  '11  find, 

Jest  ez  usefle  an'  more,  besides  bein'  re 
fined,  — 

I  mean  o'  the  sort  thet  are  laid  by  the  dic 
tionary, 

Sech  ez  sophisms  an'  cant,  thet '11  kerry 
conviction  ary 

Way  thet  you  want  to  the  right  class  o' 
men, 

An'  are  staler  than  all 't  ever  come  from  a 
hen  : 

"  Disunion  "  done  wal  till  our  resh  Southun 
friends 

Took  the  savor  all  out  on  't  for  national 
ends  ; 

But  I  guess  "  Abolition "  '11  work  a  spell 

yit, 

When  the  war 's  done,  an'  so  will  "  Forgive- 

an'-forgit." 
Times  mus'  be  pooty  thoroughly  out  o'  all 

jint, 
Ef  we  can't  make  a  good  constitootional 

pint  ; 
An'  the  good  time  '11  come  to  be  grindin' 

our  exes, 
When  the  war  goes  to  seed  in  the  nettle  o' 

texes  : 
Ef  Jon'than  don't  squirm,  with  sech  helps 

to  assist  him, 

I  give  up  my  faith  in  the  free-suffrage  sys 
tem  ; 

Democ'cy  wun't  be  nut  a  mite  interesting 
Nor  p'litikle  capital  much  wuth  investin' ; 
An'  my  notion  is,  to  keep  dark  an'  lay  low 
Till  we  see  the  right  minute  to  put  in  our 

blow.  — 


260 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


But  I  've  talked  longer  now  'n  I  bed  any 

idee, 
An'  ther'  's  others  you  want  to  hear  more  'n 

you  du  me  ; 
So  I  '11  set  down  an'  give  thet  'ere  bottle  a 


skrimmage, 
For  I  've  spoke  till  I  'm  dry 


ez  a  real  graven 


image. 


No.  VI 


SUNTHIN'    IN     THE     PASTORAL 
LINE 

TO   THE   EDITORS    OF   THE   ATLANTIC 
MONTHLY 

JAALAM,  17th  May,  1862. 
GENTLEMEN,  —  At  the  special  request  of 
Mr.  Biglow,  I  intended  to  inclose,  together 
with  his  own  contribution,  (into  which,  at 
my  suggestion,  he  has  thrown  a  little  more 
of  pastoral  sentiment  than  usual,)  some  pas 
sages  from  my  sermon  on  the  day  of  the 
National  Fast,  from  the  text,  "Remember 
them  that  are  in  bonds,  as  bound  with 
them,"  Heb.  xiii.  3.  But  I  have  not  leisure 
sufficient  at  present  for  the  copying  of 
them,  even  were  I  altogether  satisfied  with 
the  production  as  it  stands.  I  should  pre 
fer,  I  confess,  to  contribute  the  entire  dis 
course  to  the  pages  of  your  respectable 
miscellany,  if  it  should  be  found  acceptable 
upon  perusal,  especially  as  I  find  the  diffi 
culty  in  selection  of  greater  magnitude 
than  I  had  anticipated.  What  passes  with 
out  challenge  in  the  fervour  of  oral  deliv 
ery,  cannot  always  stand  the  colder  crit 
icism  of  the  closet.  I  am  not  so  great 
an  enemy  of  Eloquence  as  my  friend  Mr. 
Biglow  would  appear  to  be  from  some  pas 
sages  in  his  contribution  for  the  current 
month.  I  would  not,  indeed,  hastily  sus 
pect  him  of  covertly  glancing  at  myself  in 
his  somewhat  caustick  animadversions,  al 
beit  some  of  the  phrases  he  girds  at  are 
not  entire  strangers  to  my  lips.  I  am  a 
more  hearty  admirer  of  the  Puritans  than 
seems  now  to  be  the  fashion,  and  believe, 
that,  if  they  Hebraized  a  little  too  much  in 
their  speech,  they  showed  remarkable  prac 
tical  sagacity  as  statesmen  and  founders. 
But  such  phenomena  as  Puritanism  are  the 
results  rather  of  great  religious  than  of 


merely  social  convulsions,  and  do  not  long 
survive  them.  So  soon  as  an  earnest  con 
viction  has  cooled  into  a  phrase,  its  work  is 
over,  and  the  best  that  can  be  done  with  it 
is  to  bury  it.  Ite,  missa  est.  I  am  inclined 
to  agree  with  Mr.  Biglow  that  we  cannot 
settle  the  great  political  questions  which 
are  now  presenting  themselves  to  the  nation 
by  the  opinions  of  Jeremiah  or  Ezekiel  as 
to  the  wants  and  duties  of  the  Jews  in  their 
time,  nor  do  I  believe  that  an  entire  com 
munity  with  their  feelings  and  views  would 
be  practicable  or  even  agreeable  at  the 
present  day.  At  the  same  time  I  could 
wish  that  their  habit  of  subordinating  the 
actual  to  the  moral,  the  flesh  to  the  spirit, 
and  this  world  to  the  other,  were  more 
common.  They  had  found  out,  at  least, 
the  great  military  secret  that  soul  weighs 
more  than  body.  —  But  I  am  suddenly 
called  to  a  sick-bed  in  the  household  of  a 
valued  parishioner. 

With  esteem  and  respect, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

HOMER  WILBUR. 

ONCE  git  a  smell  o'  musk  into  a  draw, 
An'  it  clings  hold  like  precedents  in  law: 
Your    gra'ma'am   put    it    there,  —  when, 

goodness  knows,  — 

To  jes'  this-worldify  her  Sunday-clo'es; 
But  the  old  chist  wun't  sarve  her  gran'son's 

wife, 
(For,  'thout  new  funnitoor,  wut  good  in 

life  ?) 
An'  so   ole    clawfoot,    from   the   precinks 

dread 

O'  the  spare  chamber,  slinks  into  the  shed, 
Where,  dim  with  dust,  it  fust  or  last  sub 
sides 

To  holdin'  seeds  an'  fifty  things  besides; 
But  better  days  stick  fast  in  heart  an'  husk, 
An'  all  you  keep  in  't  gits  a  scent  o'  musk. 

Jes'  so  with  poets:  wut  they  've  airly  read 
Gits   kind   o'  worked  into  their  heart  an' 

head, 
So  's  't  they  can't  seem  to  write  but  jest  on 

sheers 

With  furrin  countries  or  played-out  ideers> 
Nor  hev  a  feelin',  ef  it  doos  n't  smack 
O'   wut   some    critter   chose    to   feel  'way 

back: 
This  makes  'em  talk  o'  daisies,  larks,  an' 

things, 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


261 


Ez  though  we  'd  nothin'  here  that  blows  an' 

sings,  -— 

(Why,  I  'd  give  more  for  one  live  bobolink 
Than   a   square   mile  o'  larks  in  printer's 

ink,)  — 
This  makes  'em  think  our  fust  o'  May  is 

May, 
Which  't  ain't,  for  all  the  almanicks  can 

say. 

0  little  city-gals,  don't  never  go  it 
Blind  on  the  word  o'  noospaper  or  poet! 
They  're  apt  to  puff,  an'  May-day  seldom 

looks 

Up  in  the  country  ez  it  doos  in  books; 
They  're  no  more  like  than  hornets'-nests 

an'  hives, 

Or  printed  sarmons  be  to  holy  lives. 
I,   with   my   trouses   perched  on  cowhide 

boots, 

Tuggin'  my  foundered  feet  out  by  the  roots, 
Hev  seen  ye  come  to  fling  on  April's  hearse 
Your  muslin  nosegays  from  the  milliner's, 
Puzzlin'  to  find  dry  ground  your  queen  to 

choose, 
An'  dance  your  throats  sore  in  morocker 

shoes: 

1  've  seen  ye  an'  felt  proud,  thet,  come  wut 

would, 

Our  Pilgrim  stock  wuz  pethed  with  hardi 
hood. 
Pleasure  doos   make   us  Yankees   kind  o' 

winch, 
Ez  though  't  wuz  sunthin'  paid  for  by  the 

inch; 

But  yit  we  du  contrive  to  worry  thru, 
Ef  Dooty  tells  us  thet  the  thing  's  to  du, 
An'  kerry  a  hollerday,  ef  we  set  out, 
Ez  stiddily  ez  though  't  wuz  a  redoubt. 

I,  country-born  an'  bred,  know  where  to 

find 
Some  blooms  thet  make  the  season  suit  the 

mind, 
An'  seem  to  metch  the  doubtin'  bluebird's 

notes,  — 

Half-vent'rin'  liverworts  in  furry  coats, 
Bloodroots,  whose  rolled-up  leaves  ef  you 

oncurl, 

Each  on  'em  's  cradle  to  a  baby-pearl,  — 
But  these  are  jes'  Spring's  pickets;  sure  ez 

sin, 

The  rebble  frosts  '11  try  to  drive  'em  in; 
For  half  our  May  's  so  awfully  like  May  n't, 
't  would  rile  a  Shaker  or  an  evrige  saint; 


Though  I  own  up  I  like  our  back'ard 
springs 

Thet  kind  o'  haggle  with  their  greens  an* 
things, 

An'  when  you  'most  give  up,  'uthout  more 
words 

Toss  the  fields  full  e'  blossoms,  leaves,  an* 
birds; 

Thet  's  Northun  natur',  slow  an'  apt  to 
doubt, 

But  when  it  doos  git  stirred,  ther'  's  no  gin- 
out! 

Fust  come  the  blackbirds  clatt'rin'  in  tall 

trees, 

An'  settlin'  things  in  windy  Congresses,  — 
Queer  politicians,  though,  for  I  '11  be 

skinned 

Ef  all  on  'em  don't  head  aginst  the  wind, 
'fore  long  the  trees  begin  to  show  belief,  — 
The  maple  crimsons  to  a  coral-reef, 
Then  saffern  swarms  swing  off  from  all  the 

willers 

So  plump  they  look  like  yaller  caterpil 
lars, 

Then  gray  hossches'nuts  leetle  hands  unfold 
Softer  'n  a  baby's  be  at  three  days  old: 
Thet    's   robin  -  redbreast's    almanick;     he 

knows 

Thet  arter  this  ther'  's  only  blossom-snows ; 
So,  choosin'  out  a  handy  crotch  an'  spouse, 
He  goes  to  plast'rin'  his  adobe  house. 

Then  seems  to  come  a  hitch,  —  things  lag 

behind, 
Till  some  fine  mornin'  Spring  makes  up  her 

mind, 
An'   ez,    when   snow-swelled   rivers   cresh 

their  dams 
Heaped-up  with  ice  thet  dovetails  in  an* 

jams, 
A  leak  comes  spirtin'  thru  some  pin-hole 

cleft, 
Grows  stronger,  fercer,  tears  out  right  an* 

left, 
Then  all  the  waters   bow  themselves   an* 

come, 

Suddin,  in  one  gret  slope  o'  shedderin'  foamr 
Jes'  so  our  Spring  gits  everythin'  in  tune 
An'  gives  one  leap  from  Aperl  into  June  : 
Then   all  comes  crowdin'  in  ;    afore   you 

think, 
Young  oak-leaves  mist  the  side-hill  woods 

with  pink  ; 
The  catbird  in  the  laylock-bush  is  loud  ; 


262 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


The  orchards  turn  to  heaps  o'  rosy  cloud  ; 
Red-cedars  blossom   tu,  though  few  folks 

know  it, 

An'  look  all  dipt  in  sunshine  like  a  poet  ; 
The   lime-trees  pile  their  solid   stacks  o' 

shade 
An'  drows'ly  simmer  with  the  bees'  sweet 

trade  ; 
In    ellum-shrouds    the    flashin'   hangbird 

clings 
An'  for  the   summer  vy'ge  his  hammock 


All  down  the  loose-walled  lanes  in  archin' 

bowers 
The  barb'ry  droops  its   strings   o'  golden 

flowers, 
Whose  shrinkin'  hearts  the  school-gals  love 

to  try 
With  pins,  —  they  '11  worry  yourn  so,  boys, 

bimeby  ! 
But  I  don't  love  your  cat'logue  style,  —  do 

you  ?  — 

Ez  ef  to  sell  off  Natur'  by  vendoo  ; 
One  word  with  blood  in 't  's  twice  ez  good 

ez  two  : 
'miff  sed,  June's  bridesman,  poet   o'   the 

year, 

Gladness  on  wings,  the  bobolink,  is  here  ; 
Half-hid  in  tip-top  apple-blooms  he  swings, 
Or  climbs  aginst  the  breeze  with  quiverin' 

^  wings, 

Or,  givin'  way  to  't  in  a  mock  despair, 
Runs  down,  a  brook  o'  laughter,  thru  the 

air. 

I  ollus  feel  the  sap  start  in  my  veins 

In  Spring,   with   curus   heats  an'  prickly 

pains, 
Thet  drive  me,  when  I  git  a  chance,  to 

walk 

Off  by  myself  to  hev  a  privit  talk 
With  a  queer  critter  thet  can't  seem  to 

'gree 
Along  o'  me  like    most    folks,  —  Mister 

Me. 

Ther*  's  times  when  I  'm  unsoshle  ez  a  stone, 
An*  sort  o'  suffercate  to  be  alone,  — 
I  'm  crowded  jes'  to  think  thet  folks  are 

nigh, 
An*   can't    bear   nothin'    closer    than    the 

sky; 

Now  the  wind  's  full  ez  shifty  in  the  mind 
Ez  wut  it  is  ou'-doors,  ef  I  ain't  blind, 
An'   sometimes,   in    the    fairest    sou'west 

weather, 


My  innard  vane   pints  east  for  weeks  to 
gether, 

My  natur'  gits  all  goose-flesh,  an'  my  sins 
Come  drizzlin'  on  my  conscience  sharp  ez 

pins  : 

Wai,  et  sech  times  I  jes'  slip  out  o'  sight 
An'  take  it  out  in  a  fair  stan'-up  fight 
With  the  one  cuss  I  can't  lay  on  the  shelf, 
The  crook'dest  stick  in  all  the  heap,  —  My 
self. 

'T  wuz  so  las'  Sabbath  arter  meetin'-time  : 
Findin'  my  feelin's  would  n't  noways  rhyme 
With  nobody's,  but  off  the  hendle  flew 
An'  took  things  from  an  east-wind  pint  o' 

view, 

I  started  off  to  lose  me  in  the  hills 
Where   the   pines   be,  up  back   o'   'Siah's 

Mills  : 
Pines,  ef  you  're  blue,  are  the  best  friends 

I  know, 
They  mope  an'  sigh  an'  sheer  your  feelin's 

so,— 
They  hesh  the  ground   beneath   so,  tu,  I 

swan, 

You  half-forgit  you  've  gut  a  body  on. 
Ther'  's  a  small  schooFus'  there  where  four 

roads  meet, 

The  door-steps  hollered  out  by  little  feet, 
An'  side-posts    carved  with   names  whose 

owners  grew 

To  gret  men,  some  on  'em,  an'  deacons,  tu  ; 
't  ain't  used  no  longer,  coz  the  town  hez  gut 
A  high-school,  where  they  teach  the  Lord 

knows  wut  : 

Three-story  larnin'  's  pop'lar  now  ;  I  guess 
We  thriv'  ez  wal  on  jes'  two  stories  less, 
For  it  strikes  me  ther'  's  sech  a  thing  ez 

sinnin' 

By  overloadin'  children's  underpinnin' : 
Wal,  here  it  wuz  I  larned  my  ABC, 
An'  it 's  a  kind  o'  favorite  spot  with  me. 

We  're  curus  critters  :  Now  ain't  jes'  the 

minute 

Thet  ever  fits  us  easy  while  we  're  in  it  ; 
Long  ez  't  wuz  futur',  't  would  be  perfect 

bliss,  — 
Soon  ez  it 's  past,  thet  time 's  wuth  ten  o' 

this; 

An'  yit  there  ain't  a  man  thet  need  be  told 
Thet  Now 's  the  only  bird  lays  eggs  o'  gold. 
A  knee-high  lad,  I  used  to  plot  an'  plan 
An'  think  'twuz  life's  cap -sheaf  to  be  a 

man; 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS 


263 


Now,  gittin'  gray,  there  's  notbin'  I  enjoy 
Like  dreamin'  back  along  into  a  boy  : 
So  the  ole  school'us'  is  a  place  I  choose 
Afore  all  others,  ef  I  want  to  muse  ; 
I  set  down  where  I  used  to  set,  an'  git 
My  boyhood  back,  an'  better  things  with 

it,— 
Faith,  Hope,  an'  sunthin',  ef  it  is  n't  Cher- 

rity, 
It 's  want  o'  guile,  an'  thet  's  ez  gret  a  rer- 

rity,  — 
While  Fancy's  cushin',  free  to  Prince  and 

Clown, 

Makes   the   hard  bench  ez   soft   ez   milk 
weed-down. 

Now,  'fore  I  knowed,  thet  Sabbath  arter- 

noon 

When  I  sot  out  to  tramp  myself  in  tune, 
I  found  me  in  the  school'us'  on  my  seat, 
Drummin'  the  march  to  No-wheres  with  my 

feet. 
Thinkin'  o'  nothin',  I  've  heerd  ole  folks 

say 

Is  a  hard  kind  o'  dooty  in  its  way: 
It 's  thinkin'  everythin'  you  ever  knew, 
Or  ever  hearn,  to  make  your  feelin's  blue. 
I  sot  there  tryin'  thet  on  for  a  spell  : 
I  thought  o'  the  Rebellion,  then  o'  Hell, 
Which  some  folks  tell  ye  now  is  jest  a  met- 

terfor 
(A  the'ry,  p'raps,  it  wun't  feel  none  the 

better  for) ; 

I  thought  o'  Reconstruction,  wut  we  'd  win 
Patchin'  our  patent  self-blow-up  agin  : 
I  thought  ef  this  'ere  mil  kin'  o'  the  wits, 
So   much  a  month,  warn't   givin'    Natur' 

fits,— 
Ef  folks  warn't  druv,  findin'  their  own  milk 

fail, 

To  work  the  cow  thet  hez  an  iron  tail, 
An'  ef  idees  'thout  ripenin'  in  the  pan 
Would  send  up  cream  to  humor  ary  man  : 
From  this  to  thet  I  let  my  worryin'  creep, 
Till  finally  I  must  ha'  fell  asleep. 

Our  lives  in  sleep  are  some  like  streams 

thet  glide 

'twixt  flesh  an'  sperrit  boundin'  on  each  side, 
Where  both  shores'  shadders  kind  o'  mix 

an'  mingle 
In  sunthin'  thet  ain't  jes'  like  either  sin- 

g]e; 

An*  when  you  cast  off  moorin's  from  To 
day, 


An'  down  towards  To-morrer  drift  away, 
The  imiges  thet  tengle  on  the  stream 
Make   a  new  upside  -  do wn'ard   world  o' 

dream  : 
Sometimes  they  seem  like  sunrise-streaks 

an'  warnin's 
O'  wut  '11  be  in  Heaven  on  Sabbath-morn- 

in's, 

An',  mixed  right  in  ez  ef  jest  out  o'  spite, 
Sunthin'  thet  says  your  supper  ain't  gone 

right. 
I  'm  gret  on   dreams,   an'   often   when   I 

wake, 
I  've  lived  so  much  it  makes  my  mem'ry 

ache, 
An*   can't   skurce   take   a  cat-nap   in   my 

cheer 
'thout  hevin'  'em,  some  good,  some  bad,  all 

queer. 

Now    I    wuz   settin'   where   I   'd  ben,   it 

seemed, 

An'  ain't  sure  yit  whether  I  r'ally  dreamed, 
Nor,  ef  I  did,  how  long  I  might  ha'  slep', 
When  I  hearn  some  un  stompin'   up   the 

step, 

An'  lookin'  round,  ef  two  an'  two  make  four, 
I  see  a  Pilgrim  Father  in  the  door. 
He  wore  a  steeple-hat,  tall  boots,  an'  spurs 
With  rowels  to  'em  big  ez  ches'nut-burrs, 
An'  his  gret  sword  behind  him  sloped  away 
Long  'z  a  man's  speech  thet  dunno  wut  to 

say. — 

"  Ef  your  name  's  Biglow,  an'  your  given- 
name 

Hosee,"  sez  he,  "  it  's  arter  you  I  came; 
I   'm  your   gret-gran'ther    multiplied   by 

three."  — 
"My    tout?"    sez   I.  —  "Your    gret-gret- 

gret,"  sez  he: 
"  You  would  n't  ha'  never  ben  here  but  for 

me. 

Two  hundred  an'  three  year  ago  this  May 
The  ship  I  come  in  sailed  up  Boston  Bay; 
I  'd  been  a  cunnle  in  our  Civil  War,  — 
But  wut  on  airth  hev  you  gut  up  one  for  ? 
Coz  we  du  things  in  England,  't  ain't  for 

you 

To  git  a  notion  you  can  du  'em  tu: 
I  'm  told  you   write   in  public   prints:  ef 

true, 
It  's  nateral  you  should  know  a  thing  or 

two."  — 

"Thet  air  's    an    argymunt    I  can't   en 
dorse, — 


264 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


't  would  prove,  coz  you  wear  spurs,  you 
kep'  a  horse: 

For  brains,"  sez  I,  "wutever  you  may 
think, 

Ain't  boun'  to  cash  the  drafs  o'  pen-an'- 
ink,  — 

Though  mos'  folks  write  ez  ef  they  hoped 
jes'  quickeiiin' 

The  churn  would  argoo  skim-milk  into 
thickenin' ; 

But  skim-milk  ain't  a  thing  to  change  its 
view 

O'  wut  it  's  meant  for  more  'n  a  smoky 
flue. 

But  du  pray  tell  me,  'fore  we  furder  go, 

How  in  all  Natur'  did  you  come  to  know 

'bout  our  affairs,"  sez  I,  "in  Kingdom- 
Come  ?  "  — 

"  Wai,  I  worked  round  at  sperrit-rappin' 
some, 

An'  danced  the  tables  till  their  legs  wuz 
gone, 

In  hopes  o'  larnin'  wut  wuz  goin'  on," 

Sez  he,  "  but  mejums  lie  so  like  all-split 

Thet  I  concluded  it  wuz  best  to  quit. 

But,  come  now,  ef  you  wun't  confess  to 
knowin', 

You  've  some  conjectures  how  the  thing  's 
a-goin'."  — 

"  Gran'ther,"  sez  I,  "  a  vane  warn't  never 
known 

Nor  asked  to  hev  a  jedgment  of  its  own; 

An'  yit,  ef  't  ain't  gut  rusty  in  the  jints, 

It  's  safe  to  trust  its  say  on  certin  pints: 

It  knows  the  wind's  opinions  to  a  T, 

An'  the  wind  settles  wut  the  weather  '11  be." 

"  I  never  thought  a  scion  of  our  stock 

Could  grow  the  wood  to  make  a  weather 
cock; 

When  I  wuz  younger  'n  you,  skurce  more 
'n  a  shaver, 

No  airthly  wind,"  sez  he,  "could  make  me 
waver  !  " 

(Ez  he  said  this,  he  clinched  his  jaw  an' 
forehead, 

Hitchin'  his  belt  to  bring  his  sword-hilt 
forrard.)  — 

"  Jes  so  it  wuz  with  me,"  sez  I,  "  I  swow, 

When  /  wuz  younger  'n  wut  you  see  me 
now, — 

Nothin'  from  Adam's  fall  to  Huldy's  bon 
net, 

Thet  I  warn't  full-cocked  with  my  jedg 
ment  on  it; 

But  now  I  'm  gittin'  on  in  life,  I  find 


It  's  a  sight  harder  to  make  up  my  mind,  — 
Nor  I  don't  often  try  tu,  when  events 
Will  du  it  for  me  free  of  all  expense. 
The  moral  question  's  ollus  plain  enough,  — 
It  's    jes'   the    human  -  natur'   side   thet  's 

tough; 
Wut 's  best  to  think  may  n't  puzzle  me  nor 

you, — 

The  pinch  comes  in  decidin'  wut  to  du  ; 
Ef  you  read  History,  all  runs  smooth  ez 

grease, 
Coz  there   the  men  ain't  nothin'  more  'n 

idees,  — 

But  come  to  make  it,  ez  we  must  to-day, 
Th'  idees  hev  arms  an'  legs  an'  stop  the 

way: 

It 's  easy  fixin'  things  in  facts  an'  figgers,  — 
They  can't  resist,  nor  warn't  brought   up 

with  niggers; 
But   come  to   try  your  the'ry  on,  —  why., 

then 
Your  facts  an'  figgers  change   to  ign'ant 

men 
Actin'  ez  ugly  —  "    —  "  Smite  'em  hip  an* 

thigh  ! " 
Sez  gran'ther,  "and   let   every  man-child 

die  ! 
Oh  for  three  weeks  o'  Crommle  an'  the 

Lord! 
Up,    Isr'el,   to   your   tents   an'   grind   the 

sword  !  "  — 
"  Thet   kind   o'  thing  worked   wal   in  ole 

Judee, 

But  you  forgit  how  long  it 's  ben  A.  D. ; 
You  think  thet  's  ellerkence,  —  I   call   it 

shoddy, 
A   thing,"  sez   I,  "  wun't  cover   soul   nor 

body  ; 

I  like  the  plain  all-wool  o'  common-sense, 
Thet   warms   ye.  now,    an'  will   a   twelve 
month  hehce. 
You  took  to  follerin'  where  the  Prophets 

beckoned, 
An',  fust  you  knowed  on,  back  come  Charles 

the  Second; 
Now  wut   I   want  's   to   hev  all   we  gain 

stick, 

An*  not  to  start  Millennium  too  quick; 
We  hain't  to  punish  only,  but  to  keep, 
An*  the  cure  's  gut  to  go  a  cent'ry  deep." 
"Wall,    milk-an'-water   ain't   the    best   o1 

glue," 
Sez  he,  "an'  so  you'll  find  afore  you're 

thru; 
Ef  reshness  venters  sunthin',  shilly-shally 


THE  BIGLOW   PAPERS 


265 


Loses  ez  often  wut  's  ten  times  the  vally. 
Thet  exe  of  ourn,  when  Charles's  neck  gut 

split, 

Opened  a  gap  thet  ain't  bridged  over  yit: 
Slav'ry  's  your  Charles,  the  Lord  hez  gin 

the  exe  "  — 

"  Our  Charles,"  sez  I,  "  hez  gut  eight  mil 
lion  necks. 
The  hardest  question  ain't  the  black  man's 

right, 

The  trouble  is  to  'mancipate  the  white  ; 
One  's  chained  in  body  an'  can  be  sot  free, 
But  t'  other 's  chained  in  soul  to  an  idee : 
It  's  a  long  job,  but  we  shall  worry  thru  it; 
Ef  bagnets    fail,   the    spellin'-book   must 

du  it." 
"  Hosee,"  sez  he,  « I  think  you  're  goin'  to 

fail: 

The  rettlesnake  ain't  dangerous  in  the  tail ; 
This  'ere  rebellion  's  nothing  but  the  ret- 

tle,— 
You  '11  stomp  on  thet  an'  think  you  've  won 

the  bettle; 
It 's  Slavery  thet  's  the  fangs  an'  thinkin' 

head, 

An'  ef  you  want  selvation,  cresh  it  dead,  — 
An'   cresh   it   suddin,   or  you  '11   larn   by 

waitin' 
Thet    Chance  wun't  stop  to  listen  to  de- 

batin'!"  — 
"God's  truth  ! "  sez  I,  —  «  an'  ef  I  held  the 

club, 
An'  knowed  jesj   where   to   strike,  —  but 

there's  the  rub!"  — 
"  Strike  soon,"  sez  he,  "  or  you  '11  be  deadly 

ailin',  — 
Folks  thet 's  afeared  to  fail   are   sure  o' 

f  ailin' ; 

God  hates  your  sneakin'  creturs   thet  be 
lieve 
He  '11   settle    things   they   run    away   an' 

leave  ! " 
He  brought  his  foot  down  fercely,  ez  he 

spoke, 
An'  give  me  sech  a  startle  thet  I  woke. 

No.  VII 
LATEST  VIEWS  OF  MR.  BIGLOW 

PRELIMINARY   NOTE 

[!T  is  with  feelings  of  the  liveliest  pain  that 
we  inform  our  readers  of  the  death  of  the  Rev 
erend  Homer  Wilbur,  A.  M.,  which  took  place 
suddenly,  by  an  apoplectic  stroke,  on  the  after 


noon  of  Christmas  day,  1862.  Our  venerable 
friend  (for  so  we  may  venture  to  call  him, 
though  we  never  enjoyed  the  high  privilege  ot 
his  personal  acquaintance)  was  in  his  eighty- 
fourth  year,  haying  been  born  June  12,  1779,  at 
Pigsgusset  Precinct  (now  West  Jerusha)  in  the 
then  District  of  Maine.  Graduated  with  dis 
tinction  at  Hubville  College  in  1805,  he  pursued 
his  theological  studies  with  the  late  Reverend 
Preserved  Thacker,  D.  D.,  and  was  called  to 
the  charge  of  the  First  Society  in  Jaalam  in 
1809,  where  he  remained  till  his  death. 

"As  an  antiquary  he  has  probably  left  no 
superior,  if,  indeed,  an  equal,"  writes  his  friend 
and  colleague,  the  Reverend  Jeduthun  Hitch 
cock,  to  whom  we  are  indebted  for  the  above 
facts ;  "  in  proof  of  which  I  need  only  allude  to 
his  '  History  of  Jaalam,  Genealogical,  Topo 
graphical,  and  Ecclesiastical,'  1849,  which  has 
won  him  an  eminent  and  enduring  place  in  our 
more  solid  and  useful  literature.  It  is  only  to 
be  regretted  that  his  intense  application  to  his 
torical  studies  should  have  so  entirely  with 
drawn  him  from  the  pursuit  of  poetical  compo 
sition,  for  which  he  was  endowed  by  Nature 
with  a  remarkable  aptitude.  His  well-known 
hymn,  beginning  '  With  clouds  of  care  encom 
passed  round,'  has  been  attributed  in  some  col 
lections  to  the  late  President  Dwight,  and  it  is 
hardly  presumptuous  to  affirm  that  the  simile 
of  the  rainbow  in  the  eighth  stanza  would  do  no 
discredit  to  that  polished  pen." 

We  regret  that  we  have  not  room  at  present 
for  the  whole  of  Mr.  Hitchcock's  exceedingly 
valuable  communication.  We  hope  to  lay  more 
liberal  extracts  from  it  before  our  readers  at  an 
early  day.  A  summary  of  its  contents  will  give 
some  notion  of  its  importance  and  interest.  It 
contains  :  1st,  A  biographical  sketch  of  Mr. 
Wilbur,  with  notices  of  his  predecessors  in  the 
pastoral  office,  and  of  eminent  clerical  contem 
poraries  ;  2d,  An  obituary  of  deceased,  from 
the  Punkin-Falls  "Weekly  Parallel;  "  3d,  A 
list  of  his  printed  and  manuscript  productions 
and  of  projected  works  ;  4th,  Personal  anec 
dotes  and  recollections,  with  specimens  of  table- 
talk  ;  5th,  A  tribute  to  his  relict,  Mrs.  Dorcas 
(Pilcox)  Wilbur ;  6th,  A  list  of  graduates  fitted 
for  different  colleges  by  Mr.  Wilbur,  with  bio 
graphical  memoranda  touching  the  more  dis 
tinguished  ;  7th,  Concerning  learned,  charitable, 
and  other  societies,  of  which  Mr.  Wilbur  was  a 
member,  and  of  those  with  which,  had  his  life 
been  prolonged,  he  would  doubtless  have  been 
associated,  with  a  complete  catalogue  of  such 
Americans  as  have  been  Fellows  of  the  Royal 
Society  ;  8th,  A  brief  summary  of  Mr.  Wilbur's 
latest  conclusions  concerning  the  Tenth  Horn 
of  the  Beast  in  its  special  application  to  recent 
events,  for  which  the  public,  as  Mr.  Hitchcock 
assures  us,  have  been  waiting  with  feelings  of 
lively  anticipation ;  9th,  Mr.  Hitchcock's  own 
views  on  the  same  topic ;  and,  10th,  A  brief 
essay  on  the  importance  of  local  histories.  It 
will  be  apparent  that  the  duty  of  preparing  Mr. 
Wilbur's  biography  could  not  have  fallen  into 
more  sympathetic  hands. 


266 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


In  a  private  letter  with  which  the  reverend 
gentleman  has  since  favored  us,  he  expresses 
the  opinion  that  Mr.  Wilbur's  life  was  short 
ened  by  our  unhappy  civil  war.  It  disturbed 
his  studies,  dislocated  all  his  habitual  associa 
tions  and  trains  of  thought,  and  unsettled  the 
foundations  of  a  faith,  rather  the  result  of  habit 
than  conviction,  in  the  capacity  of  man  for  self- 
government.  "Such  has  been  the  felicity  of 
my  life,"  he  said  to  Mr.  Hitchcock,  on  the  very 
morning  of  the  day  he  died,  4t  that,  through  the 
divine  mercy,  I  could  always  say,  Summum  nee 
metuo  diem,  nee  opto.  It  has  been  my  habit,  as 
you  know,  on  every  recurrence  of  this  blessed 
anniversary,  to  read  Milton's  '  Hymn  of  the 
Nativity '  till  its  sublime  harmonies  so  dilated 
my  soul  and  quickened  its  spiritual  sense  that  I 
seemed  to  hear  that  other  song  which  gave  assur 
ance  to  the  shepherds  that  there  was  One  who 
would  lead  them  also  in  green  pastures  and  be 
side  the  still  waters.  But  to-day  I  have  been 
unable  to  think  of  anything  but  that  mournful 
text,  '  I  came  not  to  send  peace,  but  a  sword,' 
and,  did  it  not  smack  of  Pagan  presumptuous- 
ness,  could  almost  wish  I  had  never  lived  to  see 
this  day." 

Mr.  Hitchcock  also  informs  us  that  his  friend 
"  lies  buried  in  the  Jaalam  graveyard,  under  a 
large  red-cedar  which  he  specially  admired.  A 
neat  and  substantial  monument  is  to  be  erected 
over  his  remains,  with  a  Latin  epitaph  written 
by  himself ;  for  he  was  accustomed  to  say, 
pleasantly,  *  that  there  was  at  least  one  occasion 
in  a  scholar's  life  when  he  might  show  the  ad 
vantages  of  a  classical  training.'  " 

The  following  fragment  of  a  letter  addressed 
to  us,  and  apparently  intended  to  accompany 
Mr.  Biglow's  contribution  to  the  present  num 
ber,  was  found  upon  his  table  after  his  decease. 
—  EDITORS  ATLANTIC  MONTHLY.] 

TO  THE  EDITORS   OF   THE  ATLANTIC 
MONTHLY 

JAALAM,  24th  Dec.,  1862. 
RESPECTED  SIRS,  —  The  infirm  state  of 
my  bodily  health  would  be  a  sufficient 
apology  for  not  taking  up  the  pen  at  this 
time,  wholesome  as  I  deem  it  for  the  mind 
to  apricate  in  the  shelter  of  epistolary  con 
fidence,  were  it  not  that  a  considerable,  I 
might  even  say  a  large,  number  of  individ 
uals  in  this  parish  expect  from  their  pastor 
some  publick  expression  of  sentiment  at 
this  crisis.  Moreover,  Qui  tacitus  ardet 
magis  uritur.  In  trying  times  like  these, 
the  besetting  sin  of  undisciplined  minds  is 
to  seek  refuge  from  inexplicable  realities  in 
the  dangerous  stimulant  of  angry  partisan 
ship  or  the  indolent  narcotick  of  vague  and 
hopeful  vaticination  :  fortunamque  suo  tem- 
perat  arbitrio.  Both  by  reason  of  my  age 


and  my  natural  temperament,  I  am  unfitted 
for  either.  Unable  to  penetrate  the  inscru 
table  judgments  of  God,  I  am  more  than 
ever  thankful  that  my  life  has  been  pro 
longed  till  I  cculd  in  some  small  measure 
comprehend  His  mercy.  As  there  is  no 
man  who  does  not  at  some  time  render  him 
self  amenable  to  the  one,  —  quum  vix  Jus 
tus  sit  securus,  —  so  there  is  none  that  does 
not  feel  himself  in  daily  need  of  the  other. 
I  confess  I  cannot  feel,  as  some  do,  a 
personal  consolation  for  the  manifest  evils 
of  this  war  in  any  remote  or  contingent 
advantages  that  may  spring  from  it.  I  am 
old  and  weak,  I  can  bear  little,  and  can 
scarce  hope  to  see  better  days  ;  nor  is  it 
any  adequate  compensation  to  know  that 
Nature  is  young  and  strong  and  can  bear 
much.  Old  men  philosophize  over  the 
past,  but  the  present  is  only  a  burthen  and 
a  weariness.  The  one  lies  before  them  like 
a  placid  evening  landscape  ;  the  other  is 
full  of  the  vexations  and  anxieties  of  house 
keeping.  It  may  be  true  enough  that  mis- 
cet  hcec  illis,  prohibetque  Clotho  fortunam 
stare,  but  he  who  said  it  was  fain  at  last  to 
call  in  Atropos  with  her  shears  before  her 
time  ;  and  I  cannot  help  selfishly  mourn 
ing  that  the  fortune  of  our  Republick  could 
not  at  least  stay  till  my  days  were  num 
bered. 

Tibullus  would  find  the  origin  of  wars  in 
the  great  exaggeration  of  riches,  and  does 
not  stick  to  say  that  in  the  days  of  the 
beechen  trencher  there  was  peace.  But 
averse  as  I  am  by  nature  from  all  wars, 
the  more  as  they  have  been  especially  fatal 
to  libraries,  I  would  have  this  one  go  on 
till  we  are  reduced  to  wooden  platters 
again,  rather  than  surrender  the  principle 
to  defend  which  it  was  undertaken.  Though 
I  believe  Slavery  to  have  been  the  cause  of 
it,  by  so  thoroughly  demoralizing  Northern 
politicks  for  its  own  purposes  as  to  give 
opportunity  and  hope  to  treason,  yet  I  would 
not  have  our  thought  and  purpose  diverted 
from  their  true  object,  —  the  maintenance 
of  the  idea  of  Government.  We  are  not 
merely  suppressing  an  enormous  riot,  but 
contending  for  the  possibility  of  permanent 
order  coexisting  with  democratical  fickle 
ness;  and  while  I  would  not  superstitiously 
venerate  form  to  the  sacrifice  of  substance, 
neither  would  I  forget  that  an  adherence  to 
precedent  and  prescription  can  alone  give 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


267 


that  continuity  and  coherence  under  a  dem- 
ocratical  constitution  which  are  inherent  in 
the  person  of  a  despotick  monarch  and  the 
selfishness  of  an  aristocratical  class.  Stet 
pro  ratione  voluntas  is  as  dangerous  in  a  ma 
jority  as  in  a  tyrant. 

I  cannot  allow  the  present  production  of 
my  young  friend  to  go  out  without  a  protest 
from  me  against  a  certain  extremeness  in 
his  views,  more  pardonable  in  the  poet  than 
in  the  philosopher.  While  I  agree  with  him, 
that  the  only  cure  for  rebellion  is  suppres 
sion  by  force,  yet  I  must  animadvert  upon 
certain  phrases  where  I  seem  to  see  a  coin 
cidence  with  a  popular  fallacy  on  the  sub 
ject  of  compromise.  On  the  one  hand  there 
are  those  who  do  not  see  that  the  vital  prin 
ciple  of  Government  and  the  seminal  prin 
ciple  of  Law  cannot  properly  be  made  a 
subject  of  compromise  at  all,  and  on  the 
other  those  who  are  equally  blind  to  the 
truth  that  without  a  compromise  of  indi 
vidual  opinions,  interests,  and  even  rights, 
no  society  would  be  possible.  In  medio 
tutissimus.  For  my  own  part,  I  would 
gladly 

EF  I  a  song  or  two  could  make 

Like  rockets  druv  by  their  own  burnin', 
All  leap  an'  light,  to  leave  a  wake 

Men's   hearts  an*   faces   skyward   turn- 

in'!  — 
But,  it  strikes  me,  't  ain't  jest  the  time 

Fer  stringin'  words  with  settisf action: 
Wut  's  wanted  now  's  the  silent  rhyme 

'Twixt  upright  Will  an'  downright  Ac 
tion. 

Words,  ef  you  keep  'em,  pay  their  keep, 

But  gabble  's  the  short  cut  to  ruin ; 
It  's  gratis,  (gals  half-price,)  but  cheap 

At  no  rate,  ef  it  benders  doin'; 
Ther'  's  nothin'  wuss,  'less  't  is  to  set 

A  martyr-prem'um  upon  jawrin': 
Teapots  git  dangerous,  ef  you  shet 

Their  lids  down  on  'em  with  Fort  War 
ren. 

'Bout  long  enough  it 's  ben  discussed 

Who  sot  the  magazine  afire, 
An'  whether,  ef  Bob  Wickliffe  bust, 

'T  would   scare   us   more    or  blow    us 

higher. 
D'  ye  s'pose  the  Gret  Foreseer's  plan 

Wuz  settled  fer  him  in  town-meetin'  ? 


Or  thet  ther'  'd  ben  no  Fall  o'  Man, 
Ef  Adam  'd  on'y  bit  a  sweetin'  ? 

Oh,  Jon'than,  ef  you  want  to  be 

A  rugged  chap  agin  an'  hearty, 
Go  fer  wutever  '11  hurt  Jeff  D., 

Nut  wut  '11  boost  up  ary  party. 
Here 's  hell  broke  loose,  an'  we  lay  flat 

With  half  the  univarse  a-singein', 
Till  Seu'tor  This  an'  Gov'nor  Thet 

Stop  squabblin'  fer  the  garding-ingin. 

It  's  war  we  're  in,  not  politics; 

It  's  systems  wrastlin'  now,  not  parties; 
An'  victory  in  the  eend  '11  fix 

Where  longest  will  an'  truest  heart  is. 
An'  wut  's  the  Guv'ment  folks  about  ? 

Try  in'  to  hope  ther'  's  nothin'  doin', 
An'  look  ez  though  they  did  n't  doubt 

Sunthin'  pertickler  wuz  a-brewin'. 

Ther'  's  critters  yit  thet  talk  an'  act 

Fer  wut  they  call  Conciliation; 
They  'd  hand  a  buff'lo-drove  a  tract 

When   they  wuz   madder  than  all  Ba- 

shan. 
Conciliate  ?  it  jest  means  be  kicked, 

No  metter  how  they  phrase  an'  tone  it; 
It  means  thet  we  're  to  set  down  licked, 

Thet  we  're  poor  shotes  an'  glad  to  own 
it! 

A  war  on  tick  's  ez  dear  Jz  the  deuce, 

But  it  wun't  leave  no  lastin'  traces, 
Ez  't  would  to  make  a  sneakin'  truce 

Without  no  moral  specie-basis: 
Ef  greenbacks  ain't  nut  jest  the  cheese, 

I  guess  ther'  's  evils  thet  's  extremer,  — 
Fer  instance,  —  shinplaster  idees 

Like  them  put  out  by  Gov'nor  Seymour. 

Last  year,  the  Nation,  at  a  word, 

When  tremblin'  Freedom  cried  to  shield 

her, 
Flamed  weldin'  into  one  keen  sword 

Waitin'  an'  longin'  fer  a  wielder: 
A  splendid  flash!  —  but  how  'd  the  grasp 

With  sech  a  chance  ez  thet  wuz  tally  ? 
Ther'  warn't  no  meanin'  in  our  clasp, — 

Half  this,  half  thet,  all  shilly-shally. 

More  men?    More  Man!     It's  there  we 

fail; 

Weak  plans  grow  weaker  yit  by  length- 
enin': 


268 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


Wut  use  in  addin'  to  the  tail, 

When  it  's  the  head  's  in  need  o'  strength- 

enin'  ? 
We  wanted  one  tbet  felt  all  Chief 

From  roots  o'  hair  to  sole  o'  stockin', 
Square-sot  with  thousan'-ton  belief 

In  him  an'  us,  ef  earth  went  rockin' ! 

Ole  Hick'ry  would  n't  ha'  stood  see-saw 

'Bout  doin'   things   till   they  wuz   done 

with,  — 
He  'd  smashed  the  tables  o'  the  Law 

In  time  o'  need  to  load  his  gun  with; 
He  could  n't  see  but  jest  one  side,  — 

Ef  his,  't  wuz  God's,  an'  thet  wuz  plenty  ; 
An'  so  his  "  Forrards  !  "  multiplied 

An  army's  nghtin'  weight  by  twenty. 

But  this  'ere  histin',  creak,  creak,  creak, 

Your  cappen's  heart  up  with  a  derrick, 
This  tryin'  to  coax  a  lightnin'-streak 

Out  of  a  half-discouraged  hay-rick, 
This  hangin'  on  mont'  arter  mont' 

Fer    one    sharp    purpose    'mongst    the 

twitter,  — 
I  tell  ye,  it  doos  kind  o'  stunt 

The  peth  and  sperit  of  a  critter. 

In  six  months  where  '11  the  People  be, 

Ef  leaders  look  on  revolution 
Ez  though  it  wuz  a  cup  o'  tea,  — 

Jest  social  el'ments  in  solution  ? 
This  weighin'  things  doos  wal  enough 

When   war    cools   down,   an'   conies   to 

writin' ; 
But  while  it  's  makin',  the  true  stuff 

Is  pison-mad,  pig-headed  fightin*. 

Democracy  gives  every  man 

The  right  to  be  his  own  oppressor  ; 
But  a  loose  Gov'ment  ain't  the  plan, 

Helpless  ez  spilled  beans  on  a  dresser  : 
I  tell  ye  one  thing  we  might  larn 

From  them   smart   critters,  the   Seced- 

ers,— 
Ef  bein'  right 's  the  fust  consarn, 

The  'fore-the-fust  's  cast-iron  leaders. 

But  'pears  to  me  I  see  some  signs 
Thet  we  're  a-goin'  to  use  our  senses  : 

Jeff  druv  us  into  these  hard  lines, 

An'  ough'  to  bear  his  half  th'  expenses  ; 

Slavery  's  Secession's  heart  an'  will, 

South,  North,  East,  West,  where'er  you 
find  it, 


An'  ef  it  drors  into  War's  mill, 

D'  ye  say   them   thunder-stones   sha'n't 
grind  it  ? 

D'  ye  s'pose,  ef  Jeff  giv  him  a  lick, 

Ole  Hick'ry  'd  tried  his  head  to  sof'n 
So 's 't  would  n't  hurt  thet  ebony  stick 

Thet 's  made  our  side  see  stars  so  of 'n  ? 
"No!"   he'd    ha'    thundered,   "on    your 
knees, 

An'  own  one  flag,  one  road  to  glory  ! 
Soft-heartedness,  in  times  like  these, 

Shows  sof 'ness  in  the  upper  story  ! " 

An'  why  should  we  kick  up  a  muss 

About  the  Pres'dunt's  proclamation  ? 
It  ain't  a-goin'  to  lib'rate  us, 

Ef  we  don't  like  emancipation  : 
The  right  to  be  a  cussed  fool 

Is  safe  from  all  devices  human, 
It 's  common  (ez  a  gin'l  rule) 

To  every  critter  born  o'  woman. 

So  we  're  all  right,  an'  I,  fer  one, 

Don't  think  our  cause  '11  lose  in  vally 
By  rammin'  Scriptur'  in  our  gun, 

An'  gittin'  Natur'  fer  an  ally  : 
Thank  God,  say  I,  fer  even  a  plan 

To  lift  one  human  bein's  level, 
Give  one  more  chance  to  make  a  man, 

Or,  anyhow,  to  spile  a  devil ! 

Not  thet  I  'm  one  thet  much  expec' 

Millennium  by  express  to-morrer; 
They  will  miscarry,  —  I  rec'lec' 

Tu  many  on  'em,  to  my  sorrer  : 
Men  ain't  made  angels  in  a  day, 

No   matter   how  you   mould  an'   labor 

'em, 
Nor  'riginal  ones,  I  guess,  don't  stay 

With  Abe  so  of'n  ez  with  Abraham. 

The'ry  thinks  Fact  a  pooty  thing, 

An'    wants   the    banns    read   right   en- 

suin'; 
But  fact  wun't  noways  wear  the  ring, 

'Thout  years  o'  settin'  up  an'  wooin': 
Though,  arter  all,  Time's  dial-plate 

Marks  cent'ries  with  the  minute-finger, 
An'  Good  can't  never  come  tu  late, 

Though  it  doos  seem  to  try  an'  linger. 

An'  come  wut  will,  I  think  it 's  grand 
Abe   's  gut  his  will  et  last  bloom-fur- 
naced 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


269 


in  trial-flames  till  it  '11  stand 

The  strain  o'  bein'  in  deadly  earnest : 
Thet  's  wut  we  want,  —  we  want  to  know 

The  folks  on  our  side  hez  the  bravery 
To  b'lieve  ez  hard,  come  weal,  come  woe, 

In  Freedom  ez  Jeff  doos  in  Slavery. 

Set  the  two  forces  foot  to  foot, 

An'  every  man  knows  who  '11  be  winner, 
Whose  faith  in  God  hez  ary  root 

Thet  goes  down  deeper  than  his  dinner: 
Then  't  will  be  felt  from  pole  to  pole, 

Without  no  need  o'  proclamation, 
Earth's  biggest  Country 's  gut  her  soul 

An'  risen  up  Earth's  Greatest  Nation  ! 


No.  VIII 
KETTELOPOTOMACHIA 

PRELIMINARY    NOTE 

[!N  the  month  of  February,  1866,  the  editors 
of  the  "  Atlantic  Monthly  "  received  from  the 
Rev.  Mr.  Hitchcock  of  Jaalama  letter  enclosing 
the  macaronic  verses  which  follow,  and  promis 
ing  to  send  more,  if  more  should  be  communi 
cated.  "  They  were  rapped  out  on  the  evening 
of  Thursday  last  past,"  he  says,  "  by  what 
claimed  to  be  the  spirit  of  my  late  predecessor 
in  the  ministry  here,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Wilbur, 
through  the  medium  of  a  young  man  at  present 
domiciled  in  my  family.  As  to  the  possibility 
of  such  spiritual  manifestations,  or  whether 
they  be  properly  so  entitled,  I  express  no 
opinion,  as  there  is  a  division  of  sentiment  on 
that  subject  in  the  parish,  and  many  persons 
of  the  highest  respectability  in  social  standing 
entertain  opposing  views.  The  young  man 
who  was  improved  as  a  medium  submitted 
himself  to  the  experiment  with  manifest  reluc 
tance,  and  is  still  unprepared  to  believe  in  the 
authenticity  of  the  manifestations.  During 
his  residence  with  me  his  deportment  has  al 
ways  been  exemplary  ;  he  has  been  constant  in 
his  attendance  upon  our  family  devotions  and 
the  public  ministrations  of  the  Word,  and  has 
more  than  once  privately  stated  to  me,  that 
the  latter  had  often  brought  him  under  deep 
concern  of  mind.  The  table  is  an  ordinary 
quadrupedal  one,  weighing  about  thirty  pounds, 
three  feet  seven  inches  and  a  half  in  height, 
four  feet  square  on  the  top,  and  of  beech  or 
maple,  I  am  not  definitely  prepared  to  say 
which.  It  had  once  belonged  to  my  respected 
predecessor,  and  had  been,  so  far  as  I  can 
learn  upon  careful  inquiry,  of  perfectly  regular 


and  correct  habits  up  to  the  evening  in  ques 
tion.  On  that  occasion  the  young  man  previ 
ously  alluded  to  had  been  sitting  with  his 
hands  resting  carelessly  upon  it,  while  I  read 
over  to  him  at  his  request  certain  portions  of 
my  last  Sabbath's  discourse.  On  a  sudden  the 
rappings,  as  they  are  called,  commenced  to 
render  themselves  audible,  at  first  faintly,  but 
in  process  of  time  more  distinctly  and  witk 
violent  agitation  of  the  table.  The  young  man 
expressed  himself  both  surprised  and  pained 
by  the  wholly  unexpected,  and,  so  far  as  he 
was  concerned,  unprecedented  occurrence.  At 
the  earnest  solicitation,  however,  of  several  who 
happened  to  be  present,  he  consented  to  go  on 
with  the  experiment,  and  with  the  assistance 
of  the  alphabet  commonly  employed  in  similar 
emergencies,  the  following  communication  was 
obtained  and  written  down  immediately  by 
myself.  Whether  any,  and  if  so,  how  much 
weight  should  be  attached  to  it,  I  venture  no 
decision.  That  Dr.  Wilbur  had  sometimes, 
employed  his  leisure  in  Latin  versification  I 
have  ascertained  to  be  the  case,  though  all 
that  has  been  discovered  of  that  nature  among 
his  papers  consists  of  some  fragmentary  pass 
ages  of  a  version  into  hexameters  of  portions 
of  the  Song  of  Solomon.  These  I  had  com 
municated  about  a  week  or  ten  days  previ 
ous  [ly]  to  the  young  gentleman  who  officiated 
as  medium  in  the  communication  afterwards 
received.  I  have  thus,  I  believe,  stated  all  the 
material  facts  that  have  any  elucidative  bear 
ing  upon  this  mysterious  occurrence." 

So  far  Mr.  Hitchcock,  who  seems  perfectly 
master  of  Webster's  unabridged  quarto,  and 
whose  flowing  style  leads  him  into  certain 
further  expatiations  for  which  we  have  not 
room.  We  have  since  learned  that  the  young 
man  he  speaks  of  was  a  sophomore,  put  under 
his  care  during  a  sentence  of  rustication  from 
College,  where  he  had  distinguished  him 
self  rather  by  physical  experiments  on  the 
comparative  power  of  resistance  in  window- 
glass  to  various  solid  substances,  than  in  the 
more  regular  studies  of  the  place.  In  answer 
to  a  letter  of  inquiry,  the  professor  of  Latin 
says,  "  There  was  no  harm  in  the  boy  that  I 
know  of  beyond  his  loving  mischief  more  than 
Latin,  nor  can  I  think  of  any  spirits  likely 
to  possess  him  except  those  commonly  called 
animal.  He  was  certainly  not  remarkable  for 
his  Latinity,  but  I  see  nothing  in  the  verses 
you  enclose  that  would  lead  me  to  think  them 
beyond  his  capacity,  or  the  result  of  any  special 
inspiration  whether  of  beech  or  maple.  Had 
that  of  birch  been  tried  upon  him  earlier  and 
more  faithfully,  the  verses  would  perhaps  have 
been  better  in  quality  and  certainly  in  quan 
tity."  This  exact  and  thorough  scholar  then 
goes  on  to  point  out  many  false  quantities  and 


270 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


barbarisms.  It  is  but  fair  to  say,  however,  that 
the  author,  whoever  he  was,  seems  not  to  have 
been  unaware  of  some  of  them  himself,  as  is 
shown  by  a  great  many  notes  appended  to  the 
verses  as  we  received  them,  and  purporting1  to  be 
by  Scaliger,  Bentley,  and  others,  —  among-  them 
the  Esprit  de  Voltaire  !  These  we  have  omit 
ted  as  clearly  meant  to  be  humorous  and  alto 
gether  failing  therein. 

Though  entirely  satisfied  that  the  verses  are 
altogether  unworthy  of  Mr.  Wilbur,  who  seems 
to  have  been  a  tolerable  Latin  scholar  after  the 
fashion  of  his  day,  yet  we  have  determined  to 
print  them  here,  partly  as  belonging  to  the 
res  gestce  of  this  collection,  and  partly  as  a 
warning  to  their  putative  author  which  may 
keep  him  from  such  indecorous  pranks  for  the 
future. 


KETTELOPOTOMACHIA 

P.  Ovidii  Nasonis  carmen  heroicum  macaron- 
icum  perplexametrum,  inter  Getas  getico  more 
compostum,  denuo  per  medium  ardentispiritu- 
alem  adjuvante  mensa  diabolice  obsessa",  re- 
cuperatum,  curaque  Jo.  Conrarli  Schwarzii  um 
brae,  aliis  necnon  plurimis  adjuvantibus,  re- 
stitutum. 

LIBER  I. 

PUNCTORUM    garretos    colens    et    cellara 

Quinque, 
Gutteribus  quse  et  gaudes  sundayam  abstin- 

gere  frontem, 

Plerumque  iiisidos  solita  fluitare  liquore 
Tanglepedem  quern  homines  appellant  Di 

quoque  rotgut, 
Pimpliidis,  rubicundaque,  Musa,  O,  bour- 

bonolensque,  5 

Fenianas  rixas  procul,  alma,  brogipotentis 
Patricii  cyathos  iterantis  et  horrida  bella, 
Backos  dum  virides  viridis  Brigitta  remit- 

tit, 

Linquens,  eximios  celebrem,  da,Virginienses 
Rowdes,  prsecipue  et  TE,  heros  alte,  Polar- 

de!  10 

Insignes  juvenesque,  illo  certamine  lictos, 
Colemane,  Tylere,  nee  vos  oblivione  relin- 

quam. 

Ampla  aquilse  invictse  fausto  est  sub  teg- 
mine  terra, 

Backyfer,  ooiskeo  pollens,  ebenoque  bi- 
pede, 

Socors  prsesidum  et  altrix  (denique  quidru- 
minantium),  15 


Duplefveorum   uberrima;   illis   et  integre 

cordi  est 
Deplere  assidue  et  sine  proprio  incommodo 

fiscum; 
Nunc  etiam  placidum  hoc  opus  invictique 

secuti, 
Goosam  aureos  ni  eggos  voluisseut  immo 

necare 
Qua3  peperit,  saltern  ac  de  illis  meliora  me- 

rentem.  20 

Condidit  hanc  Smithius  Dux,  Captinus 

inclytus  ille 
Regis  Ulyssse  instar,  docti  arcum  intendere 

longum ; 
Condidit  ille  Johnsmith,  Virginiamque  vo- 

cavit, 

Settledit  autem  Jacobus  rex,  nomine  pri 
mus, 
Rascalis  implens  ruptis,  blagardisque  de- 

boshtis,  25 

Militibusque  ex  Falstaffi  legione  fugatis 
Wenchisque   illi   quas    poterant    seducere 

nuptas ; 
Virgineum,  ah,  littus  matronis  talibus  im- 

par! 
Progeniem  stirpe  ex  hoc  non  sine  stigmate 

ducunt 

Multi  sese  qui  jactant  regum  esse  nepotes: 
Haud   omnes,  Mater,  genitos   quse   nuper 

habebas  si 

Bello  fortes,  consilio  cautos,  virtute  decoros, 
Jamque  et  habes,  sparso  si  patrio  in  san 
guine  virtus, 
Mostrabisque   iterurn,  antiquis  sub   astris 

reducta  ! 
De  illis  qui  upkikitant,  dicebam,  rumpora 

tanta,  35 

Letcheris  et  Floydis  magnisque  Extra  or- 

dine  Billis  ; 
Est  his  prisca  fides  jurare  et  breakere  wor- 

dum  ; 
Poppere  fellerum  a  tergo,  aut  stickere  clam 

bowiknifo, 
Haud  sane  facinus,   dignum  sed  victrice 

lauro  ; 
Larrupere  et  nigerum,  factum  prsestantius 

ullo :  40 

Ast    chlamydem    piciplumatam,   Icariam, 

flito  et  ineptam, 

Yanko  gratis  induere,  ilium  et  valid  o  railo 

Insuper  acri  equitare  docere  est  hospitio  uti. 

Nescio  an  ille  Polardus  duplefveoribus 

ortus, 
Sed  reputo  potius  de  radice  poorwiteman- 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


271 


Fortuiti  proles,  ni  fallor,  Tylerus  erat 
Prsesidis,  omnibus  ab  Whiggis  nominatus  a 

poor  cuss  ; 

Et  nobilem  tertium  evincit  venerabile  no- 
men. 
Ast  animosi  omnes  bellique  ad  tympana  ha  ! 

ha! 

Vociferant  laeti,  procul  et  si  prrelia,  sive    so 
Hostem  incautum  atsito   possint   shootere 

salvi  ; 

Imperiique  capaces,  esset  si  stylus  aginen, 
Pro  dulci  spoliabant  et  sine  dangere  fito. 
Prse  ceterisque  Polardus  :  si  Secessia  licta, 
Se  nuuquam  licturum  jurat,  res  et  unheard- 
of,  55 
Verbo  hsesit,  similisque  audaci  roosteri  in- 

victo, 
Dunghilli    solitus    rex    pullos     whoppere 

molles, 
Grantum,  hirelingos  stripes  quique  et  splen- 

dida  tollunt 
Sidera,  et  Yankos,  territum  et  omnem  sars- 

uit  orbem. 
Usque  dabant  operam  isti  omnes,  noctes- 

que  diesque,  eo 

Samuelem  demulgere  avunculum,  id  vero 

siccum  ; 
Uberibus  sed  ejus,  et  horum  est  culpa,  re- 

motis, 
Parvam  domi  vaccam,  nee  mora  minima, 

quserunt, 
Lacticarentem  autem  et  droppam  vix  in  die 

dantem  ; 
Reddite  avunculi,  et  exclainabant,  reddite 

pappam !  65 

Polko   ut   consule,  gemens,   Billy   immur- 

murat  Extra  ; 

Echo  respondit,  thesauro   ex  vacuo,    pap 
pam  ! 
Frustra  explorant  pocketa,  ruber  nare  re- 

pertum  ; 
Offieia  expulsi  aspiciunt  rapta,   et   Para- 

disum 
Occlusum,   viridesque    hand    illis    nascere 

backos  ;  70 

Stupent  tune  oculis  madidis  spittantque  si- 

lenter. 
Adhibere  usu    ast  longo  vires  prorsus  in- 

epti, 
Si  non  ut  qui  grindeat  axve  trabemve  re- 

uolvat, 
Virginiam  excruciant  totis  nunc  mightibu' 

matrem  ; 
Non  melius,  puta,  nono  panis  dimidiumne 

est  ?  75 


Readere  ibi  non  posse  est  casus  commoner 
ullo; 

Tanto  intentius  imprimere  est  opus  ergo 
statuta; 

Nemo  propterea  pejor,  melior,  sine  doubto, 

Obtineat  qui  contractum,  si  et  postea  rhino  ; 

Ergo  Polardus,  si  quis,  iuexsuperabilis  he- 
ros,  80 

Colemanus  impavidus  nondum,  atque  in 
purpure  natus 

Tylerus  lohanides  celerisque  in  flito  Na 
thaniel, 

Quisque  optans  digitos  in  tantum  stickere 
pium, 

Adstant  accincti  imprimere  aut  perrumpere 


Quales  os  miserum  rabidi  tres  segre  mo- 

lossi,  SA 

Quales  aut  dubium  textum  atra  in  veste 

ministri, 
Tales  circumstabant  nunc  nostri  inopes  hocr 

job. 

Hisque  Polardus  voce  canoro  talia  fatus: 
Primum    autem,   veluti  est  mos,   prseceps 

quisque  liquorat, 
Quisque  et  Nicotianum  ingens  quid  inserit 

atrum,  90 

Heroum   nitidum    decus    et  solamen  avi- 

tum, 
Masticat   ac   simul   altisonans,    spittatque 

profuse : 
Quis   de   Virginia  meruit  prsestantius  un- 

quam  ? 
Quis   se   pro   patria   curavit   impigre    tu- 

tum? 
Speechisque  articulisque  hominum  quis  for- 

tior  ullus,  95 

Ingeminans  pennse   lickos  et  vulnera  vo- 

cis? 
Quisnam  putidius  (hie)  sarsuit  Yankinimi- 

cos, 
Ssepius  aut  dedit  ultro  datam  et  broke  his 

parolam  ? 
Mente  inquassatus  solidaque,  tyranno  mi- 

nante, 
Horrisonis  (hie)  bombis  mcenia  et  alta  qua- 

tente,  100 

Sese  promptum  (hie)  jactans  Yankos  lickere 

centum, 
Atque  ad  lastum  invictus  non  surrendidit 

unquam  ? 
Ergo  hand  meddlite,  posco,  mique  relinquite 

(hie)  hoc  job, 

Si  non  —  knif  unique  enormem  mostrat  spit 
tatque  tremendus. 


272 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


Dixerat:    ast    alii  reliquoraut    et  sine 

pauso 
Pluggos  incumbunt  maxillis,  uterque  vicis- 

sim 
Certamine  innocuo  valde  madidam  inquinat 

assem: 
Tylerus   autera,    dumque    liquorat    aridus 

hostis, 
Mirum  aspicit  duplumque  bibentem,  astante 

Lyseo; 
Ardens  impavidusque   edidit  tamen  impia 

verba;  no 

Duplum   quamvis   te   aspicio,  esses  atque 

viginti, 
Mendacem  dicerem  totumque  (bic)  thrash- 

erem  acervum; 
Neinpe  et  thrasham,  doggonatus  (hie)  sim 

nisi  faxem; 
Lambastabo   omnes    catawompositer-(hic) 

que  cbawam! 
Dixit    et    impulsus    Ryeo    ruitur  bene    ti- 

tuS,  115 

Illi  nam  gravidum  caput  et  laterem  habet 

in  hatto. 
Hunc  inhiat  titubansque  Polardus,  optat 

et  ilium 
Stickere    inermem,    protegit    autem    rite 

Lyseus, 
Et  pronos  geminos,  oculis  dubitantibus,  he- 

ros 
Cernit  et  irritus  hostes,  dumque  excogitat 

utrum  120 

Primum  inpitchere,  corruit,  inter  utrosque 

recumbit, 
Magno  asiuo  similis  nimio  sub  pondere  quas- 

sns: 
Colemanus  hos  mcestus,  triste  ruminansque 

solamen, 
Inspicit  hiccans,  circumspittat  terque  cu- 

bantes ; 
Funereisque  his  ritibus  humidis  inde  solu- 

tis,  125 

Stenritur,  invalidusque  illis  superincidit  in- 

fans; 
Hos  sepelit  somnus  et  snorunt  cornisonan- 

tes, 
Watchmanus  inscios  ast  calybooso  deinde 

reponit. 


No.  IX 

[THE  Editors  of  the  "  Atlantic "  have  re 
ceived  so  many  letters  of  inquiry  concerning  the 
literary  remains  of  the  late  Mr.  Wilbur,  men 
tioned  by  his  colleague  and  successor,  Rev. 


Jeduthun  Hitchcock,  in  a  communication  from 
which  we  made  some  extracts  in  our  number 
for  February,  1863,  and  have  been  so  repeatedly 
urged  to  print  some  part  of  them  for  the  grati 
fication  of  the  public,  that  they  felt  it  their  duty 
at  least  to  make  some  effort  to  satisfy  so  urgent 
a  demand.  They  have  accordingly  carefully 
examined  the  papers  intrusted  to  them,  but  find 
most  of  the  productions  of  Mr.  Wilbur's  pen  so 
fragmentary,  and  even  chaotic,  written  as  they 
are  on  the  backs  of  letters  in  an  exceedingly 
cramped  chirography,  —  here  a  memorandum 
for  a  sermon;  there  an  observation  of  the 
weather ;  now  the  measurement  of  an  extraor 
dinary  head  of  cabbage,  and  then  of  the  cerebral 
capacity  of  some  reverend  brother  deceased ;  a 
calm  inquiry  into  the  state  of  modern  literature, 
ending  in  a  method  of  detecting  if  milk  be  im 
poverished  with  water,  and  the  amount  thereof  ; 
one  leaf  beginning  with  a  genealogy,  to  be  inter 
rupted  halfway  down  with  an  entry  that  the 
brindle  cow  had  calved,  —  that  any  attempts  at 
selection  seemed  desperate.  His  only  complete 
work,  "An  Enquiry  concerning  the  Tenth  Horn 
of  the  Beast,"  even  in  the  abstract  of  it  given 
by  Mr.  Hitchcock,  would,  by  a  rough  computa 
tion  of  the  printers,  fill  five  entire  numbers  of 
our  journal,  and  as  he  attempts,  by  a  new  appli 
cation  of  decimal  fractions,  to  identify  it  with 
the  Emperor  Julian,  seems  hardly  of  immediate 
concern  to  the  Teneral  reader.  Even  the  Table- 
Talk,  though  doubtless  originally  highly  inter 
esting  in  the  domestic  circle,  is  so  largely  made 
up  of  theological  discussion  and  matters  of  local 
or  preterite  interest,  that  we  have  found  it  hard 
to  extract  anything  that  would  at  all  satisfy  ex 
pectation.  But,  in  order  to  silence  further  in 
quiry,  we  subjoin  a  few  passages  as  illustrations 
of  its  general  character.] 

I  think  I  could  go  near  to  be  a  perfect  Chris 
tian  if  I  were  always  a  visitor,  as  I  have  some 
times  been,  at  the  house  of  some  hospitable 
friend.  I  can  show  a  great  deal  of  self-denial 
where  the  best  of  everything  is  urged  upon  me 
with  kindly  importunity.  It  is  not  so  very 
hard  to  turn  the  other  cheek  for  a  kiss.  And 
when  I  meditate  upon  the  pains  taken  for  our 
entertainment  in  this  life,  on  the  endless  va 
riety  of  seasons,  of  human  character  and  for 
tune,  on  the  costliness  of  the  hangings  and 
furniture  of  our  dwelling  here,  I  sometimes 
feel  a  singular  joy  in  looking  upon  myself  as 
God's  guest,  and  cannot  but  believe  that  we 
should  all  be  wiser  and  happier,  because  more 
grateful,  if  we  were  always  mindful  of  our  priv 
ilege  in  this  regard.  And  should  we  not  rate 
more  cheaply  any  honor  that  men  could  pay  us, 
if  we  remembered  that  every  day  we  sat  at  the 
table  of  the  Great  King  ?  Yet  must  we  not 
forget  that  we  are  in  strictest  bonds  His  ser 
vants  also;  for  there  is  no  impiety  so  ahject 
as  that  which  expects  to  he  dead-headed  (ut  ita 
dicam)  through  life,  and  which,  calling  itself 
trust  in  Providence,  is  in  reality  asking  Provi- 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


273 


dence  to  trust  us  and  taking  up  all  our  goods 
on  false  pretences.  It  is  a  wise  rule  to  take 
the  world  as  we  find  it,  not  always  to  leave 
it  so. 

It  has  often  set  me  thinking  when  I  find  that 
I  can  always  pick  up  plenty  of  empty  nuts 
under  my  shagbark-tree.  The  squirrels  know 
them  by  their  lightness,  and  I  have  seldom 
seen  one  with  the  marks  of  their  teeth  in  it. 
What  a  school-house  is  the  world,  if  our  wits 
would  only  not  play  truant!  For  I  observe 
that  men  set  most  store  by  forms  and  symbols 
in  proportion  as  they  are  mere  shells.  It  is  the 
outside  they  want  and  not  the  kernel.  What 
stores  of  such  do  not  many,  who  in  material 
things  are  as  shrewd  as  the  squirrels,  lay  up  for 
the  spiritual  winter-supply  of  themselves  and 
their  children!  I  have  seen  churches  that 
seemed  to  me  garners  of  these  withered  nuts, 
for  it  is  wonderful  how  prosaic  is  the  appre 
hension  of  symbols  by  the  minds  of  most  men. 
It  is  not  one  sect  nor  another,  but  all,  who,  like 
the  dog  of  the  fable,  have  let  drop  the  spiritual 
substance  of  symbols  for  their  material  shadow,  j 
If  one  attribute  miraculous  virtues  to  mere 
holy  water,  that  beautiful  emblem  of  inward 
purification  at  the  door  of  God's  house,  another 
cannot  comprehend  the  significance  of  baptism 
without  being  ducked  over  head  and  ears  in 
the  liquid  vehicle  thereof. 

[Perhaps  a  word  of  historical  comment  may 
be  permitted  here.  My  late  revered  predecessor 
was,  I  would  humbly  affirm,  as  free  from  pre 
judice  as  falls  to  the  lot  of  the  most  highly  fa 
vored  individuals  of  our  species.  To  be  sure,  I 
have  heard  him  say  that  "what  were  called 
strong  prejudices  were  in  fact  only  the  repulsion 
of  sensitive  organizations  from  that  moral  and 
even  physical  effluvium  through  which  some 
natures  by  providential  appointment,  like  cer 
tain  unsavory  quadrupeds,  gave  warning  of  their 
neighborhood.  Better  ten  mistaken  suspicions 
of  this  kind  than  one  close  encounter."'  This  he 
said  somewhat  in  heat,  on  being  questioned  as 
to  his  motives  for  always  refusing  his  pulpit  to 
those  itinerant  professors  of  vicarious  benevo 
lence  who  end  their  discourses  by  taking  up  a 
collection.  But  at  another  time  I  remember 
his  saying,  "that  there  was  one  large  thing 
which  small  minds  always  found  room  for,  and 
that  was  great  prejudices."  This,  however,  by 
the  way.  The  statement  which  I  purposed  to 
make  was  simply  this.  Down  to  A.  D.  1830, 
Jaalam  had  consisted  of  a  single  parish,  with 
one  house  set  apart  for  religious  services.  In 
that  year  the  foundations  of  a  Baptist  Society 
were  laid  by  the  labors  of  Elder  Joash  Q.  Bal- 
com,  2d.  As  the  members  of  the  new  body  were 
drawn  from  the  First  Parish,  Mr.  Wilbur  was 
for  a  time  considerably  exercised  in  mind.  He 
even  went  so  far  as  on  one  occasion  to  follow 
the  reprehensible  practice  of  the  earlier  Puritan 


divines  in  choosing  a  punning  text,  and  preached 
from  Hebrews  xiii.  9:  "Be  not  carried  about 
with  divers  and  strange  doctrines."  He  after 
wards,  in  accordance  with  one  of  his  own 
maxims, —  "to  get  a  dead  injury  out  of  the 
mind  as  soon  as  is  decent,  bury  it,  and  then  ven 
tilate,"  —  in  accordance  with  this  maxim,  I  say, 
he  lived  on  very  friendly  terms  with  Rev.  Shear- 
jashub  Scrimgour,  present  pastor  of  the  Baptist 
Society  in  Jaalam.  Yet  I  think  it  was  never 
unpleasing  to  him  that  the  church  edifice  of  that 
society  (though  otherwise  a  creditable  specimen 
of  architecture)  remained  without  a  bell,  as 
indeed  it  does  to  this  day.  So  much  seemed 
necessary  to  do  away  with  any  appearance  of 
acerbity  toward  a  respectable  community  of 
professing  Christians,  which  might  be  suspected 
in  the  conclusion  of  the  above  paragraph. — 
J.  H.] 

In  lighter  moods  he  was  not  averse  from  an 
innocent  play  upon  words.  Looking  up  from 
his  newspaper  one  morning,  as  I  entered  his 
study,  he  said,  "  When  I  read  a  debate  in  Con 
gress,  I  feel  as  if  I  were  sitting  at  the  feet  of 
Zeno  in  the  shadow  of  the  Portico."  On  my  ex 
pressing  a  natural  surprise,  he  added,  smiling, 
"  Why,  at  such  times  the  only  view  which  hon 
orable  members  give  me  of  what  goes  on  in 
the  world  is  through  their  intercalumniations." 
I  smiled  at  this  after  a  moment's  reflection, 
and  he  added  gravely,  "  The  most  punctilious 
refinement  of  manners  is  the  only  salt  that  will 
keep  a  democracy  from  stinking  ;  and  what  are 
we  to  expect  from  the  people,  if  their  repre 
sentatives  set  them  such  lessons  ?  Mr.  Everett's 
whole  life  has  been  a  sermon  from  this  text. 
There  was,  at  least,  this  advantage  in  duelling, 
that  it  set  a  certain  limit  on  the  tongue.  When 
Society  laid  by  the  rapier,  it  buckled  on  the 
more  subtle  blade  of  etiquette  wherewith  to 
keep  obtrusive  vulgarity  at  bay."  In  this 
connection,  I  may  be  permitted  to  recall  a 
playful  remark  of  his  upon  another  occasion. 
The  painful  divisions  in  the  First  Parish, 
A.  D.  1844,  occasioned  by  the  wild  notions  in 
respect  to  the  rights  of  (what  Mr.  Wilbur,  so 
far  as  concerned  the  reasoning  faculty,  always 
called)  the  unfairer  part  of  creation,  put  forth 
by  Miss  Parthenia  Almira  Fitz,  are  too  well 
known  to  need  more  than  a  passing  allusion. 
It  was  during  these  heats,  long  since  happily 
allayed,  that  Mr.  Wilbur  remarked  that  "  the 
Church  had  more  trouble  in  dealing  with  one 
staresiarch  than  with  twenty  Aeresiarchs,"  and 
that  the  men's  conscia  recti,  or  certainty  of 
being  right,  was  nothing  to  the  women's. 

Wlhen  I  once  asked  his  opinion  of  a  poetical 
composition  on  which  I  had  expended  no  little 
pains,  he  read  it  attentively,  and  then  re 
marked,  "  Unless  one's  thought  pack  more 
neatly  in  verse  than  in  prose,  it  is  wiser  to 


274 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


refrain.  Commonplace  gains  nothing  by  being 
translated  into  rhyme,  for  it  is  something 
which  no  hocus-pocus  can  transubstantiate  with 
the  real  presence  of  living  thought.  You  en 
title  your  piece,  'My  Mother's  Grave,'  and  ex 
pend  four  pages  of  useful  paper  in  detailing 
your  emotions  there.  But,  my  dear  sir,  water 
ing  does  not  improve  the  quality  of  ink,  even 
though  you  should  do  it  with  tears.  To  pub 
lish  a  sorrow  to  Tom,  Dick,  and  Harry  is  in 
some  sort  to  advertise  its  unreality,  for  I  have 
observed  in  my  intercourse  with  the  afflicted 
that  the  deepest  grief  instinctively  hides  its 
face  with  its  hands  and  is  silent.  If  your 
piece  were  printed,  I  have  no  doubt  it  would 
be  popular,  for  people  like  to  fancy  that  they 
feel  much  better  than  the  trouble  of  feeling. 
I  would  put  all  poets  on  oath  whether  they 
have  striven  to  say  everything  they  possibly 
could  think  of,  or  to  leave  out  all  they  could 
not  help  saying.  In  your  own  case,  my  worthy 
young  friend,  what  you  have  written  is  merely 
a  deliberate  exercise,  the  gymnastic  of  senti 
ment.  For  your  excellent  maternal  relative  is 
still  alive,  and  is  to  take  tea  with  me  this  even 
ing,  D.  V.  Beware  of  simulated  feeling  ;  it  is 
hypocrisy's  first  cousin  ;  it  is  especially  dan 
gerous  to  a  preacher ;  for  he  who  says  one  day, 
4  Go  to,  let  me  seem  to  be  pathetic,'  may  be 
nearer  than  he  thinks  to  saying,  '  Go  to,  let  me 
seem  to  be  virtuous,  or  earnest,  or  under 
sorrow  for  sin.'  Depend  upon  it,  Sappho 
loved  her  verses  more  sincerely  than  she  did 
Phaon,  and  Petrarch  his  sonnets  better  than 
Laura,  who  was  indeed  but  his  poetical  stalk 
ing-horse.  After  you  shall  have  once  heard 
that  muffled  rattle  of  clods  on  the  coffin-lid  of 
an  irreparable  loss,  you  will  grow  acquainted 
with  a  pathos  that  will  make  all  elegies  hate 
ful.  When  I  was  of  your  age,  I  also  for  a 
time  mistook  my  desire  to  write  verses  for  an 
authentic  call  of  my  nature  in  that  direction. 
But  one  day  as  I  was  going  forth  for  a  walk, 
with  my  head  full  of  an  '  Elegy  on  the  Death 
of  Flirtilla,'  and  vainly  groping  after  a  rhyme 
for  lily  that  should  not  be  silly  or  chilly,  I  saw 
my  eldest  boy  Homer  busy  over  the  rain-water 
hogshead,  in  that  childish  experiment  at  par 
thenogenesis,  the  changing  a  horse-hair  into 
a  water-snake.  An  immersion  of  six  weeks 
showed  no  change  in  the  obstinate  filament. 
Here  was  a  stroke  of  unintended  sarcasm. 
Had  I  not  been  doing  in  my  study  precisely 
what  my  boy  was  doing  out  of  doors  ?  Had 
ray  thoughts  any  more  chance  of  coming  to 
life  by  being  submerged  in  rhyme  than  his 
hair  by  soaking  in  water  ?  I  burned  my  elegy 
and  took  a  course  of  Edwards  on  the  Will. 
People  do  not  make  poetry  ;  it  is  made  out  of 
them  by  a  process  for  which  I  do  not  find  my 
self  fitted.  Nevertheless,  the  writing  of  verses 


is  a  good  rhetorical  exercitation,  as  teaching 
us  what  to  shun  most  carefully  in  prose.  For 
prose  bewitched  is  like  window-glass  with 
bubbles  in  it,  distorting  what  it  should  show 
with  pellucid  veracity." 

It  is  unwise  to  insist  on  doctrinal  points  as 
vital  to  religion.  The  Bread  of  Life  is  whole 
some  and  sufficing  in  itself,  but  gulped  down 
with  these  kickshaws  cooked  up  by  theologians, 
it  is  apt  to  produce  an  indigestion,  nay,  even 
at  last  an  incurable  dyspepsia  of  scepticism. 

One  of  the  most  inexcusable  weaknesses  of 
Americans  is  in  signing  their  names  to  what 
are  called  credentials.  But  for  my  interposi 
tion,  a  person  who  shall  be  nameless  would 
have  taken  from  this  town  a  recommendation 
for  an  office  of  trust  subscribed  by  the  select 
men  and  all  the  voters  of  both  parties,  ascrib 
ing  to  him  as  many  good  qualities  as  if  it  had 
been  his  tombstone.  The  excuse  was  that  it 
would  be  well  for  the  town  to  be  rid  of  him, 
as  it  would  erelong  be  obliged  to  maintain 
him.  I  would  not  refuse  my  name  to  modest 
merit,  but  I  would  be  as  cautious  as  in  signing 
a  bond.  [I  trust  I  shall  be  subjected  to  no 
imputation  of  unbecoming  vanity,  if  I  mention 
the  fact  that  Mr.  W.  indorsed  my  own  qualifi 
cations  as  teacher  of  the  high-school  at  Pe- 
quash  Junction.  J.  H.]  When  I  see  a  cer 
tificate  of  character  with  everybody's  name  to 
it,  I  regard  it  as  a  letter  of  introduction  from 
the  Devil.  Never  give  a  man  your  name  un 
less  you  are  willing  to  trust  him  with  your 
reputation. 

There  seem  nowadays  to  be  two  sources  of 
literary  inspiration,  —  fulness  of  mind  and 
emptiness  of  pocket. 

I  am  often  struck,  especially  in  reading 
Montaigne,  with  the  obviousness  and  famil 
iarity  of  a  great  writer's  thoughts,  and  the 
freshness  they  gain  because  said  by  him.  The 
truth  is,  we  mix  their  greatness  with  all  they 
say  and  give  it  our  best  attention.  Johannes 
Faber  sic  cogitavit  would  be  no  enticing  pre 
face  to  a  book,  but  an  accredited  name  gives 
credit  like  the  signature  to  a  note  of  hand.  It 
is  the  advantage  of  fame  that  it  is  always 
privileged  to  take  the  world  by  the  button, 
and  a  thing  is  weightier  for  Shakespeare's  ut 
tering  it  by  the  whole  amount  of  his  person 
ality. 

It  is  singular  how  impatient  men  are  with 
overpraise  of  others,  how  patient  with  over 
praise  of  themselves ;  and  yet  the  one  does 
them  no  injury  while  the  other  may  be  their 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


People  are  apt  to  confound  mere  alertness 
of  mind  with  attention.  The  one  is  but  the 
flying  abroad  of  all  the  faculties  to  the  open 
doors  and  windows  at  every  passing1  rumor ; 
the  other  is  the  concentration  of  every  one  of 
them  in  a  single  focus,  as  in  the  alchemist  over 
his  alembic  at  the  moment  of  expected  pro 
jection.  Attention  is  the  stuff  that  memory  is 
made  of,  and  memory  is  accumulated  genius. 

Do  not  look  for  the  Millennium  as  imminent. 
One  generation  is  apt  to  get  all  the  wear  it  can 
out  of  the  cast  clothes  of  the  last,  and  is  al 
ways  sure  to  use  up  every  paling  of  the  old 
fence  that  will  hold  a  nail  in  building  the 


You  suspect  a  kind  of  vanity  in  my  genea 
logical  enthusiasm.  Perhaps  you  are  right ; 
but  it  is  a  universal  foible.  Where  it  does 
not  show  itself  in  a  personal  and  private  way, 
it  becomes  public  and  gregarious.  We  flatter 
ourselves  in  the  Pilgrim  Fathers,  and  the  Vir 
ginian  offshoot  of  a  transported  convict  swells 
with  the  fancy  of  a  cavalier  ancestry.  Pride 
of  birth,  I  have  noticed,  takes  two  forms.  One 
complacently  traces  himself  up  to  a  coronet  ; 
another,  defiantly,  to  a  lapstone.  The  senti 
ment  is  precisely  the  same  in  both  cases,  only 
that  one  is  the  positive  and  the  other  the  neg 
ative  pole  of  it. 

Seeing  a  goat  the  other  day  kneeling  in 
order  to  graze  with  less  trouble,  it  seemed  to 
me  a  type  of  the  common  notion  of  prayer. 
Most  people  are  ready  enough  to  go  down  on 
their  knees  for  material  blessings,  but  how 
few  for  those  spiritual  gifts  which  alone  are 
an  answer  to  our  orisons,  if  we  but  knew  it ! 

Some  people,  nowadays,  seem  to  have  hit 
upon  a  new  moralization  of  the  moth  and  the 
candle.  They  would  lock  up  the  light  of 
Truth,  lest  poor  Psyche  should  put  it  out  in 
her  effort  to  draw  nigh  to  it. 


No.  X 

MR.  HOSEA  BIGLOW  TO  THE 
EDITOR  OF  THE  ATLANTIC 
MONTHLY 

DEAR  SIR,  —  Your  letter  come  to  ban* 
Requestin'  me  to  please  be  funny; 

But  I  ain't  made  upon  a  plan 

Thet  knows  wut's  comin',  gall  or  honey: 

Ther'  's  times  the  world  doos  look  so  queer, 
Odd  fancies  come  afore  I  call  'em; 


An'  then  agin,  for  half  a  year, 

No  preacher  'thout  a  call 's  more  solemn. 

You  're  'n  want  o'  sunthin'  light  an'  cute, 

Rattlin'  an'  shrewd  an'  kin'   o'  jingle- 

ish, 
An'  wish,  pervidin'  it  'ould  suit, 

I  'd  take  an'  citify  my  English. 
I  ken  write  long-tailed,  ef  I  please, — 

But  when  I'm  jokin',  no,  I  thankee; 
Then,  'fore  I  know  it,  my  idees 

Run  helter-skelter  into  Yankee. 

Sence  I  begun  to  scribble  rhyme, 

I  tell  ye  wut,  I  hain't  ben  foolin'; 
The  parson's  books,  life,  death,  an'  time 

Hev  took  some  trouble  with  my  school- 
in' ; 
Nor  th'  airth  don't  git  put  out  with  me, 

Thet  love  her'z  though  she  wuz  a  wo 
man; 
Why,  th'  ain't  a  bird  upon  the  tree 

But  half  forgives  my  bein'  human. 

An'  yit  I  love  th'  unhighschooled  way 

OP  farmers  bed  when  I  wuz  younger; 
Their  talk  wuz  meatier,  an'  'ould  stay, 

While  book-froth  seems   to  whet  your 

hunger; 
For  puttin'  in  a  downright  lick 

'twixt   Humbug's  eyes,  ther'  's  few  can 

metch  it, 
An'  then  it  helves  my  thoughts  ez  slick 

Ez  stret-grained  hickory  doos  a  hetchet. 

But  when  I  can't,  I  can't,  thet  's  all, 

For  Natur'  won't  put  up  with  gullin'; 
Idees  you  hev  to  shove  an'  haul 

Like  a  druv  pig  ain't  wuth  a  mullein: 
Live    thoughts    ain't    sent   for ;    thru    all 
rifts 

O'  sense  they  pour  an'  resh  ye  onwards, 
Like  rivers  when  south-lyin'  drifts 

Feel  thet  th'  old  airth  's  a-wheelin'  sun 
wards. 

Time  wuz,  the  rhymes  come  crowdin'  thick 

Ez  office-seekers  arter'  lection, 
An'  into  ary  place  'ould  stick 

Without  no  bother  nor  objection ; 
But  sence  the  war  my  thoughts  hang  back 

Ez  though  I  wanted  to  enlist  'em, 
An*  subs'tutes,  —  they  don't  never  lack, 

But  then   they  '11  slope  afore   you  've 
mist  'em. 


276 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


Nothin'  don't  seem  like  wut  it  wuz; 

I  cau't  see  wut  there  is  to  bender, 
An'  yit  my  brains  jes'  go  buzz,  buzz, 

Like  bumblebees  agin  a  winder; 
'fore  these  times  come,  in  all  airth's  row, 

Ther'  wuz  one  quiet  place,  my  head  in, 
Where  I  could  hide  an'  think,  —  but  now 

It 's  all  one  teeter,  hopin',  dreadin'. 

Where    's    Peace  ?      I   start,   some   clear- 
blown  night, 
When  gaunt  stone  walls  grow  numb  an' 

number, 
An',  creakin'  'cross  the  snow-crus'  white, 

Walk  the  col'  starlight  into  summer; 
Up  grows  the  moon,  an'  swell  by  swell 
Thru  the  pale  pasturs  silvers  dimmer 
Than  the  last  smile  thet  strives  to  tell 
O'   love  gone  heavenward  in  its  shim 
mer. 

I  hev  been  gladder  o'  sech  things 

Than  cocks  o'  spring  or  bees  o'  clover, 
They  filled  my  heart  with  livin'  springs, 

But  now  they  seem  to  freeze  'em  over; 
Sights  innercent  ez  babes  on  knee, 

Peaceful  ez  eyes  o'  pastur'd  cattle, 
Jes'  coz  they  be  so,  seem  to  me 

To  rile  me  more   with  thoughts  o'  bat 
tle. 

Indoors  an'  out  by  spells  I  try; 

Ma'am    Natur'    keeps    her    spin -wheel 

goin', 
But  leaves  my  natur*  stiff  and  dry 

Ez  fiel's  o'  clover  arter  mowin'; 
An'  her  jes'  keepin'  on  the  same, 

Calmer  'n  a  clock,  an'  never  carin', 
An'  findin'  nary  thing  to  blame, 

Is  wus  than  ef  she  took  to  swearin'. 

Snow-flakes  come  whisperin'  on  the  pane 

The  charm  makes  blazin'  logs  so  pleas 
ant, 
But  I  can't  hark  to  wut  they  're  say'n', 

With  Grant  or  Sherman  oilers  present; 
The  chimbleys  shudder  in  the  gale, 

Thet  lulls,  then   suddin   takes   to  flap- 
pin' 
Like  a  shot  hawk,  but  all  's  ez  stale 

To  me  ez  so  much  sperit-rappin'. 

Under  the  yaller-pines  I  house, 

When   sunshine   makes   'em   all   sweet- 
scented, 


An'  hear  among  their  furry  boughs 

The  baskin'  west-wind  purr  contented, 

While  'way  o'erhead,  ez  sweet  an'  low 
Ez  distant  bells  thet  ring  for  meetin', 

The  wedged  wil'  geese  their  bugles  blow, 
Further  an'  lurther  South  retreating 

Or  up  the  slippery  knob  I  strain 

An'  see  a  hundred  hills  like  islan's 
Lift  their  blue  woods  in  broken  chain 

Out  o'  the  sea  o'  snowy  silence; 
The  farm -smokes,  sweetes'  sight  on  airth, 

Slow  thru  the  winter  air  a-shrinkin' 
Seem  kin'  o'  sad,  an'  roun'  the  hearth 

Of  empty  places  set  me  thinkin'. 

Beaver  roars  hoarse  with  meltin'  snows, 

An'  rattles  di'mon's  from  his  granite ; 
Time  wuz,  he  snatched  away  my  prose, 

An'  into  psalms  or  satires  ran  it; 
But  he,  nor  all  the  rest  thet  once 

Started  my  blood  to  country-dances, 
Can't  set  me  goin'  more  'n  a  dunce 

Thet    hain't    no    use    for    dreams    an' 
fancies. 

Rat-tat-tat-tattle  thru  the  street 

I  hear  the  drummers  makin'  riot, 
An'  I  set  thinkin'  o'  the  feet 

Thet  follered  once  an'  now  are  quiet,  — 
White  feet  ez  snowdrops  innercent, 

Thet  never  knowed  the  paths  o'  Satan, 
Whose  comin'  step  ther'  's  ears  thet  won't, 

No,  not  lifelong,  leave  off  awaitin'. 

Why,  hain't  I  held  'em  on  my  knee  ? 

Did  n't  I  love  to  see  'em  growin', 
Three  likely  lads  ez  wal  could  be, 

Hahnsome  an'  brave  an'  not  tu  knowin'  ? 
I  set  an'  look  into  the  blaze 

Whose    natur',   jes'    like   theirn,  keeps 

climbin', 
Ez  long  'z  it  lives,  in  shinin'  ways, 

An'  half  despise  myself  for  rhymin*. 

Wut 's    words   to    them   whose    faith  an' 
truth 

On  War's  red  techstone  rang  true  metal, 
Who  ventered  life  an'  love  an'  youth 

For  the  gret  prize  o'  death  in  battle  ? 
To  him  who,  deadly  hurt,  agen 

Flashed  on  afore  the  charge's  thunder, 
Tippin'  with  fire  the  bolt  of  men 

Thet  rived  the  Rebel  line  asunder  ? 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


277 


'Tain't  right  to  hev  the  young  go  fust, 

All  throbbin'  full  o'  gifts  an'  graces, 
Leavin'  life's  paupers  dry  ez  dust 

To  try  an'  make  b'lieve  fill  their  places : 
Nothin'  but  tells  us  wut  we  miss, 

Ther'  's  gaps  our  lives  can't  never  fay  in, 
An'  thet  world  seems  so  fur  from  this 

Lef  for  us  loafers  to  grow  gray  in  ! 

My  eyes  cloud  up  for  rain;  my  mouth 

Will  take  to  twitchin'  roun'  the  corners; 
I  pity  mothers,  tu,  down  South, 

For  all  they  sot  among  the  scorners: 
I  'd  sooner  take  my  chance  to  stan' 

At  Jedgment  where  your  meanest  slave 

is, 
Than  at  God's  bar  hoi'  up  a  han' 

Ez  drippin'  red  ez  yourn,  Jeff  Davis  ! 

Come,  Peace  !  not  like  a  mourner  bowed 

For  honor  lost  an'  dear  ones  wasted, 
But  proud,  to  meet  a  people  proud, 

With  eyes  thet  tell  o'  triumph  tasted  ! 
Come,  with  han'  grippin'  on  the  hilt, 

An'  step  thet  proves  ye  Victory's  daugh 
ter  ! 
Longin'  for  you,  our  sperits  wilt 

Like   shipwrecked  men's   on    raf's    for 
water. 

Come,  while  our  country  feels  the  lift 

Of  a  gret  instinct  shoutin'  "  Forwards  !  " 
An'  knows  thet  freedom  ain't  a  gift 

Thet  tarries  long  in  ban's  o'  cowards  ! 
Come,  sech  ez  mothers  prayed  for,  when 

They  kissed  their  cross  with   lips  thet 

quivered, 
An*  bring  fair  wages  for  brave  men, 

A  nation  saved,  a  race  delivered  ! 


No.  XI 

MR.    HOSEA   BIGLOW'S    SPEECH 
IN    MARCH    MEETING 

TO  THE  EDITOR   OF  THE   ATLANTIC 
MONTHLY 

JAALAM,  April  5, 1866. 
MY  DEAR  SIR,  — 

(an'  noticin'  by  your  kiver  thet  you  're 
some  dearer  than  wut  you  wuz,  I  enclose 
the  deffrence)  I  dunno  ez  I  know  jest  how 
to  interdooce  this  las'  perduction  of  my 


mews,  ez  Parson  Willber  allus  called  'em, 
which  is  goin'  to  be  the  last  an'  stay  the  last 
onless  suiithin'  pertikler  sh'd  interfear 
which  I  don't  expee'  ner  I  wun't  yield  tu 
ef  it  wuz  ez  pressin'  ez  a  deppity  Shiriff. 
Sence  Mr.  Wilbur's  disease  I  hev  n't  bed 
no  one  thet  could  dror  out  my  talons.  He 
ust  to  kind  o'  wine  me  up  an'  set  the 
penderlum  agoin'  an'  then  somehow  I 
seemed  to  go  on  tick  as  it  wear  tell  I  run 
down,  but  the  noo  minister  ain't  of  the 
same  brewin'  nor  I  can't  seem  to  git  ahold 
of  no  kine  of  burning  nater  in  him  but  sort 
of  slide  rite  off  as  you  du  on  the  eedge  of  a 
mow.  Minnysteeril  natur  is  wal  enough 
an'  a  site  better  'n  most  other  kines  I  know 
on,  but  the  other  sort  sech  as  Welbor  hed 
wuz  of  the  Lord's  makin'  an'  naterally  more 
wonderfle  an'  sweet  tastin'  leastways  to 
me  so  fur  as  heerd  from.  He  used  to  in 
terdooce  'em  smooth  ez  ile  athout  sayin' 
nothin'  in  pertickler  an'  I  misdoubt  he 
did  n't  set  so  much  by  the  sec'nd  Ceres  as 
wut  he  done  by  the  Fust,  fact,  he  let  on 
onct  thet  his  mine  misgive  him  of  a  sort  of 
fallin'  off  in  spots.  He  wuz  as  outspoken 
as  a  norwester  he  wuz,  but  I  tole  him  I 
hoped  the  fall  wuz  from  so  high  up  thet  a 
feller  could  ketch  a  good  many  times  fust 
afore  comin'  bunt  onto  the  ground  as  I  see 
Jethro  C.  Swett  from  the  meetin'  house 
steeple  up  to  th'  old  perrish,  an'  took  up 
for  dead  but  he  's  alive  now  an'  spry  as  wut 
you  be.  Turnin'  of  it  over  I  recclected 
how  they  ust  to  put  wut  they  called  Argy- 
munce  onto  the  frunts  of  poymns,  like 
poorches  afore  housen  whare  you  could  rest 
ye  a  spell  whilst  you  wuz  concludin' 
whether  you  'd  go  in  or  nut  espeshully  ware 
tha  wuz  darters,  though  I  most  allus  found 
it  the  best  plen  to  go  in  fust  an'  think  after 
wards  an'  the  gals  likes  it  best  tu.  I  dno 
as  speechis  ever  hez  any  argimunts  to  'em, 
I  never  see  none  thet  hed  an'  I  guess  they 
never  du  but  tha  must  allus  be  a  B'ginnin' 
to  everythin'  athout  it  is  Etarnity  so  I  '11 
begin  rite  away  an'  anybody  may  put  it 
afore  any  of  his  speeches  ef  it  soots  an' 
welcome.  I  don't  claim  no  paytent. 

THE  ARGYMUNT 

Interducshin,  w'ich  may  be  skipt.  Be 
gins  by  talkin'  about  himself  :  thet 's  jest 
natur  an*  most  gin'ally  allus  pleasin',  I 


278 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


b'leeve  I  've  notist,  to  one  of  the  cumpany, 
an'  thet  's  more  than  wut  you  can  say  of 
most  speshes  of  talkin'.  Nex'  comes  the 
gittin'  the  goodwill  of  the  orjunce  by  lettin' 
'em  gether  from  wut  you  kind  of  ex'den- 
tally  let  drop  thet  they  air  about  East,  A 
one,  an'  no  mistaik,  skare  'em  up  an'  take 
'em  as  they  rise.  Spring  interdooced  with 
a  new  approput  flours.  Speach  finally 
begins  witch  nobuddy  need  n't  feel  oboly- 
gated  to  read  as  I  never  read  'em  an'  never 
shell  this  one  ag'in.  Subjick  staited  ;  ex 
panded;  delay  ted;  extended.  Pump  lively. 
Subjick  staited  ag'in  so  's  to  avide  all  mis- 
taiks.  Ginnle  remarks  ;  continooed  ;  ker- 
ried  on;  pushed  furder  ;  kind  o'  gin  out. 
Subjick  restaited  ;  dielooted  ;  stirred  up 
permiscoous.  Pump  ag'in.  Gits  back  to 
where  he  sot  out.  Can't  seem  to  stay  thair. 
Ketches  into  Mr.  Seaward's  hair.  Breaks 
loose  ag'in  an'  staits  his  subjick  ;  stretches 
it  ;  turns  it ;  folds  it  ;  enfolds  it ;  folds  it 
ag'in  so 's  't  no  one  can't  find  it.  Argoos 
with  an  imedginary  bean  thet  ain't  aloud  to 
say  nothin'  in  repleye.  Gives  him  a  real 

gjod  dressin'  an'  is  settysfide  he 's  rite, 
its  into  Johnson's  hair.  No  use  tryin'  to 
git  into  his  head.  Gives  it  up.  Hez  to 
stait  his  subjick  ag'in  ;  doos  it  back'ards, 
sideways,  eendways,  criss-cross,  bevellin', 
noways.  Gits  finally  red  on  it.  Concloods. 
Concloods  more.  Reads  some  xtrax.  Sees 
his  subjick  a-nosin'  round  arter  him  ag'in. 
Tries  to  avide  it.  Wun't  du.  M estates 
it.  Can't  conjectur'  no  other  plawsable 
way  of  staytin'  on  it.  Tries  pump.  No 
fx.  Finely  concloods  to  conclood.  Yeels 
the  flore. 

You  kin  spall  an'  punctooate  thet  as  you 
please.  I  allns  do,  it  kind  of  puts  a  noo 
soot  of  close  onto  a  word,  thisere  funattick 
spellin'  doos  an'  takes  'em  out  of  the  pris- 
sen  dress  they  wair  in  the  Dixonary.  Ef  I 
squeeze  the  cents  out  of  'em  it 's  the  main 
thing,  an'  wut  they  wuz  made  for  ;  wut 's 
left 's  jest  pnmxnis. 

Mistur  Wilbur  sez  he  to  me  onct,  sez  he, 
"  Hosee,"  sez  he,  "  in  litterytoor  the  only 
good  thing  is  Natur.  It's  amazin'  hard 
to  come  at,"  sez  he,  "but  onct  git  it  an' 
you  've  gut  everythin'.  Wut 's  the  sweet 
est  small  on  airth  ?  "  sez  he.  "  Noomone 
hay,"  sez  I,  pooty  bresk,  for  he  wuz  allus 
hankerin'  round  in  hayin'.  "  Nawthin'  of 
the  kine,"  sez  he.  "My  leetle  Huldy's 


breath,"  sez  I  ag'in.  "  You  're  a  good 
lad,"  sez  he,  his  eyes  sort  of  ripplin'  like, 
for  he  lost  a  babe  onct  nigh  about  her  age, 
—  "  you  're  a  good  lad  ;  but  't  ain't  thet 
nuther,"  sez  he.  "Ef  you  want  to  know," 
sez  he,  "  open  your  winder  of  a  mornin'  et 
ary  season,  and  you  '11  larn  thet  the  best  of 
perfooms  is  jest  fresh  air,  fresh  air"  sez 
he,  emphysizin',  "  athout  no  mixtur.  Thet 's 
wut  /  call  natur  in  writin',  and  it  bathes 
my  lungs  and  washes  'em  sweet  whenever 
I  git  a  whiff  on  't,"  sez  he.  I  often  think 
o'  thet  when  I  set  down  to  write,  but  the 
winders  air  so  ept  to  git  stuck,  an'  breakin* 
a  pane  costs  sunthin'. 

Yourn  for  the  last  time, 
Nut  to  be  continooed, 

HOSEA  BIGLOW. 

I  DON'T  much  s'pose,  hows'ever  I  should 

plen  it, 

I  could  git  boosted  into  th'  House  or  Sen 
nit,— 
Nut  while  the  twolegged  gab-machine  's  so 

plenty, 

'nablin'  one  man  to  du  the  talk  o'  twenty  ; 
I  'm  one  o'  them  thet  finds  it  ruther  hard 
To  mannyfactur'  wisdom  by  the  yard, 
An'  may  sure  off,  accordin'  to  demand, 
The  piece-goods  el'kence  that  I  keep  on 

hand, 
The    same    ole    pattern   runnin'  thru    an* 

thru, 

An'  nothin'  but  the  customer  thet 's  new. 
I  sometimes  think,  the  furder  on  I  go, 
Thet  it  gits  harder  to  feel  sure  I  know, 
An'  when  I  've  settled  my  idees,  I  find 
't  warn't  I  sheered  most  in  makin'  up  my 

mind  ; 
't  wnz  this  an'  thet  an' t'  other  thing  thet 

done  it, 
Sunthin'  in  th'  air,  I  could  n'  seek  nor  shun 

it. 
Mos'  folks  go  off  so  quick  now  in  discusr 

sion, 

All  th'  ole  flint-locks  seems  altered  to  per 
cussion, 

Whilst  I  in  agin'  sometimes  git  a  hint, 
Thet  I  'm  percussion  changin'  back  to  flint; 
Wai,  ef  it 's  so,  I  ain't  agoin'  to  werrit, 
For  th'  ole  Queen's-arm  hez  this  pertickler 

merit,  — 
It  gives  the  mind  a   hahnsome  wedth  o1 

margin 
To  kin'  o  make  its  will  afore  dischargin' : 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


279 


I    can't    make    out    but  jest   one    ginnle 

rule,  — 

No  man  need  go  an'  make  himself  a  fool, 
Nor  jedgment  ain't  like  mutton,  thet  can't 

bear 
Cookin'  tu  long,  nor  be  took  up  tu  rare. 

Ez  I  wuz  say'n',  I  hain't  no  chance  to 

speak 
So 's  't  all  the  country  dreads  me  onct  a 

week, 

But  I  've  consid'ble  o'  thet  sort  o'  head 
Thet  sets  to  home  an'  thinks  wut  might  be 

said, 

The  sense  thet  grows  an'  werrits   under 
neath, 

Comin'  belated  like  your  wisdom-teeth, 
An'  git  so  el'kent,  sometimes,  to  my  gardin 
Thet  I  don'  vally  public  life  a  fardin'. 
Our  Parson  Wilbur  (blessin's  on  his  head  !) 
'mongst  other  stories  of  ole  times  he  hed, 
Talked  of    a    feller    thet    rehearsed    his 

spreads 

Beforehan'  to  his  rows  o'  kebbige-heads, 
(Ef  't  warn't  Demossenes,  I  guess  't  wuz 

Sisro,) 
Appealin'   fust  to    thet   an'   then   to  this 

row, 

Accordin'  ez  he  thought  thet  his  idees 
Their    diff'runt    ev'riges    o'   brains   'ould 

please  ; 
"  AnJ,"  sez  the  Parson,  "  to  hit  right,  you 

must 

Git  used  to  maysurin'  your  hearers  fust ; 
For,  take  my  word  for 't,  when  all 's  come 

an'  past, 

The  kebbige-heads  '11  cair  the  day  et  last ; 
Th'  ain't  ben  a  meetin'   sence   the   worl' 

begun 
But  they  made  (raw  or  biled  ones)  ten  to 

one." 

I  've  allus  f oun'  'em,  I  allow,  sence  then 
About  ez  good  for  talkin'  tu  ez  men  ; 
They  '11  take  edvice,  like  other   folks,  to 

keep, 

(To  use  it  'ould  be  holdin'  on  't  tu  cheap,) 
They  listen  wal,  don'  kick   up  when  you 

scold  'em, 
An'  ef  they  've  tongues,  hev  sense  enough 

to  hold  'em ; 
Though  th'  ain't  no  denger  we  shall  lose 

the  breed, 

I  gin'lly  keep  a  score  or  so  for  seed, 
An'  when  my  sappiness  gits  spry  in  spring, 


So 's  't  my  tongue  itches  to   run   on  full 

swing, 

I  fin'  'em  ready-planted  in  March-meetin', 
Warm    ez    a    lyceum  -  audience    in    their 

greetin', 
An'  pleased  to  hear  my  spoutin'  frum  the 

fence,  — 

Comin',  ez  't  doos,  entirely  free  'f  expense. 
This  year  I  made  the  follerin'  observations 
Extrump'ry,  like   most  other  tri'ls  o'  pa 
tience, 

An',  no  reporters  bein'  sent  express 
To  work  their  abstrac's  up  into  a  mess 
Ez  like  th'  oridg'nal  ez  a  woodcut  pictur' 
Thet  chokes  the  life  out  like  a  boy-constric 
tor, 

I  've  writ  'em  out,  an'  so  avide  all  jeal'sies 
'twixt  nonsense  o'  my  own  an'  some  one's 
else's. 

(N.  B.    Reporters  gin'lly  git  a  hint 
To  make  dull  orjunces  seem  'live  in  print, 
An',  ez  I  hev  t'  report  myself,  I  vum, 
I  '11  put  th'  applauses  where  they  'd  ough* 
to  come  !) 

MY   FELLER    KEBBIGE-HEADS,  who   look   SO 

green, 

I  vow  to  gracious  thet  ef  I  could  dreen 
The  world  of  all  its  hearers  but  jest  you, 
't  would  leave  'bout  all  tha'  is  wuth  talkin' 

to, 

An'  you,  my  ven'able  ol'  frien's,  thet  show 
Upon  your  crowns   a   sprinklin'  o'  March 

snow, 

Ez  ef  mild  Time  had  christened  every  sense 
For  wisdom's  church  o'  second  innocence, 
Nut  Age's  winter,  no,  no  sech  a  thing, 
But  jest  a  kin'  o'  slippin'-back  o'  spring,  — 
[Sev'ril  noses  blowed.] 

We  Ve  gathered  here,  ez  ushle,  to  decide 
Which  is  the  Lord's  an'  which  is  Satan's 

side, 

Coz  all  the  good  or  evil  thet  can  heppen 
Is  'long  o'  which  on  'em   you   choose  for 

Cappen. 

[Cries  o'"  Thet 's  eo."] 

Aprul  's  come  back  ;  the  swelliu'  buds  of 

oak 
Dim    the   fur    hillsides   with    a    purplish 

smoke  ; 

The  brooks  are  loose  an',  singing  to  be  seen, 
(Like  gals,)  make  all  the  hollers  soft  an1 

green ; 


280 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


The  birds   are  here,  for  all   the   season 's 

late; 
They  take  the  sun's  height  an'  don'  never 

wait: 

Soon  'z  he  officially  declares  it 's  spring 
Their  light  hearts  lift  'em  on  a  north'ard 

wing, 

An'  th'  ain't  an  acre,  fur  ez  you  can  hear, 
Can't  by  the  music  tell  the  time  o'  year; 
But  thet  white  dove  Carliny  scared  away, 
Five  year  ago,  jes'  sech  an  Aprul  day; 
Peace,  that  we  hoped  'ould  come  an'  build 

last  year 

An'  coo  by  every  housedoor,  is  n't  here,  — 
No,  nor  wun't  never  be,  for  all  our  jaw, 
Till  we  're  ez  brave  in  pol'tics  ez  in  war  ! 
O  Lord,  ef   folks  wuz  made   so 's  't  they 

could  see 
The  begnet-pint  there  is  to  an  idee  ! 

[Sensation.] 

Ten  times  the  danger  in  'em  th'  is  in  steel; 
They  run  your  soul  thru  an'  you  never  feel, 
But  crawl  about  an*  seem  to  think  you  're 

livin', 
Poor  shells  o'  men,  nut  wuth   the   Lord's 

forgivin', 

Tell  you  come  bunt  ag'in  a  real  live  feet, 
An'  go  to  pieces  when  you  'd  ough'  to  ect! 
Thet  kin'  o'  begnet  's  wut  we  're  crossin' 

now, 

An*  no  man,  fit  to  nevvigate  a  scow, 
'ould  stan'  expectin'  help  from  Kingdom 

Come, 
While   t'  other  side   druv  their  cold   iron 

home. 

My  frien's,  you  never  gethered  from  my 

mouth, 

No,  nut  one  word  ag'in  the  South  ez  South, 
Nor  th'  ain't  a  livin'  man,  white,  brown, 

nor  black, 
Gladder 'n  wut  I  should   be  to  take  'em 

back; 

But  all  I  ask  of  Uncle  Sam  is  fust 
To  write  up  on  his  door,  "  No   goods  on 

trust "  ; 

[Cries  o'  "  Thet 's  the  ticket !  "] 
Give  us  cash  down  in  ekle  laws  for  all, 
An'  they  '11  be  snug  inside  afore  nex'  fall. 
Give  wut  they  ask,  an'  we  shell  hev  Jama- 

ker, 

Wuth  minus  some  consid'able  an  acre  ; 
Give  wut  they  need,  an'  we  shell  git  'fore 

long 
A  nation  all  one  piece,  rich,  peacefle,  strong; 


Make  'em  Amerikin,  an'  they  '11  begin 
To  love  their  country  ez  they  loved  their 

sin  ; 
Let  'em  stay  Southun,  an'  you  've  kep'  a 

sore 

Ready  to  fester  ez  it  done  afore. 
No  mortle  man  can  boast  of  perfic'  vision, 
But  the  one  moleblin'  thing  is  Indecision, 
An'  th'  ain't  no  f utur'  for  the  man  nor  state 
Thet  out  of  j-u-s-t  can't  spell  great. 
Some  folks  'ould  call   thet   reddikle  ;   do 

you  ? 
'Twas    commonsense   afore   the   war  wuz 

thru; 
Thet  loaded   all   our  guns  an'  made  'em 

speak 
So 's  't  Europe  heared   'em   clearn  acrost 

the  creek  ; 
"  They  're  drivin'  o'  their  spiles  down  now," 

sez  she, 

"  To  the  hard  grennit  o'  God's  fust  idee  ; 
Ef  they  reach  thet,  Democ'cy  need  n't  fear 
The  tallest  airthquakes  we  can  git  up  here." 
Some  call  't  insultin'  to  ask  ary  pledge, 
An'  say  't  will  only  set  their  teeth  on  edge, 
But  folks  you  've  jest  licked,  fur  'z  I  ever 

see, 

Are  'bout  ez  mad  'z  they  wal  know  how  to  be ; 
It 's  better  than  the  Rebs  themselves  ex 
pected 
'fore  they  see  Uncle  Sam  wilt  down  hen- 

pected; 
Be   kind  'z   you   please,  but  fustly   make 

things  fast, 
For  plain  Truth  's  all  the  kindness  thet  '11 

last; 

Ef  treason  is  a  crime,  ez  some  folks  say, 
How  could  we  punish  it  in  a  milder  way 
Than  sayin'  to  'em, "  Brethren,  lookee  here, 
We  '11  jes'  divide  things  with  ye,  sheer  an' 

sheer, 
An'  sence  both  come  o'  pooty  strong-backed 

daddies, 
You  take  the  Darkies,  ez  we  've  took  the 

Paddies; 

Ign'ant  an'  poor  we  took  'em  by  the  hand, 
An'  they're  the  bones  an'  sinners  o'  the 

land." 

I  ain't  o'  them  thet  fancy  there  's  a  loss  on 
Every   inves'ment  thet   don't   start  from 

Bos'on; 

But  I  know  this:  our  money 's  safest  trusted 
In  sunthin',  come  wut  will,  thet  can't  be 

busted, 
An'  thet 's  the  old  Amerikin  idee, 


THE  BIGLOW   PAPERS 


281 


To  make  a  man  a  Man  an'  let  him  be. 

[Gret  applause.] 

Ez  for  their  1'yalty,  don't  take  a  goad  to 't, 
But  I  do'  want  to  block  their  only  road 

to't 

By  lettin'  'em  believe  thet  they  can  git 
Mor  'n  wut  they  lost,  out  of  our  little  wit: 
I  tell  ye  wut,  I  'm  'fraid  we  '11  drif '  to  lee 
ward 
'thout   we   can   put   more     stiffenin'    into 

Seward; 

He  seems  to  think  Columby  'd  better  ect 
Like   a   scared   widder  with   a   boy  stiff- 
necked 
Thet  stomps  an'  swears  he  wun't  come  in 

to  supper; 
She   mus'   set   up    for   him,   ez    weak   ez 

Tapper, 

Keepin*  the  Constitootion  on  to  warm, 
Tell  he  '11  eccept  her  'pologies  in  form : 
The  neighbors  tell  her  he  's  a  cross-grained 

cuss 

Thet  needs  a  hidin'  'fore  he  comes  to  wus; 
"  No,"  sez  Ma  Seward,  "  he  's  ez  good  'z 

the  best, 

All  he  wants  now  is  sugar-plums  an' rest; " 
"He  sarsed  my  Pa,"  sez  one;  "He  stoned 

my  son," 
Another  edds.     "  Oh  wal,  't  wus  jes'  his 

fun." 
"  He  tried   to  shoot   our   Uncle    Sam  well 

dead." 

"  'T  wuz  only  tryin'  a  noo  gun  he  hed." 
"  Wal,  all  we  ask 's  to  hev  it  understood 
You'll   take   his  gun  away  from  him  for 

good; 

We  don't,  wal,  nut  exac'ly,  like  his  play, 
Seein'  he  alias  kin'  o'  shoots  our  way. 
You  kill   your  fatted  calves  to   no  good 

eend, 
'thout   his   fust    sayin',    *  Mother,    I    hev 

sinned! ' ' 

["  Amen  !  "  frum  Deac'n  Greenleaf.] 

The  Pres'dunt  he  thinks  thet  the  slickest 

plan 

'ould  be  t'  allow  thet  he  's  our  on'y  man, 
An'  thet  we  fit  thru  all  thet  dreffle  war 
Jes'  for  his  private  glory  an*  eclor; 
"  Nobody  ain't  a  Union  man,"  sez  he, 
"  'thout  he  agrees,  thru  thick  an'  thin,  with 

me; 
Warn't  Andrew  Jackson's  'nitials  jes'  like 

mine  ? 
£n'  ain't  thet  sunthin  like  a  right  divine 


To  cut  up  ez  kentenkerous  ez  I  please, 
An'  treat   your   Congress   like   a   nest  o' 

fleas  ?  " 

Wal,  I  expec'  the  People  would  n'  care,  if 
The   question   now   wuz   techin'   bank   or 

tariff, 
But   I  conclude   they've   'bout   made   up 

their  min' 

This  ain't  the  fittest  time  to  go  it  blin', 
Nor   these  ain't  metters  thet  with  pol'tics 

swings, 
But  goes  'way  down  amongst  the  roots  o' 

things; . 
Coz   Sumner  talked  o'   whitewashin'  one 

day 
They  wun't  let  four  years'  war  be  throwed 

away. 
"  Let  the  South  hev  her  rights  ?  "     They 

say,  "  Thet's  you  ! 

But  nut  greb  hold  of  other  folks's  tu." 
Who  owns  this  country,  is  it  they  or  Andy  ? 
Leastways  it  ough'  to  be  the  People  and 

he; 

Let  him  be  senior  pardner,  ef  he  's  so, 
But  let  them  kin'  o'  smuggle  in  ez  Co; 

[Laughter.] 

Did  he  diskiver  it  ?     Consid'ble  numbers 
Think  thet  the  job  wuz  taken  by  Columbus. 
Did  he  set  tu  an'  make  it  wut  it  is  ? 
Ef  so,  I  guess  the  One-Man-power  hez  riz. 
Did   he    put   thru   the   rebbles,  clear   the 

docket, 

AnJ  pay  th'  expenses  out  of  his  own  pocket  ? 
Ef  thet 's  the  case,  then  everythin'  I  exes 
Is  t'  hev   him   come   an'  pay   my   ennooal 

texes.  [Profoun'  sensation.] 

Was  't  he  thet  shou'dered  all  them  million 

guns  ? 

Did  he  lose  all  the  fathers,  brothers,  sons  ? 
Is  this  ere  pop'lar  gov'ment  thet  we  run 
A  kin'  o'  sulky,  made  to  kerry  one  ? 
An'  is  the  country  goin'  to  knuckle  down 
To  hev   Smith   sort   their  letters  'stid  o* 

Brown  ? 
Who  wuz  the  'Nited  States  'fore  Richmon' 

fell? 
Wuz  the  South  needfle  their  full  name  to 

spell  ? 

An*  can't  we  spell  it  in  thet  short-ban'  way 
Till   th'   underpinnin'    's   settled   so  's   to 

stay  ? 

Who  cares  for  the  Resolves  of  '61, 
Thet  tried  to  coax  an   airthquake  with  a 

bun? 
Hez  act'ly  nothin'  taken  place  sence  then 


282 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


To  larn  folks  they  must  hendle  fects  like 

men  ? 
Ain't  this  the  true  p'iut  ?     Did  the  Rebs 

accep'  'em  ? 
Ef  nut,  whose  fault  is  't  thet   we   hev  n't 

kep  'em  ? 
War  n't  there  two  sides  ?  an'  don't  it  stend 

to  reason 
Thet  this   week's   'Nited   States  ain't  las' 

week's  treason  ? 
When  all  these  sums  is  done,  with  nothin' 

missed, 
An'  nut  afore,  this  school  '11  be  dismissed. 

I  knowed  ez  wal  ez  though  I  'd  seen  't  with 

eyes 
Thet  when  the   war   wuz   over  copper  'd 

rise, 

An'  thet  we  'd  hev  a  rile-up  in  our  kettle 
't  would  need  Leviathan's  whole   skin  to 

settle: 

I  thought  't  would  take  about  a  generation 
'fore  we  could  wal  begin  to  be  a  nation, 
But  I  allow  I  never  did  imegine 
't  would  be  our  Pres'dunt  thet  'ould  drive 

a  wedge  in 

To  keep  the  split  from  closin'  ef  it  could, 
An'  healin'  over  with  new  wholesome  wood; 
For  th'  ain't  no  chance  o'  healin'  while  they 

think 

Thet  law  an'  gov'ment  's  only  printer's  ink; 
I  mus'  confess  I  thank  him  for  discoverin' 
The  curus  way  in  which  the  States  are  sov 
ereign  ; 

They  ain't  nut  quite  enough  so  to  rebel, 
But,  when  they  fin'  it 's  costly  to  raise  h — , 

[A  groan  from  Deac'n  G.] 
Why,   then,  for  jes'  the  same  superl'tive 

reason, 
They  're  'most  too  much  so  to  be  tetched 

for  treason; 

They  can't  go  out,  but  ef  they  somehow  du, 
Their  sovereignty  don't  noways  go  out  tu; 
The  State  goes  out,  the  sovereignty  don't 

stir, 

But  stays  to  keep  the  door  ajar  for  her. 
He  thinks  secession  never  took  'em  out, 
An'  mebby  he  's  correc',  but  I  misdoubt; 
Ef  they  war'n't  out,  then  why,  'n  the  name 

o'  sin, 

Make  all  this  row  'bout  lettin'  of  'em  in  ? 
In  law,  p'r'aps  nut;  but  there  's  a  diffur- 

ence,  ruther, 

Betwixt  your  mother-'n-law  an'  real  mother, 
[Derisive  cheers.] 


An'  I,  for  one,  shall  wish  they  'd  all  ben 


Long  'z  U.  S.  Texes  are  sech  reg'lar  comers. 
But,   O   my   patience  !  must   we    wriggle 

back 

Into  th'  ole  crooked,  pettyfoggin'  track, 
When  our  artil'ry-wheels  a  road  hev  cut 
Stret  to  our  purpose  ef  we  keep  the  rut  ? 
War  's  jes'  dead  waste  excep'  to  wipe  the 

slate 

Clean  for  the  cyph'rin'  of  some  nobler  fate. 

[Applause.] 

Ez  for  dependin'  on  their  oaths  an'  thet, 
't  wun't  bind  'em  mor  'n  the  ribbin  roun* 

my  het: 

I  beared  a  fable  once  from  Othniel  Starns, 
That  pints   it  slick    ez   weathercocks    do 

barns: 
Onct  on  a   time   the   wolves   hed  certing 

rights 
Inside  the  fold  ;  they  used  to  sleep  there 

nights, 

An',  bein'  cousins  o'  the  dogs,  they  took 
Their  turns  et  watchin',  reg'lar  ez  a  book; 
But    somehow,   when  the    dogs   hed   gut 

asleep, 
Their  love   o'   mutton  beat  their  love  o' 

sheep, 

Till  gradilly  the  shepherds  come  to  see 
Things  war'n't  agoin'  ez  they  'd  ough'  to  be; 
So  they  sent  off  a  deacon  to  remonstrate 
Along  'th  the  wolves  an'  urge  'em  to  go  on 

straight; 
They  did  n'  seem  to  set  much  by  the  dea 

con, 
Nor  preachin'  did  n'  cow  'em,  nut  to  speak 

on; 
Fin'ly  they  swore  thet  they  'd   go   out  an* 

stay, 

An'  hev  their  fill  o'  mutton  every  day; 
Then  dogs  an'  shepherds,  after  much  hard 

dammin', 

[Groan  from  Deac'n  G.] 

Turned  tu  an*  give  'em  a  tormented  lam- 

min', 
An*  sez,  "  Ye  sha'n't  go  out,  the  murrain 

rot  ye, 
To  keep  us  wastin'  half  our  time  to  watch 

ye!" 
But  then  the  question  come,  How  live  to 

gether 
'thout    losin'    sleep,    nor    nary    yew    nor 

wether  ? 
Now  there  wuz  some  dogs  (noways  wuth 

their  keep) 


THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


That    sheered    their    cousins'    tastes    an' 

sheered  the  sheep; 
They  sez,  "  Be  gin'rous,  let  'em  swear  right 

in, 

An',  ef  they  backslide,  let  'em  swear  ag'in; 
Jes'  let  'em  put  on  sheep  -  skins  whilst 

they  're  swearin'  ; 

To  ask  for  more  'ould  be  beyond  all  bear- 
in'." 
"  Be  gin'rous  for  yourselves,  where  you  're 

to  pay, 
Thet  's  the  best  prectice,"  sez  a  shepherd 

gray; 
"  Ez  for  their  oaths  they  wun't  be  wuth  a 

button, 
Long  'z  you  don't  cure   'em  o'  their  taste 

for  mutton; 
Th'  ain't  but  one  solid   way,  howe'er  you 

puzzle : 
Tell   they   're   convarted,  let  'em  wear  a 

muzzle."  [Cries  of  "  Bully  for  you !  "] 

I  've  noticed  thet  each  half-baked  scheme's 
abetters 

Are  in  the  hebbit  o'  producin*  letters 

Writ  by  all  sorts  o'  never-heared-on  fel 
lers, 

'bout  ez  oridge'nal  ez  the  wind  in  bellers; 

I  've  noticed,  tu,  it  's  the  quack  med'cine 
gits 

(An*  needs)  the  grettest  heaps  o'  stiffykits; 
[Two  pothekeries  goes  out.] 

Now,  sence  I  lef '  off  creepin'  on  all  fours, 
I  hain't  ast  no  man  to  endorse  my  course; 
It  's  full  ez  cheap  to  be  your  own  endorser, 
An'    ef   I  've  made   a  cup,   I  '11  fin'    the 

saucer; 

But  I've  some  letters  here  from  t'  other  side, 
An'  them 's  the  sort  thet  helps  me  to  decide ; 
Tell  me  for  wut  the  copper-comp'nies 

hanker, 
An'  I  '11  tell  you  jest  where  it  's  safe  to 

anchor.  [Faint  hiss.] 

Fus'ly  the  Hon'ble  B.  O.  Sawin  writes 
Thet    for   a   spell    he   could   n't  sleep   o' 

nights, 
Puzzlin'  which  side  wuz  preudentest  to  pin 

to, 
Which  wuz  th'  ole  homestead,  which  the 

temp'ry  leanto; 
Et  fust  he  jedged  't  would  right-side-up 

his  pan 

To  come  out  ez  a  'ridge'nal  Union  man, 
"  But  now,"  he  sez,  "  I  ain't  nut  quite  so 

fresh; 


The  winnin1  horse  is  goin'  to  be  Secesh; 
You  might,  las'  spring,  hev  eas'ly  walked 

the  course, 
'fore   we   contrived  to    doctor   th'   Union 

horse ; 
Now  we  're  the  ones  to  walk  aroun'  the 

nex'  track: 
Jest  you  take  hoi'  an*  read  the  follerin'  ex- 

trac', 

Out  of  a  letter  I  received  last  week 
From  an  ole   frien'   thet  never  sprung  a 

leak, 

A  Nothun  Democrat  o'  th'  ole  Jarsey  blue, 
Born  copper-sheathed  an'  copper-fastened 

tu." 

"  These  four  years  past  it  hez  ben  tough 
To  say  which  side  a  feller  went  for; 
Guideposts  all  gone,  roads  muddy  'n'  rough, 
An*  nothin'  duin'  wut  't  wuz  meant  for; 
Pickets  a-firin'  left  an'  right, 
Both  sides  a  lettin'  rip  et  sight,  — 
Life  warn't  wuth  hardly  payin'  rent  for. 

"  Columby  gut  her  back  up  so, 
It  warn't  no  use  a-tryin'  to  stop  her,  — 
War's  emptin's  riled  her  very  dough 
An'  made  it  rise  an'  act  improper; 
'T  wuz  full  ez  much  ez  I  could  du 
To  jes'  lay  low  an'  worry  thru, 
'Thout  hevin'  to  sell  out  my  copper. 

"  Afore  the  war  your  mod'rit  men 
Could  set  an'  sun  'em  on  the  fences, 
Cyph'rin'  the  chances  up,  an'  then 
Jump  off  which  way  bes'  paid  expenses; 
Sence,  't  wuz  so  resky  ary  way, 
/  did  n't  hardly  darst  to  say 
I  'greed  with  Paley's  Evidences. 

[Groan  from  Deac'n  Gk] 

"  Ask  Mac  ef  tryin'  to  set  the  fence 
Warn't  like  bein'  rid  upon  a  rail  on  't, 
Headin'  your  party  with  a  sense 
O'  bein'  tipjint  in  the  tail  on  't, 
An'  tryin'  to  think  thet,  on  the  whole, 
You  kin'  o'  quasi  own  your  soul 
When  Belmont  's  gut  a  bill  o'  sale  on  't  ? 
[Three  cheers  for  Grant  and  Sherman.] 

"  Come  peace,  I  sposed  thet  folks   'ould 

like 

Their  pol'tics  done  ag'in  by  proxy 
Give  their  noo  loves  the  bag  an'  strike 
A  fresh  trade  with  their  reg'lar  doxy; 


284 


THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


But  the  drag  's  broke,  now  slavery  's  gone, 
An'  there  's  gret  resk  they  '11  blunder  on, 
Ef  they  ain't  stopped,  to  real  Democ'cy. 

"  We  've  gut  an  awful  row  to  hoe 
In  this  'ere  job  o'  reconstruct! n' ; 
Folks  dunno  skurce  which  way  to  go, 
Where  th'  ain't  some  boghole  to  be  ducked 

in; 

But  one  thing  's  clear;  there  is  a  crack, 
Ef  we  pry  hard,  'twixt  white  an'  black, 
Where  the  ole  makebate  can  be  tucked  in. 

"  No  white  man  sets  in  airth's  broad  aisle 

Thet  I  ain't  willin'  t'  own  ez  brother, 

An'  ef  he  's  heppened  to  strike  ile, 

I  dunno,  fin'ly,  but  I'd  ruther; 

An'  Paddies,  long  'z  they  vote  all  right, 

Though  they  ain't  jest  a  nat'ral  white, 

I  hold  one  on  'em  good  'z  another. 

[Applause.] 

"  Wut  is  there  lef '  I  'd  like  to  know, 
Ef  't  ain't  the  defference  o'  color, 
To  keep  up  self-respec'  an'  show 
The  human  natur'  of  a  fullah  ? 
Wut  good  in  bein'  white,  onless 
It 's  fixed  by  law,  nut  lef'  to  guess, 
We  're  a  heap  smarter  an'  they  duller  ? 

"  Ef  we  're  to  hev  our  ekle  rights, 
't  wun't  du  to  'low  no  competition; 
Th'  ole  debt  doo  us  for  bein'  whites 
Ain't  safe  onless  we  stop  th'  emission 
O'  these  noo  notes,  whose  specie  base 
Is  human  natur',  'thout  no  trace 
O'  shape,  nor  color,  nor  condition. 

[Continood  applause.] 

"  So  fur  I  'd  writ  an*  could  n'  jedge 

Aboard  wut  boat  I  'd  best  take  pessige, 

My  brains  all  mincemeat,  'thout  no  edge 

Upon  'em  more  than  tu  a  sessige, 

But  now  it  seems  ez  though  I  see 

Sunthin'  resemblin'  an  idee, 

Sence  Johnson's  speech  an'  veto  message. 

"  I  like  the  speech  best,  I  confess, 
The  logic,  preudence,  an'  good  taste  on  % 
An'  it 's  so  mad,  I  ruther  guess 
There  's  some  dependence  to  be  placed  on' t; 

[Laughter.] 

It 's  narrer,  but  'twixt  you  an'  me, 
Out  o'  the  allies  o'  J.  D. 
A  temp'ry  party  can  be  based  on  't. 


"  Jes'  to  hold  on  till  Johnson  's  thru 
An'  dug  his  Presidential  grave  is, 
An'    then !  —  who   knows   but   we    could 
slew 

The  country  roun'  to  put  in ? 

Wun't  some  folks  rare  up  when  we  pull 
Out  o'  their  eyes  our  Union  wool 
An'  larn  'ern  wut  a  p'lit'cle  shave  is  I 

"  Oh,  did  it  seem  'z  ef  Providunce 
Could  ever  send  a  second  Tyler  ? 
To  see  the  South  all  back  to  once, 
Reapin'  the  spiles  o'  the  Freesiler, 
Is  cute  ez  though  an  ingineer 
Should  claim  th'  old  iron  for  his  sheer 
Coz  't  was  himself  that  bust  the  biler  !  " 

[Gret  laughter.] 

Thet  tells  the  story  !     Thet 's  wut  we  shall 

git 

By  tryin'  squirtguns  on  the  burnin'  Pit; 
For  the  day  never  comes  when  it  '11  du 
To  kick  off  Dooty  like  a  worn-out  shoe. 
I  seem  to  hear  a  whisperin'  in  the  air, 
A  sighin'  like,  of  unconsoled  despair, 
Thet  comes  from  nowhere  an'  from  every 
where, 
An'  seems  to  say,  "  Why  died  we  ?  warn't 

it,  then, 

To  settle,  once  for  all,  thet  men  wuz  men  ? 
Oh,  airth's   sweet   cup   snetched   from  us 

barely  tasted, 
The  grave's  real  chill  is  feelin'  life  wuz 

wasted ! 

Oh,  you  we  lef,  long-lingerin'  et  the  door, 
Lovin'   you   best,  coz   we   loved   Her  the 

more, 
Thet  Death,  not  we,  had   conquered,  we 

should  feel 

Ef  she  upon  our  memory  turned  her  heel, 
An'  unregretful  throwed  us  all  away 
To  flaunt  it  in  a  Blind  Man's  Holiday  ! " 

My  frien's,  I  've  talked  nigh  on  to  long 

enough. 

I  hain't  no  call  to  bore  ye  coz  ye  're  tough; 
My   lungs   are    sound,  an'  our  own   v'ice 

delights 
Our    ears,    but    even    kebbige-heads    hez 

rights. 

It 's  the  las'  time  thet  I  shell  e'er  address  ye, 
But  you'll  soon  fin'  some  new  tormentor: 

bless  ye  ! 

[Tumult'ous  applause  and  cries  of  "  Go  on !  "  "  Don't 
stop  1 "] 


TO   CHARLES   ELIOT   NORTON 


285 


UNDER   THE  WILLOWS   AND    OTHER   POEMS 


"THE  WILLOWS,"  as  was  pointed  out  in  the 
introductory  note  to  An  Indian-Summer  Rev 
erie,  was  a  clump  of  trees  not  far  from  Elm- 
wood.  Lowell  took  a  peculiar  pleasure  in  their 
gnarled  and  umbrageous  forms,  and  wrote  to 
Fields  while  the  volume  which  took  its  title 
from  the  trees  was  in  press :  "  My  heart  was 
almost  broken  yesterday  by  seeing  nailed  to 
my  willow  a  board  with  these  words  on  it, 
*  These  trees  for  sale.'  The  wretch  is  going 
to  peddle  them  for  firewood !  If  I  had  the 
money,  I  would  buy  the  piece  of  ground  they 
stand  on  to  save  them  —  the  dear  friends  of  a 
lifetime.  They  would  be  a  loss  to  the  town. 
But  what  can  one  do  ?  They  belong  to  a  man 
who  values  them  by  the  cord.  I  wish  Fenn 
had  sketched  them  at  least.  One  of  them 
I  hope  will  stand  a  few  years  yet  in  my  poem 
—  but  he  might  just  as  well  have  outlasted 
me  and  my  works,  making  his  own  green 
ode  every  summer."  Not  all  the  trees  have 
been  destroyed,  for  some  yet  remain,  and  it 
is  a  pleasure  to  record  the  refusal  of  a  new 
comer  into  the  neighborhood  to  have  one  de 
stroyed  which  was  inconveniently  near  the  site 
of  the  house  she  was  to  build.  She  changed, 
instead,  the  site. 

The  varying  minds  Lowell  was  in  regarding 
the  title  of  the  volume  may  be  learned  from 
the  following  letter  to  C.  E.  Norton,  dated 

ELMWOOD,  October  7,  1868. 

..."  The  summer  is  past,  the  harvest  is 
ended,"  and  I  have  not  yet  written  to  you ! 
Well,  I  was  resolved  I  would  not  write  till 
the  printers  had  in  their  hands  all  the  copy  of 
my  new  volume  of  old  poems.  And  that  has 
taken  longer  than  I  expected.  I  have  been 
Marthaized  by  many  small  troubles.  But  last 

TO   CHARLES   ELIOT   NORTON 
AGRO  DOLCE 

THE  wind  is  roistering  out  of  doors, 

My  windows  shake  and  my  chimney  roars; 

My  Elm  wood  chimneys  seem  crooning  to 

me, 

As  of  old,  in  their  moody,  minor  key, 
And  out  of  the  past  the  hoarse  wind  blows, 
As  I  sit  in  my  arm-chair,  and  toast  my  toes. 

**  Ho  !  ho  I   nine-and-forty,"  they  seem  to 

sing, 
"  We  saw  you  a  little  toddling  thing. 


night  I  fairly  ended  my  work.  ...  I  had  de 
cided  to  put  the  "  June  Idyl  "  in  the  forefront 
and  call  it  "  A  June  Idyl,  and  Other  Poems." 
But  Fieldr;  told  me  that  Whittier's  new  volume 
was  to  be  called  "  A  Summer  Idyl  "  — so  I 
was  blocked  there.  Then  I  took  "  Apple- 
dore,"  merely  because  it  was  a  pretty  name, 
though  I  did  not  wish  to  put  that  in  the  van. 
So  it  was  all  settled  for  the  second  time.  Then 
I  was  suddenly  moved  to  finish  my  "  Voyage 
to  Vinland,"  .  .  .  and,  as  I  liked  the  poem, 
thought  no  title  so  good  as  "  The  Voyage 
to  Vinland,  and  Other  Poems."  But  Fields 
would  not  hear  of  it,  and  proposed  that  I 
should  rechristen  the  Idyl  "  Elmwood,"  and 
name  the  book  after  that.  But  the  more  I 
thought  of  it  the  less  I  liked  it.  It  was  throw 
ing  my  sanctuary  open  and  making  a  show- 
house  of  my  hermitage.  It  was  indecent.  So 
I  fumed  and  worried.  I  was  riled.  Then  it 
occurred  to  me  that  I  had  taken  the  name  of 
"  June  Idyl "  as  a  pis-aller,  because  in  my 
haste  I  could  think  of  nothing  else.  Why  not 
name  it  over?  So  I  hit  upon  "Under  the 
Willows,"  and  that  it  is  to  be.  .  .  .  But  it  is 
awfully  depressing  work.  They  call  back  so 
many  moods,  and  they  are  so  bad.  I  think, 
though,  there  is  a  suggestion  of  something 
good  in  them  at  least,  and  they  are  not  silly. 
But  how  much  the  public  will  stand  !  I  some 
times  wonder  they  don't  drive  all  us  authors 
into  a  corner  and  make  a  battue  of  the  whole 
concern  at  once. 

In  making  the  collection,  the  first  miscellane 
ous  one  since  the  Poems  published  in  1849,  Low 
ell  gathered  not  only  those  published  mean 
while  in  magazines  and  other  periodicals,  but 
went  back  and  recovered  some  earlier  verses. 

We  knew  you  child  and  youth  and  man, 
A  wonderful  fellow  to  dream  and  plan, 
With  a  great  thing  always  to  come,  —  who 

knows  ? 
Well,   well!   't  is  some  comfort  to  toast 

one's  toes. 

"  How  many  times  have  you  sat  at  gaze 
Till  the  mouldering  fire  forgot  to  blaze, 
Shaping  among  the  whimsical  coals 
Fancies  and  figures  and  shining  goals! 
What  matters  the  ashes  that  cover  those  ? 
While  hickory  lasts  you  can  toast  your 
toes. 


286 


UNDER  THE   WILLOWS   AND   OTHER   POEMS 


"  O  dream  -  ship  -  builder  !    where  are  they 

all, 
Your  grand    three-deckers,  deep -chested 

and  tall, 
That  should  crush  the  waves  under  canvas 

piles, 

And  anchor  at  last  by  the  Fortunate  Isles  ? 
There  's  gray  in  your  beard,  the  years  turn 

foes, 
While  you  muse  in   your  arm-chair,  and 

toast  your  toes." 

I  sit  and  dream  that  I  hear,  as  of  yore, 
My  Elm  wood    chimneys'    deep  -  throated 

roar  ; 

If  much  be  gone,  there  is  much  remains  ; 
By  the  embers  of  loss  I  count  my  gains, 
You  and  yours  with  the  best,  till  the  old 

hope  glows 
In  the  fanciful  flame,  as  I  toast  my  toes. 

Instead  of  a  fleet  of  broad-browed  ships, 
To  send  a  child's  armada  of  chips! 
Instead  of  the  great  guns,  tier  on  tier, 
A  freight    of    pebbles    and  grass -blades 

sere! 
"  Well,  maybe  more  love  with  the  less  gift 

goes," 
I  growl,  as,  half  moody,  I  toast  my  toes. 


UNDER  THE  WILLOWS 

FRANK-HEARTED  hostess  of  the  field  and 

wood, 

Gypsy,  whose  roof  is  every  spreading  tree, 
June  is  the   pearl  of  our  New  England 

year. 

Still  a  surprisal,  though  expected  long, 
Her    coming    startles.    Long    she    lies   in 

wait, 
Makes  many  a   feint,  peeps   forth,  draws 

coyly  back, 
Then,  from  some  southern  ambush  in  the 

sky, 
With  one  great  gush  of  blossom  storms  the 

world. 

A  week  ago  the  sparrow  was  divine; 
The   bluebird,   shifting   his   light   load  of 

song 
From   post  to    post    along  the   cheerless 

fence, 

Was  as  a  rhymer  ere  the  poet  come  ; 
But  now,  oh  rapture  !  sunshine  winged  and 

voiced, 


Pipe   blown   through    by   the   warm   wild 

breath  of  the  West 

Shepherding  his  soft  droves  of  fleecy  cloud, 
Gladness  of  woods,  skies,  waters,  all  in 

one, 

The  bobolink  has  come,  and,  like  the  soul 
Of  the  sweet  season  vocal  in  a  bird, 
Gurgles  in  ecstasy  we  know  not  what 
Save  June  I     Dear  June !    Now    God  be 

praised  for  June. 

May  is  a  pious  fraud  of  the  almanac, 

A  ghastly  parody  of  real  Spring 

Shaped  out  of  snow  and  breathed  with 
eastern  wind; 

Or  if,  o'er-confident,  she  trust  the  date. 

And,  with  her  handful  of  anemones, 

Herself  as  shivery,  steal  into  the  sun, 

The  season  need  but  turn  his  hour-glass 
round, 

And  Winter  suddenly,  like  crazy  Lear, 

Reels  back,  and  brings  the  dead  May  in 
his  arms, 

Her  budding  breasts  and  wan  dislustred 
front 

With  frosty  streaks  and  drifts  of  his  white 
beard 

All  overblown.  Then,  warmly  walled  with 
books, 

While  my  wood-fire  supplies  the  sun's  de 
fect, 

Whispering  old  forest-sagas  in  its  dreams, 

I  take  my  May  down  from  the  happy 
shelf 

Where  perch  the  world's  rare  song-birds  in 
a  row, 

Waiting  my  choice  to  open  with  full  breast, 

And  beg  an  alms  of  springtime,  ne'er  de 
nied 

Indoors  by  vernal  Chaucer,  whose  fresh 
woods 

Throb  thick  with  merle  and  mavis  all  the 
year. 

July  breathes  hot,  sallows  the  crispy  fields, 
Curls  up  the  wan  leaves  of  the  lilac-hedge, 
And  every  eve  cheats  us  with  show  of  clouds 
That  braze  the  horizon's  western  rim,  or 

hang 
Motionless,  with  heaped  canvas  drooping 

idly, 

Like  a  dim  fleet  by  starving  men  besieged, 
Conjectured  half,  and  half  descried  afar, 
Helpless  of  wind,  and  seeming  to  slip  back 
Adown  the  smooth  curve  of  the  oily  sea. 


UNDER  THE  WILLOWS 


287 


But  June  is  full  of  invitations  sweet, 
Forth  from  the  chimney's  yawn  and  thrice- 
read  tomes 
To    leisurely     delights     and     sauntering 

thoughts 
That  brook  no  ceiling  narrower  than   the 

blue. 

The  cherry,  drest  for  bridal,  at  my  pane 
Brushes,  then  listens,  Will  he  come  ?     The 

bee, 

All  dusty  as  a  miller,  takes  his  toll 
Of  powdery  gold,  and  grumbles.     What  a 

day 

To  sun  me  and  do  nothing  !     Nay,  I  think 
Merely  to  bask  and  ripen  is  sometimes 
The  student's  wiser  business  ;  the  brain 
That  forages  all  climes  to  line  its  cells, 
Ranging  both  worlds  on  lightest  wings  of 

wish, 

Will  not  distil  the  juices  it  has  sucked 
To  the  sweet  substance  of  pellucid  thought, 
Except  for  him  who  hath  the  secret  learned 
To  mix  his  blood  with   sunshine,   and  to 

take 
The   winds  into  his  pulses.     Hush!    't  is 

he! 

My  oriole,  my  glance  of  summer  fire, 
Is  come  at  last,  and,  ever  on  the  watch, 
Twitches  the   packthread   I    had    lightly 

wound 

About  the  bough  to  help  his  housekeep 
ing*— 
Twitches  and  scouts  by  turns,  blessing  his 

luck, 

Yet  fearing  me  who  laid  it  in  his  way, 
Nor,  more  than  wiser  we  in  our  affairs, 
Divines  the  providence  that  hides  and  helps. 
Heave,  ho  I     Heave,  ho  I  he  whistles  as  the 

twine 
Slackens  its  hold;  once  more,  now!  and  a 

flash 

Lightens  across  the  sunlight  to  the  elm 
Where   his   mate   dangles  at  her   cup  of 

felt. 

Nor  all  his  booty  is  the  thread;  he  trails 
My   loosened   thought   with   it  along  the 

air, 

And  I  must  follow,  would  I  ever  find 
The  inward  rhyme  to  all   this  wealth  of 

life. 

I  care  not  how  men  trace  their  ancestry, 
To   ape   or  Adam:  let  them  please   their 

whim; 
But  I  in  June  am  midway  to  believe 


A  tree  among  my  far  progenitors, 
Such  sympathy  is  mine  with  all  the  race, 
Such  mutual  recognition  vaguely  sweet 
There   is   between  us.     Surely   there   are 

times 
When  they  consent  to   own   me  of  their 

kin, 

And  condescend  to  me,  and  call  me  cousin, 
Murmuring  faint  lullabies  of  eldest  time, 
Forgotten,  and  yet  dumbly  felt  with  thrills 
Moving   the   lips,   though   fruitless  of  all 

words. 

And  I  have  many  a  lifelong  leafy  friend, 
Never  estranged  nor  careful  of  my  soul, 
That  knows  I  hate  the  axe,  and  welcomes 

me 

Within  his  tent  as  if  I  were  a  bird, 
Or  other  free  companion  of  the  earth, 
Yet  undegenerate  to  the  shifts  of  men. 
Among    them    one,    an     ancient    willow, 

spreads 
Eight  balanced  limbs,  springing  at  once  all 

round 
His  deep-ridged  trunk  with  upward  slant 

diverse, 

In  outline  like  enormous  beaker,  fit 
For  hand  of  Jotun,  where  mid  snow  and 

mist 

He  holds  unwieldy  revel.  This  tree,  spared, 
I  know  not  by  what  grace,  —  for  in  the 

blood 

Of  our  New  World  subduers  lingers  yet 
Hereditary  feud  with  trees,  they  being 
(They  and  the  red-man  most)  our  fathers' 

foes,— 

Is  one  of  six,  a  willow  Pleiades, 
The   seventh  fallen,   that  lean  along  the 

brink 

Where  the  steep  upland  dips  into  the  marsh, 
Their  roots,  like  molten  metal  cooled  in 

flowing, 
Stiffened   in   coils  and   runnels  down  the 

bank. 
The  friend  of  all  the  winds,  wide-armed  he 

towers 

And  glints  his  steely  aglets  in  the  sun, 
Or  whitens  fitfully  with  sudden  bloom 
Of  leaves  breeze-lifted,  much  as  when  a 

shoal 
Of  devious  minnows  wheel  from  where  a 

pike 
Lurks  balanced  'neath  the  lily-pads,  and 

whirl 

A  rood  of  silver  bellies  to  the  day. 
Alas!  no  acorn  from  the  British  oak 


288 


UNDER  THE  WILLOWS   AND   OTHER   POEMS 


'Neath  which  slim  fairies  tripping  wrought 

those  rings 

Of  greenest  emerald,  wherewith  fireside  life 
Did   with  the   invisible   spirit   of   Nature 

wed, 

Was  ever  planted  here!    No  darnel  fancy 
Might  choke  one  useful  blade  in  Puritan 

fields; 
With  horn  and  hoof  the  good  old  Devil 

came, 

The  witch's   broomstick   was   not  contra 
band, 

But  all  that  superstition  had  of  fair, 
Or  piety  of  native  sweet,  was  doomed. 
And  if  there  be  who  nurse  unholy  faiths, 
Fearing  their  god  as  if  he  were  a  wolf 
That  snuffed  round  every  home  and  was 

not  seen, 
There  should  be  some  to  watch  and  keep 

alive 

All  beautiful  beliefs.  And  such  was  that,  — 
By  solitary  shepherd  first  surmised 
Under  Thessaliau  oaks,  loved  by  some  maid 
Of  royal  stirp,  that  silent  came  and  van 
ished, 
As  near  her  nest  the  hermit  thrush,  nor 

dared 
Confess  a  mortal  name,  —  that  faith  which 

gave 

A  Hamadryad  to  each  tree;  and  I 
Will  hold  it  true  that  in  this  willow  dwells 
The  open-handed  spirit,  frank  and  blithe, 
Of  ancient  Hospitality,  long  since, 
With   ceremonious    thrift,    bowed   out   of 
doors. 

In  June  't  is  good  to  lie  beneath  a  tree 
While   the  blithe   season   comforts   every 

sense, 
Steeps  all  the  brain  in  rest,  and  heals  the 

heart, 

Brimming  it  o'er  with  sweetness  unawares, 
Fragrant  and  silent  as  that  rosy  snow 
Wherewith  the  pitying  apple-tree  fills  up 
And  tenderly  lines  some  last-year  robin's 

nest. 
There  muse  I  of  old  times,  old  hopes,  old 

friends,  — 
Old  friends!    The  writing  of  those  words 

has  borne 

My  fancy  backward  to  the  gracious  past, 
The  generous  past,  when  all  was  possible, 
For  all  was  then  untried;  the  years  between 
Have  taught  some  sweet,  some  bitter  lessons, 


Wiser  than  this,  —  to  spend  in  all  things 

else, 

But  of  old  friends  to  be  most  miserly. 
Each  year  to  ancient  friendships   adds  a 

ring, 

As  to  an  oak,  and  precious  more  and  more, 
Without  deserviugness  or  help  of  ours, 
They  grow,  and,  silent,  wider  spread,  each 

year, 

Their  unbought  ring  of  shelter  or  of  shade. 
Sacred  to  me  the  lichens  on  the  bark, 
Which   Nature's   milliners   would    scrape 

away; 

Most  dear  and  sacred  every  withered  limb! 
'T  is  good  to  set  them  early,  for  our  faith 
Pines  as  we  age,  and,  after  wrinkles  come, 
Few  plant,  but  water  dead  ones  with  vain 

tears. 

This  willow  is  as  old  to  me  as  life ; 
And  under  it  full  often  have  I  stretched, 
Feeling  the  warm  earth  like  a  thing  alive, 
And  gathering  virtue  in  at  every  pore 
Till  it  possessed  me  wholly,  and  thought 

ceased, 
Or  was  transfused  in  something  to  which 

thought 
Is  coarse  and  dull  of  sense.     Myself  was 

lost, 

Gone  from  me  like  an  ache,  and  what  re 
mained 

Become  a  part  of  the  universal  joy. 
My  soul  went  forth,  and,  mingling  with  the 

tree, 
Danced  in  the  leaves;  or,  floating  in  the 

cloud, 

Saw  its  white  double  in  the  stream  below; 
Or  else,  sublimed  to  purer  ecstasy, 
Dilated  in  the  broad  blue  over  all. 
I   was   the    wind   that    dappled   the   lush 

grass, 
The   tide    that  crept  with  coolness  to  its 

roots, 
The  thin-winged  swallow  skating  on  the 

air; 
The   life   that   gladdened  everything  was 

mine,, 

Was  I  then  truly  all  that  I  beheld  ? 
Or  is  this  stream  of  being  but  a  glass 
Where  the  mind  sees  its  visionary  self, 
As,  when  the  kingfisher  flits  o'er  his  bay, 
Across  the  river's  hollow  heaven  below 
His  picture  flits,  —  another,  yet  the  same  ? 
But  suddenly  the  sound  of  human  voice 
Or  footfall,  like  the  drop  a  chemist  pours, 


UNDER  THE  WILLOWS 


289 


Doth  in  opacous  cloud  precipitate 

The   consciousness   that  seemed   but  now 

dissolved 

Into  an  essence  rarer  than  its  own, 
And  I  am  narrowed  to  myself  once  more. 

For  here  not  long  is  solitude  secure, 
Nor  Fantasy  left  vacant  to  her  spell. 
Here,  sometimes,  in  this  paradise  of  shade, 
Rippled    with   western   winds,   the    dusty 

Tramp, 

Seeing  the  treeless  causey  burn  beyond, 
Halts  to  unroll  his  bundle  of  strange  food 
And  munch  an  unearned  meal.     I  cannot 

help 
Liking    this     creature,    lavish    Summer's 

bedesman, 
Who  from  the  almshouse  steals  when  nights 

grow  warm, 

Himself  his  large  estate  and  only  charge, 
To  be  the  guest  of  haystack  or  of  hedge, 
Nobly  superior  to  the  household  gear 
That  forfeits  us  our  privilege  of  nature. 
I  bait  him  with  my  match-box   and   my 

pouch, 
Nor    grudge    the    uncostly    sympathy   of 

smoke, 

His  equal  now,  divinely  unemployed. 
Some  smack  of  Robin  Hood  is  in  the  man, 
Some  secret  league  with  wild  wood- wander 
ing  things; 

He  is  our  ragged  Duke,  our  barefoot  Earl, 
By  right  of  birth  exonerate  from  toil, 
Who  levies  rent  from  us  his  tenants  all, 
And   serves   the   state    by   merely   being. 

Here 

The  Scissors-grinder,  pausing,  doffs  his  hat, 
And  lets  the  kind  breeze,  with  its  delicate 

fan, 
Winnow  the  heat  from  out  his  dank  gray 

hair,  — 

A  grimy  Ulysses,  a  much-wandered  man, 
Whose  feet  are  known  to  all  the  populous 

ways, 

And  many  men  and  manners  he  hath  seen, 
Not  without  fruit  of  solitary  thought. 
He,  as  the  habit  is  of  lonely  men,  — 
Unused  to  try  the  temper  of  their  mind 
In  fence  with  others,  —  positive  and  shy, 
Yet  knows  to  put  an  edge  upon  his  speech, 
Pithily  Saxon  in  unwilling  talk. 
Him    I    entrap    with    my    long-suffering 

knife, 
And,  while  its  poor  blade  hums  away  in 

sparks, 


Sharpen  my  wit  upon  his  gritty  mind, 
In  motion  set  obsequious  to  his  wheel, 
And  in  its  quality  not  much  unlike. 

Nor  wants  my  tree  more  punctual  visitors. 
The  children,  they  who  are  the  only  rich, 
Creating  for  the  moment,  and  possessing 
Whate'er  they  choose  to  feign,  —  for  still 

with  them 

Kind  Fancy  plays  the  fairy  godmother, 
Strewing  their  lives  with  cheap  material 
For  winged  horses  and  Aladdin's  lamps, 
Pure  elfin-gold,  by  manhood's  touch  pro 
fane 

To  dead  leaves  disenchanted,  —  long  ago 
Between   the   branches   of   the   tree  fixed 

seats, 

Making  an  o'erturned  box  their  table.    Oft 
The  shrilling  girls  sit  here  between  school 

hours, 
And  play  at  What  's  my  thought  like  ?  while 

the  boys, 

With  whom  the  age  chivalric  ever  bides, 
Pricked  on  by  knightly  spur  of  female  eyes, 
Climb  high  to  swing  and  shout  on  perilous 

boughs, 

Or,  from  the  willow's  armory  equipped 
With  musket  dumb,  green  banner,  edge- 
less  sword, 

Make   good    the    rampart   of   their    tree- 
redoubt 

'Gainst  eager  British  storming  from  below, 
And  keep  alive  the  tale  of  Bunker's  Hill. 

Here,  too,  the  men  that  mend  our  village 

ways, 
Vexing    Macadam's   ghost   with   pounded 

slate, 
Their  nooning  take  ;  much  noisy  talk  they 

spend 

On  horses  and  their  ills ;  and,  as  John  'Bull 
Tells  of  Lord  This  or  That,  who  was  his 

friend, 

So  these  make  boast  of  intimacies  long 
With  famous  teams,  and  add  large  esti 
mates, 
By   competition    swelled    from  mouth  to 

mouth, 
Of  how  much  they  could  draw,  till  one,  ill 

pleased 

To  have  his  legend  overbid,  retorts  : 
"You  take  and  stretch  truck-horses  in  a 

string 
From  here  to  Long  Wharf  end,  one  thing 

I  know, 


290 


UNDER   THE   WILLOWS   AND   OTHER   POEMS 


Not  heavy  neither,  they  could  never  draw,  — 
Ensign's  long  bow  ! "     Then  laughter  loud 

and  long. 

So  they  in  their  leaf-shadowed  microcosm 
Image  the  larger  world;  for  wheresoe'er 
Ten  men  are  gathered,  the  observant  eye 
Will  find  mankind  in  little,  as  the  stars 
Glide  up  and  set,  and  all  the  heavens  re 
volve 
In  the  small  welkin  of  a  drop  of  dew. 

I  love  to  enter  pleasure  by  a  postern, 
Not  the  broad  popular  gate  that  gulps  the 

mob; 

To  find  my  theatres  in  roadside  nooks, 
Where  men  are  actors,  and  suspect  it  not; 
Where  Nature  all  unconscious  works  her 

will, 

And  every  passion  moves  with  easy  gait, 
Unhampered  by  the  buskin  or  the  train. 
Hating   the  crowd,  where   we   gregarious 

men 

Lead  lonely  lives,  I  love  society, 
Nor  seldom  find  the  best  with  simple  souls 
Unswerved  by  culture   from   their  native 

bent, 

The  ground  we  meet  on  being  primal  man 
And  nearer  the  deep  bases  of  our  lives. 

But  oh,  half  heavenly,  earthly   half,  my 

soul, 

Canst  thou  from  those   late  ecstasies  de 
scend, 

Thy  lips  still  wet  with  the  miraculous  wine 
That  transubstantiates  all  thy  baser  stuff 
To  such  divinity  that  soul  and  sense, 
Once  more  commingled  in  their  source,  are 

lost,  — 
Canst  thou  descend   to   quench   a  vulgar 

thirst 
With  the  mere  dregs  and  rinsings  of  the 

world  ? 

Well,  if  my  nature  find  her  pleasure  so, 
I  am  content,  nor  need  to  blush;  I  take 
My  little  gift  of  being  clean  from  God, 
Not  haggling  for  a  better,  holding  it 
Good  as  was  ever  any  in  the  world, 
My  days  as  good  and  full  of  miracle. 
I  pluck  my  nutriment  from  any  bush, 
Finding  out  poison  as  the  first  men  did 
By  tasting  and  then  suffering,  if  I  must. 
Sometimes  my  bush  burns,  and  sometimes 

it  is 

A  leafless  wilding  shivering  by  the  wall  ; 
But  I  have  known  when  winter  barberries 


Pricked  the  effeminate  palate  with  sur 
prise 

Of  savor  whose  mere  harshness  seemed 
divine. 

Oh,  benediction  of  the  higher  mood 

And  human -kindness  of  the  lower!  for 
both 

I  will  be  grateful  while  I  live,  nor  question 

The  wisdom  that  hath  made  us  what  we 
are, 

With  such  large  range  as  from  the  ale 
house  bench 

Can  reach  the  stars  and  be  with  both  at 
home. 

They  tell  us  we  have  fallen  on  prosy  days, 

Condemned  to  glean  the  leavings  of  earth's 
feast 

Where  gods  and  heroes  took  delight  of 
old; 

But  though  our  lives,  moving  in  one  dull 
round 

Of  repetition  infinite,  become 

Stale  as  a  newspaper  once  read,  and  though 

History  herself,  seen  in  her  workshop, 
seem 

To  have  lost  the  art  that  dyed  those  glori 
ous  panes, 

Rich  with  memorial  shapes  of  saint  and 


That  pave  with  splendor  the  Past's  dusky 

aisles,  — 

Panes  that  enchant  the  light  of  common  day 
With  colors  costly  as  the  blood  of  kings, 
Till  with  ideal  hues  it  edge  our  thought,  — 
Yet  while  the  world  is  left,  while   nature 

lasts, 

And  man  the  best  of  nature,  there  shall  be 
Somewhere  contentment  for  these  human 

hearts, 

Some  freshness,  some  unused  material 
For  wonder  and  for  song.     I  lose  myself 
In   other  ways  where   solemn   guide-posts 

say, 

This  way  to  Knowledge,  This  way  to  Repose, 
But  here,  here  only,  I  am  ne'er  betrayed, 
For  every  by-path  leads  me  to  my  love. 

God's  passionless  reformers,  influences, 
That  purify  and  heal  and  are  not  seen, 
Shall  man  say  whence  your  virtue  is,  or 

how 

Ye  make  medicinal  the  wayside  weed  ? 
I  know  that  sunshine,  through  whatever 

rift 


DARA 


291 


How  shaped  it  matters  not,  upon  ray  walls 
Paints    discs    as    perfect  -  rounded   as   its 

source, 

And,  like  its  antitype,  the  ray  divine, 
However  finding  entrance,  perfect  still, 
Repeats  the  image  unimpaired  of  God. 

We,  who  by  shipwreck  only  find  the  shores 
Of  divine  wisdom,  can  but  kneel  at  first; 
Can  but  exult  to  feel  beneath  our  feet, 
That  long  stretched  vainly  down  the  yield 
ing  deeps, 

The  shock  and  sustenance  of  solid  earth; 
Inland  afar  we  see  what  temples  gleam 
Through     immemorial    stems    of     sacred 

groves, 

And  we  conjecture  shining  shapes  there 
in  ; 

Yet  for  a  space  we  love  to  wander  here 
Among    the    shells    and   seaweed  of   the 
beach. 

So  mused  I  once  within  my  willow-tent 
One  brave  June  morning,  when  the  bluff 

northwest, 

Thrusting  aside  a  dank  and  snuffling  day 
That  made  us  bitter  at  our  neighbors'  sins, 
Brimmed  the   great   cup   of  heaven   with 

sparkling  cheer 
And   roared   a    lusty   stave  ;    the    sliding 

Charles, 
Blue  toward  the  west,  and  bluer  and  more 

blue, 

Living  and  lustrous  as  a  woman's  eyes 
Look  once  and  look  no  more,  with  south 
ward  curve 

Ran  crinkling  sunniness,  like  Helen's  hair 
Glimpsed  in  Elysium,  insubstantial  gold; 
From  blossom-clouded  orchards,  far  away 
The  bobolink  tinkled;  the  deep  meadows 

flowed 
With    multitudinous    pulse   of  light    and 

shade 

Against  the  bases  of  the  southern  hills, 
While  here  and  there  a  drowsy  island  rick 
Slept  and   its   shadow   slept;  the   wooden 

bridge 
Thundered,  and   then  was   silent;  on   the 

roofs 
The  sun-warped  shingles  rippled  with  the 

heat; 
Summer  on  field  and  hill,   in  heart   and 

brain, 
All  life  washed  clean  in  this  high  tide  of 

June. 


DARA 

WHEN  Persia's  sceptre  trembled  in  a  hand 
Wilted  with  harem-heats,  and  all  the  land 
Was  hovered  over  by  those  vulture  ills 
That  snuff  decaying  empire  from  afar, 
Then,  with  a  nature  balanced  as  a  star, 
Dara  arose,  a  shepherd  of  the  hills. 

He  who  had  governed  fleecy  subjects  well 
Made    his    own   village    by   the   selfsame 

spell 

Secure  and  quiet  as  a  guarded  fold; 
Then,  gathering  strength  by  slow  and  wise 

degrees 

Under  his  sway,  to  neighbor  villages 
Order  returned,  and  faith  and  justice  old. 

Now  when  it  fortuned  that  a  king  more  wise 
Endued  the  realm  with  brain  and   hands 

and  eyes, 
He  sought  on  every  side  men  brave  and 

just ; 
And  having  heard  our  mountain  shepherd's 

praise, 

How  he  refilled  the  mould  of  elder  days, 
To  Dara  gave  a  satrapy  in  trust. 

So  Dara  shepherded  a  province  wide, 
Nor    in   his   viceroy's   sceptre   took   more 

pride 

Than  in  his  crook  before  ;  but  envy  finds 
More    food   in   cities    than   on   mountains 

bare  ; 
And  the  frank  sun  of  natures   clear  and 

rare 
Breeds  poisonous  fogs  in  low  and  marish 

minds. 

Soon  it  was  hissed  into  the  royal  ear, 

That,  though  wise  Dara's  province,  year 
by  year, 

Like  a  great  sponge,  sucked  wealth  and 
plenty  up, 

Yet,  when  he  squeezed  it  at  the  king's  be 
hest, 

Some  yellow  drops,  more  rich  than  all  the 
rest, 

Went  to  the  filling  of  his  private  cup. 

For  proof,  they  said,  that,  wheresoe'er  he 

went, 
A  chest,  beneath  whose  weight  the  camel 

bent, 


292 


UNDER  THE   WILLOWS   AND   OTHER   POEMS 


Went  with  him  ;  and  no  mortal  eye   had 

seen 

What  was  therein,  save  only  Dara's  own ; 
But,  when  't  was  opened,  all  his  tent  was 

known 
To  glow  and  lighten  with  heaped  jewels' 

sheen. 

The  King  set   forth   for  Dara's  province 

straight ; 

There,  as  was  fit,  outside  the  city's  gate, 
The  viceroy  met  him  with  a  stately  train, 
And  there,  with  archers   circled,  close  at 

hand, 

A  camel  with  the  chest  was  seen  to  stand: 
The  King's  brow  reddened,  for  the  guilt 

was  plain. 

"  Open  me  here,"  he  cried,  "  this  treasure- 
chest!" 

'T  was  done  ;  and  only  a  worn  shepherd's 
vest 

Was  found  therein.  Some  blushed  and 
hung  the  head  ; 

Not  Dara  ;  open  as  the  sky's  blue  roof 

He  stood,  and  "O  my  lord,  behold  the 
proof 

That  I  was  faithful  to  my  trust,"  he  said. 

"  To  govern  men,  lo  all  the  spell  I  had  ! 
My  soul  in  these  rude  vestments  ever  clad 
Still  to  the  unstained  past  kept  true  and  leal, 
Still   on   these   plains    could   breathe   her 

mountain  air, 

And  fortune's  heaviest  gifts  serenely  bear, 
Which   bend    men   from   their   truth   and 

make  them  reel. 

"For  ruling  wisely  I   should  have  small 

skill, 

Were  I  not  lord  of  simple  Dara  still; 
That  sceptre   kept,  I  could   not   lose  my 

way." 
Strange  dew  in  royal  eyes  grew  round  and 

bright, 
And   strained  the   throbbing  lids;  before 

'twas  night 
Two  added  provinces  blest  Dara's  sway. 


THE  FIRST  SNOW-FALL 

One  of  the  "  earlier  verses  "  sent  to  the  Anti- 
Slavery  Standard.  In  a  letter  to  Mr.  Gay, 
dated  Elmwood,  December  22,  1849,  Lowell 


wrote  :  "  Print  that  as  if  you  loved  it.  Let  not 
a  comma  be  blundered.  Especially  I  fear  they 
will  put  "  gleaming  '  for  '  gloaming '  in  the  first 
line  unless  you  look  to  it.  May  you  never 
have  the  key  which  shall  unlock  the  whole 
meaning  of  the  poem  to  you  !  " 

THE  snow  had  begun  in  the  gloaming, 

And  busily  all  the  night 
Had  been  heaping  field  and  highway 

With  a  silence  deep  and  white. 

Every  pine  and  fir  and  hemlock 
Wore  ermine  too  dear  for  an  earl, 

And  the  poorest  twig  on  the  elm-tree 
Was  ridged  inch  deep  with  pearl. 

From  sheds  new-roofed  with  Carrara 
Came  Chanticleer's  muffled  crow, 

The  stiff  rails  softened  to  swan's-down, 
And  still  fluttered  down  the  snow. 

I  stood  and  watched  by  the  window 
The  noiseless  work  of  the  sky, 

And  the  sudden  flurries  of  snow-birds, 
Like  brown  leaves  whirling  by. 

I  thought  of  a  mound  in  sweet  Auburn 
Where  a  little  headstone  stood; 

How  the  flakes  were  folding  it  gently, 
As  did  robins  the  babes  in  the  wood. 

Up  spoke  our  own  little  Mabel, 

Saying,  "  Father,  who  makes  it  snow  ?  " 
And  I  told  of  the  good  All-father 

Who  cares  for  us  here  below. 

Again  I  looked  at  the  snow-fall, 
And  thought  of  the  leaden  sky 

That  arched  o'er  our  first  great  sorrow, 
When  that  mound  was  heaped  so  high. 

I  remembered  the  gradual  patience 
That  fell  from  that  cloud  like  snow, 

Flake  by  flake,  healing  and  hiding 
The  scar  that  renewed  our  woe. 

And  again  to  the  child  I  whispered, 

"  The  snow  that  husheth  all, 
Darling,  the  merciful  Father 

Alone  can  make  it  fall !  " 

Then,  with  eyes  that  saw  not,  I  kissed  her; 

And  she,  kissing  back,  could  not  know 
That  my  kiss  was  given  to  her  sister, 

Folded  close  under  deepening  snow. 


THE   SINGING   LEAVES 


293 


THE   SINGING   LEAVES 


A   BALLAD 


"  WHAT  fairings  will  ye  that  I  bring  ?  " 
Said  the  King  to  his  daughters  three; 

"  For  I  to  Vanity  Fair  am  boun, 
Now  say  what  shall  they  be  ?  " 

Then  up  and  spake  the  eldest  daughter, 

That  lady  tall  and  grand: 
"  Oh,  bring  me  pearls  and  diamonds  great, 

And  gold  rings  for  my  hand." 

Thereafter  spake  the  second  daughter, 

That  was  both  white  and  red: 
"  For  me  bring  silks  that  will  stand  alone, 

And  a  gold  comb  for  my  head." 

Then  came  the  turn  of  the  least  daughter, 
That  was  whiter  than  thistle-down, 

And  among  the  gold  of  her  blithesome  hair 
Dim  shone  the  golden  crown. 

"  There  came  a  bird  this  morning, 
And  sang  'neath  my  bower  eaves, 

Till  I  dreamed,  as  his  music  made  me, 
'  Ask  thou  for  the  Singing  Leaves.' " 

Then  the  brow  of  the  King  swelled  crimson 

With  a  flush  of  angry  scorn: 
"Well  have  ye  spoken,  my  two  eldest, 

And  chosen  as  ye  were  born; 

"  But  she,  like  a  thing  of  peasant  race, 
That  is  happy  binding  the  sheaves;" 

Then  he  saw  her  dead  mother  in  her  face, 
And  said,  "  Thou  shalt  have  thy  leaves." 

II 

He  mounted  and  rode  three  days  and  nights 

Till  he  came  to  Vanity  Fair, 
And  't  was  easy  to  buy  the  gems  and  the 
silk, 

But  no  Singing  Leaves  were  there. 

Then  deep  in  the  greenwood  rode  he, 

And  asked  of  every  tree, 
"  Oh,  if  you  have  ever  a  Singing  Leaf, 

I  pray  you  give  it  me!  " 

But  the  trees  all  kept  their  counsel, 
And  never  a  word  said  they, 


Only  there  sighed  from  the  pine-tops 
A  music  of  seas  far  away. 

Only  the  pattering  aspen 

Made  a  sound  of  growing  rain, 

That  fell  ever  faster  and  faster, 
Then  faltered  to  silence  again. 

"  Oh,  where  shall  I  find  a  little  foot-page 
That  would  win  both  hose  and  shoon, 

And  will  bring  to  me  the  Singing  Leaves 
If  they  grow  under  the  moon  ?  " 

Then  lightly  turned  him  Walter  the  page, 

By  the  stirrup  as  he  ran: 
"  Now  pledge  you  me  the  truesome  word 

Of  a  king  and  gentleman, 

"  That  you  will  give  me  the  first,  first  thing 

You  meet  at  your  castle-gate, 
And   the   Princess   shall   get  the   Singing 
Leaves, 

Or  mine  be  a  traitor's  fate." 

The  King's  head  dropt  upon  his  breast 

A  moment,  as  it  might  be; 
'T  will  be  my  dog,  he  thought,  and  said, 

"My  faith  I  plight  to  thee." 

Then  Walter  took  from  next  his  heart 

A  packet  small  and  thin, 
"  Now  give  you  this  to  the  Princess  Anne, 

The  Singing  Leaves  are  therein." 

Ill 

As  the  King  rode  in  at  his  castle-gate, 

A  maiden  to  meet  him  ran, 
And  "  Welcome,  father!  "  she  laughed  and 
cried 

Together,  the  Princess  Anne. 

"  Lo,  here  the  Singing  Leaves,"  quoth  he, 
"  And  woe,  but  they  cost  me  dear! " 

She  took  the  packet,  and  the  smile 
Deepened  down  beneath  the  tear. 

It  deepened  down  till  it  reached  her  heart, 

And  then  gushed  up  again, 
And  lighted  her  tears  as  the  sudden  sun 

Transfigures  the  summer  rain. 

And  the  first  Leaf,  when  it  was  opened, 
Sang:  "  I  am  Walter  the  page, 

And  the  songs  I  sing  'neath  thy  window 
Are  my  only  heritage." 


294 


UNDER   THE  WILLOWS   AND   OTHER   POEMS 


And  the  second  Leaf  sang:    "But  in  the 
land 

That  is  neither  on  earth  nor  sea, 
My  lute  and  I  are  lords  of  more 

Than  thrice  this  kingdom's  fee." 

And  the  third  Leaf  sang,  "Be  mine!  Be 
mine!  " 

And  ever  it  sang,  "  Be  mine!  " 
Then  sweeter  it  sang  and  ever  sweeter, 

And  said,  "I  am  thine,  thine,  thine!" 

At  the  first  Leaf  she  grew  pale  enough, 
At  the  second  she  turned  aside, 

At  the  third,  't  was  as  if  a  lily  flushed 
With  a  rose's  red  heart's  tide. 

"  Good  counsel  gave  the  bird,"  said  she, 

"  I  have  my  hope  thrice  o'er, 
For  they  sing  to  my  very  heart,"  she  said, 

"  And  it  sings  to  them  evermore." 

She  brought  to  him  her  beauty  and  truth, 
But  and  broad  earldoms  three, 

And  he  made  her  queen  of  the  broader  lands 
He  held  of  his  lute  in  fee. 


SEAWEED 

NOT  always  unimpeded  can  I  pray, 
Nor,  pitying  saint,  thine  intercession  claim; 
Too  closely  clings  the  burden  of  the  day, 
And  all  the  mint  and  anise  that  I  pay 
But  swells  my  debt  and  deepens  my  self- 
blame. 

Shall  I  less  patience  have  than  Thou,  who 

know 

That  Thou  revisit'st  all  who  wait  for  thee, 
Nor  only   fill'st  the   unsounded  deeps  be 
low, 

But  dost  refresh  with  punctual  overflow 
The  rifts  where  unregarded  mosses  be  ? 

The    drooping    seaweed    hears,    in    night 

abyssed, 
Far  and   more   far   the   wave's    receding 

shocks, 
Nor  doubts,  for  all  the  darkness  and  the 

mist, 
That  the  pale  shepherdess  will  keep  her 

tryst, 
And  shoreward  lead  again  her  foam-fleeced 

flocks. 


For  the  same  wave  that  rims  the  Carib 
shore 

With  momentary  brede  of  pearl  and  gold, 

Goes  hurrying  thence  to  gladden  with  its 
roar 

Lorn  weeds  bound  fast  on  rocks  of  Labra 
dor, 

By  love  divine  on  one  sweet  errand  rolled. 

And,  though  Thy  healing  waters  far  with 
draw, 

I,  too,  can  wait  and  feed  on  hope  of  Thee 
And  of  the  dear  recurrence  of  Thy  law, 
Sure  that  the  parting  grace  my  morning 

saw 
Abides  its  time  to  come  in  search  of  me. 


THE   FINDING   OF   THE   LYRE 

THERE  lay  upon  the  ocean's  shore 
What  once  a  tortoise  served  to  cover; 
A  year  and  more,  with  rush  and  roar, 
The  surf  had  rolled  it  over, 
Had  played  with  it,  and  flung  it  by, 
As  wind  and  weather  might  decide  it, 
Then  tossed  it  high  where  sand-drifts  dry 
Cheap  burial  might  provide  it. 

It  rested  there  to  bleach  or  tan, 

The  rains  had  soaked,  the  suns  had  burned 

it; 

With  many  a  ban  the  fisherman 
Had  stumbled  o'er  and  spurned  it; 
And  there  the  fisher-girl  would  stay, 
Conjecturing  with  her  brother 
How  in  their  play  the  poor  estray 
Might  serve  some  use  or  other. 

So  there  it  lay,  through  wet  and  dry 

As  empty  as  the  last  new  sonnet, 

Till  by  and  by  came  Mercury, 

And,  having  mused  upon  it, 

"Why,   here,"   cried   he,    "the    thing  of 

things 

In  shape,  material,  and  dimension  ! 
Give  it  but  strings,  and,  lo,  it  sings, 
A  wonderful  invention  ! " 

So  said,  so  done;  the  chords  he  strained, 
And,  as  his  fingers  o'er  them  hovered, 
The  shell  disdained  a  soul  had  gained, 
The  lyre  had  been  discovered. 
O  empty  world  that  round  us  lies, 
Dead  shell,  of  soul  and  thought  forsaken, 


AL   FRESCO 


295 


Brought  we  but  eyes  like  Mercury's, 
In  thee  what  songs  should  waken  ! 


NEW-YEAR'S   EVE,    1850 

THIS  is  the   midnight   of   the  century, — 

hark! 
Through  aisle  and  arch  of  Godminster  have 

gone 
Twelve  throbs  that  tolled  the  zenith  of  the 

dark, 
And  mornward  now  the  starry  hands  move 

on; 

"  Mornward  !  "  the  angelic  watchers  say, 
"  Passed  is  the  sorest  trial; 
No  plot  of  man  can  stay 
The  hand  upon  the  dial; 
Night  is  the  dark  stem  of  the  lily  Day." 

If  we,  who  watched  in  valleys  here  below, 

Toward  streaks,  misdeemed  of  morn,  our 
faces  turned 

When  volcan  glares  set  all  the  east  aglow, 

We  are  not  poorer  that  we  wept  and 
yearned; 

Though  earth  swing  wide  from  God's  in 
tent, 

And  though  no  man  nor  nation 

Will  move  with  full  consent 

In  heavenly  gravitation, 

Yet  by  one  Sun  is  every  orbit  bent. 


FOR  AN   AUTOGRAPH 

THOUGH  old  the  thought  and  oft  exprest, 
*T  is  his  at  last  who  says  it  best,  — 
I  '11  try  my  fortune  with  the  rest. 

Life  is  a  leaf  of  paper  white 
Whereon  each  one  of  us  may  write 
His  word  or  two,  and  then  comes  night. 

"  Lo,  time  and  space  enough,"  we  cry, 
"  To  write  an  epic  !  "  so  we  try 
Our  nibs  upon  the  edge,  and  die. 

Muse  not  which  way  the  pen  to  hold, 
Luck  hates  the  slow  and  loves  the  bold, 
Soon  come  the  darkness  and  the  cold. 

Greatly  begin  1  though  thou  have  time 
But  for  a  line,  be  that  sublime,  — 
Not  failure,  but  low  aim,  is  crime. 


Ah,  with  what  lofty  hope  we  came  ! 
But  we  forget  it,  dream  of  fame, 
And  scrawl,  as  I  do  here,  a  name. 


AL   FRESCO 

THE  dandelions  and  buttercups 

Gild  all  the  lawn;  the  drowsy  bee 

Stumbles  among  the  clover-tops, 

And  summer  sweetens  all  but  me: 

Away,  unfruitful  lore  of  books, 

For  whose  vain  idiom  we  reject 

The  soul's  more  native  dialect, 

Aliens  among  the  birds  and  brooks, 

Dull  to  interpret  or  conceive 

What  gospels  lost  the  woods  retrieve  1 

Away,  ye  critics,  city-bred, 

Who  springes  set  of  thus  and  so, 

And  in  the  first  man's  footsteps  tread, 

Like  those  who  toil  through  drifted  snow ! 

Away,  my  poets,  whose  sweet  spell 

Can  make  a  garden  of  a  cell ! 

I  need  ye  not,  for  I  to-day 

Will  make  one  long  sweet  verse  of  play. 

Snap,  chord  of  manhood's  tenser  strain  1 
To-day  I  will  be  a  boy  again; 
The  mind's  pursuing  element, 
Like  a  bow  slackened  and  unbent, 
In  some  dark  corner  shall  be  leant. 
The  robin  sings,  as  of  old,  from  the  limb  I 
The  cat-bird  croons  in  the  lilac-bush  ! 
Through  the  dim  arbor,  himself  more  dim, 
Silently  hops  the  hermit-thrush, 
The  withered  leaves  keep  dumb  for  him ; 
The  irreverent  buccaneering  bee 
Hath  stormed  and  rifled  the  nunnery 
Of  the  lily,  and  scattered  the  sacred  floor 
With   haste  -  dropt   gold   from    shrine    to 

door; 

There,  as  of  yore, 
The  rich,  milk-tingeing  buttercup 
Its  tiny  polished  urn  holds  up, 
Filled  with  ripe  summer  to  the  edge, 
The  sun  in  his  own  wine  to  pledge ; 
And  our  tall  elm,  this  hundredth  year 
Doge  of  our  leafy  Venice  here, 
Who,  with  an  annual  ring,  doth  wed 
The  blue  Adriatic  overhead, 
Shadows  with  his  palatial  mass 
The  deep  canals  of  flowing  grass. 

O  unestranged  birds  and  bees  ! 
O  face  of  Nature  always  true  ! 


296 


UNDER   THE   WILLOWS   AND   OTHER   POEMS 


0  never-unsympathizing  trees  ! 
0  never-rejecting  roof  of  blue, 
Whose  rash  disherison  never  falls 
On  us  unthinking  prodigals, 

Yet  who  convictest  all  our  ill, 
So  grand  and  unappeasable  ! 
Methinks  my  heart  from  each  of  these 
Plucks  part  of  childhood  back  again, 
Long  there  imprisoned,  as  the  breeze 
Doth  every  hidden  odor  seize 
Of  wood  and  water,  hill  and  plain ; 
Once  more  am  I  admitted  peer 
In  the  upper  house  of  Nature  here, 
And  feel  through  all  my  pulses  run 
The  royal  blood  of  wind  and  sun. 

Upon  these  elm-arched  solitudes 
No  hum  of  neighbor  toil  intrudes; 
The  only  hammer  that  I  hear 
Is  wielded  by  the  woodpecker, 
The  single  noisy  calling  his 
In  all  our  leaf -hid  Sybaris; 
The  good  old  time,  close-hidden  here, 
Persists,  a  loyal  cavalier, 
While  Roundheads  prim,  with  point  of  fox, 
Probe  wainscot-chink  and  empty  box; 
Here  no  hoarse-voiced  iconoclast 
Insults  thy  statues,  royal  Past; 
Myself  too  prone  the  axe  to  wield, 

1  touch  the  silver  side  of  the  shield 
With  lance  reversed,  and  challenge  peace, 
A  willing  convert  of  the  trees. 

How  chanced  it  that  so  long  I  tost 
A  cable's  length  from  this  rich  coast, 
With  foolish  anchors  hugging  close 
The  beckoning  weeds  and  lazy  ooze, 
Nor  had  the  wit  to  wreck  before 
On  this  enchanted  island's  shore, 
Whither  the  current  of  the  sea, 
With  wiser  drift,  persuaded  me  ? 

Oh,  might  we  but  of  such  rare  days 
Build  up  the  spirit's  dwelling-place  ! 
A  temple  of  so  Parian  stone 
Would  brook  a  marble  god  alone, 
The  statue  of  a  perfect  life, 
Far-shrined  from  earth's  bestaining  strife. 
Alas  !  though  such  felicity 
In  our  vext  world  here  may  not  be, 
Yet,  as  sometimes  the  peasant's  hut 
Shows  stones  which  old  religion  eut 
With  text  inspired,  or  mystic  sign 
Of  the  Eternal  and  Divine, 
Torn  from  the  consecration  deep 


Of  some  fallen  nunnery's  mossy  sleep, 

So,  from  the  ruins  of  this  day 

Crumbling  in  golden  dust  away, 

The  soul  one  gracious  block  may  draw, 

Carved  with  some  fragment  of  the  law, 

Which,  set  in  life's  prosaic  wall, 

Old  benedictions  may  recall, 

And  lure  some  nunlike  thoughts  to  take 

Their  dwelling  here  for  memory's  sake. 


MASACCIO 

IN   THE   BRANCACCI   CHAPEL 

HE  came  to  Florence  long  ago, 

And  painted  here  these  walls,  that  shone 

For  Raphael  and  for  Angelo, 

With  secrets  deeper  than  his  own, 

Then  shrank  into  the  dark  again, 

And  died,  we  know  not  how  or  when. 

The  shadows  deepened,  and  I  turned 

Half  sadly  from  the  fresco  grand ; 

"  And  is  this,"  mused  I,  "  all  ye  earned, 

High-vaulted  brain  and  cunning  hand, 

That  ye  to  greater  men  could  teach 

The  skill  yourselves  could  never  reach  ?  " 

"And  who  were   they,"   I   mused,   "that 

wrought 

Through  pathless  wilds,  with  labor  long, 
The  highways  of  our  daily  thought  ? 
Who  reared  those  towers  of  earliest  song 
That  lift  us  from  the  crowd  to  peace 
Remote  in  sunny  silences  ?  " 

Out  clanged  the  Ave  Mary  bells, 
And  to  my  heart  this  message  came : 
Each  clamorous  throat  among  them  tells 
What  strong-souled  martys  died  in  flame 
To  make  it  possible  that  thou 
Shouldst  here  with  brother  sinners  bow. 

Thoughts  that  great  hearts  once  broke  for, 

we 

Breathe  cheaply  in  the  common  air  ; 
The  dust  we  trample  heedlessly 
Throbbed  once  in  saints  and  heroes  rare, 
Who  perished,  opening  for  their  race 
New  pathways  to  the  commonplace. 

Henceforth,  when  rings  the  health  to  those 
Who  live  in  story  and  in  song, 
O  nameless  dead,  that  now  repose 


GODMINSTER   CHIMES 


297 


Safe  in  Oblivion's  chambers  strong, 
One  cup  of  recognition  true 
Shall  silently  be  drained  to  you  ! 


WITHOUT  AND  WITHIN 

"  Madrid,  January  15,  1879.  I  wrote  some 
verses  thirty  odd  years  ago  called  Without  and 
Within,  and  they  originally  ended  with  the 
author's  looking  up  at  the  stars  through  six 
feet  of  earth  and  feeling  dreadfully  bored, 
while  a  passer-by  deciphers  the  headstone  and 
envies  the  supposed  sleeper  beneath.  I  was  per 
suaded  to  leave  out  this  ending  as  too  grim  — 
but  I  often  think  of  it.  They  have  a  fine  name 
for  this  kind  of  feeling  nowadays,  and  would 
fain  make  out  pessimism  to  be  a  monstrous 
birth  of  our  century.  I  suspect  it  has  always 
been  common  enough,  especially  with  naughty 
children  who  get  tired  of  their  playthings  as 
soon  as  I  do  —  the  absurdity  being  that  then 
we  are  not  content  with  smashing  the  toy 
which  turns  out  to  be  finite  —  but  everything 
else  into  the  bargain."  J.  R.  L.  to  Miss  Grace 
Norton.  Letters  II.  236. 

MY  coachman,  in  the  moonlight  there, 
Looks  through  the  side-light  of  the  door; 

I  hear  him  with  his  brethren  swear, 
As  I  could  do,  —  but  only  more. 

Flattening  his  nose  against  the  pane, 

He  envies  me  my  brilliant  lot, 
Breathes  on  his  aching  fists  in.  vain, 

And  dooms  me  to  a  place  more  hot. 

He  sees  me  in  to  supper  go, 

A  silken  wonder  by  my  side, 
Bare  arms,  bare  shoulders,  and  a  row 

Of  flounces,  for  the  door  too  wide. 

He  thinks  how  happy  is  my  arm 

'Neath    its   white-gloved    and  jewelled 
load; 

And  wishes  me  some  dreadful  harm, 
Hearing  the  merry  corks  explode. 

Meanwhile  I  inly  curse  the  bore 
Of  hunting  still  the  same  old  coon, 

And  envy  him,  outside  the  door, 
In  golden  quiets  of  the  moon. 

The  winter  wind  is  not  so  cold 

As  the  bright  smile  he  sees  me  win, 

Nor  the  host's  oldest  wine  so  old 
As  our  poor  gabble  sour  and  thin. 


I  envy  him  the  ungyved  prance 

With  which  his  freezing  feet  he  warms, 

And  drag  my  lady's-chains  and  dance 
The  galley-slave  of  dreary  forms. 

Oh,  could  he  have  my  share  of  din, 
And  I  his  quiet !  —  past  a  doubt 

'T  would  still  be  one  man  bored  within, 
And  just  another  bored  without. 

Nay,  when,  once  paid  my  mortal  fee, 
Some  idler  on  my  headstone  grim 

Traces  the  moss-blurred  name,  will  he 
Think  me  the  happier,  or  I  him  ? 


GODMINSTER   CHIMES 

WRITTEN   IN   AID   OF  A    CHIME   OF  BELLS 
FOR   CHRIST   CHURCH,  CAMBRIDGE 

GODMINSTER  ?     Is  it  Fancy's  play  ? 

I  know  not,  but  the  word 
Sings  in  my  heart,  nor  can  I  say 

Whether  't  was  dreamed  or  heard; 
Yet  fragrant  in  my  mind  it  clings 

As  blossoms  after  rain, 
And  builds  of  half-remembered  things 

This  vision  in  my  brain. 

Through  aisles  of  long-drawn  centuries 

My  spirit  walks  in  thought, 
And  to  that  symbol  lifts  its  eyes 

Which  God's  own  pity  wrought; 
From  Calvary  shines  the  altar's  gleam, 

The  Church's  East  is  there, 
The  Ages  one  great  minster  seem, 

That  throbs  with  praise  and  prayer. 

And  all  the  way  from  Calvary  down 

The  carven  pavement  shows 
Their  graves  who  won  the  martyr's  crown 

And  safe  in  God  repose; 
The  saints  of  many  a  warring  creed 

Who  now  in  heaven  have  learned 
That  all  paths  to  the  Father  lead 

Where  Self  the  feet  have  spurned. 

And,  as  the  mystic  aisles  I  pace, 

By  aureoled  workmen  built, 
Lives  ending  at  the  Cross  I  trace 

Alike  through  grace  and  guilt; 
One  Mary  bathes  the  blessed  feet 

With  ointment  from  her  eyes, 


298 


UNDER  THE  WILLOWS  AND  OTHER  POEMS 


With  spikenard  one,  and  both  are  sweet, 
For  both  are  sacrifice. 

Moravian  hymn  and  Roman  chant 

In  one  devotion  blend, 
To  speak  the  soul's  eternal  want 

Of  Him,  the  inmost  friend; 
One   prayer  soars   cleansed   with   martyr 
fire, 

One  choked  with  sinner's  tears, 
In  heaven  both  meet  in  one  desire, 

And  God  one  music  hears. 

Whilst  thus  I  dream,  the  bells  clash  out 

Upon  the  Sabbath  air, 
Each  seems  a  hostile  faith  to  shout, 

A  selfish  form  of  prayer; 
My  dream  is  shattered,  yet  who  knows 

But  in  that  heaven  so  near 
These  discords  find  harmonious  close 

In  God's  atoning  ear  ? 

O  chime  of  sweet  Saint  Charity, 

Peal  soon  that  Easter  morn 
When  Christ  for  all  shall  risen  be, 

And  in  all  hearts  new-born  ! 
That  Pentecost  when  utterance  clear 

To  all  men  shall  be  given, 
When  all  shall  say  My  Brother  here, 

And  hear  My  Son  in  heaven  ! 


THE   PARTING   OF    THE   WAYS 

WHO  hath  not  been  a  poet  ?     Who  hath  not, 
With    life's    new  quiver  full    of  winged 

years, 

Shot  at  a  venture,  and  then,  following  on, 
Stood  doubtful  at  the  Parting  of  the  Ways  ? 

There  once   I  stood   in  dream,  and  as  I 

paused, 
Looking   this   way   and   that,  came   forth 

to  me 

The  figure  of  a  woman  veiled,  that  said, 
"  My  name  is  Duty,  turn  and  follow  me ; " 
Something  there  was   that   chilled  me  in 

her  voice; 
I  felt  Youth's  hand  grow  slack  and  cold  in 

mine, 

As  if  to  be  withdrawn,  and  I  exclaimed: 
"  Oh,  leave  the  hot  wild  heart  within  my 

breast  ! 
Duty  comes  soon  enough,  too  soon  comes 

Death; 


This  slippery  globe  of  life  whirls  of  itself, 
Hasting  our  youth  away  into  the  dark; 
These  senses,  quivering  with  electric  heats, 
Too  soon  will  show,  like  nests  on  wintry 

boughs 

Obtrusive  emptiness,  too  palpable  wreck, 
Which   whistling    north- winds    line    with 

downy  snow 
Sometimes,  or  fringe  with  foliaged  rime, 

in  vain, 
Thither  the  singing  birds  no  more  return." 

Then  glowed  to  me   a  maiden   from  the 

left, 
With   bosom   half    disclosed,   and    naked 

arms 
More   white  and  undulant  than  necks  of 

swans; 

And  all  before  her  steps  an  influence  ran 
Warm  as  the  whispering  South  that  opens 

buds 
And  swells  the  laggard  sails  of  Northern 

May. 
"  I  am  called  Pleasure,  come  with  me ! " 

she  said, 
Then  laughed,  and  shook  out  sunshine  from 

her  hair, 

Nor  only  that,  but,  so  it  seemed,  shook  out 
All  memory  too,  and  all  the  moonlit  past, 
Old  loves,  old  aspirations,  and  old  dreams, 
More  beautiful  for  being  old  and  gone. 

So    we    two    went     together;   downward 

sloped 
The  path  through  yellow  meads,  or  so  I 

dreamed, 
Yellow  with    sunshine  and  young   green, 

but  I 
Saw  naught  nor  heard,  shut  up  in  one  close 

j°y; 

I  only  felt  the  hand  within  my  own, 
Transmuting  all  my  blood  to  golden  fire, 
Dissolving  all  my  brain  in  throbbing  mist. 

Suddenly  shrank  the  hand;  suddenly  burst 
A  cry  that  split  the  torpor  of  my  brain, 
And  as  the  first  sharp  thrust  of  lightning 

loosens 
From  the  heaped  cloud  its  rain,  loosened 

my  sense : 
"Save  me!"  it  thrilled;  "oh,  hide  me! 

there  is  Death  ! 

Death  the  divider,  the  unmerciful, 
That  digs    his  pitfalls  under    Love  and 

Youth, 


THE   PARTING   OF  THE  WAYS 


299 


And  covers  Beauty  up  in  the  cold  ground; 
Horrible  Death  !  briiiger  of  endless  dark; 
Let   him    not   see   me !    hide   me   in   thy 

breast  ! " 

Thereat  I  strove  to  clasp  her,  but  my  arms 
Met  only   what   slipped  crumbling  down, 

and  fell, 
A  handful  of  gray  ashes,  at  my  feet. 

I  would  have  fled,  I  would  have  followed 

back 
That  pleasant  path  we  came,  but  all  was 

changed; 

Rocky  the  way,  abrupt,  and  hard  to  find; 
Yet  I  toiled  on,  and,  toiling  on,  I  thought, 
"  That  way  lies  Youth,  and  Wisdom,  and 

all  Good; 

For  only  by  unlearning  Wisdom  comes 
And  climbing  backward  to  diviner  Youth ; 
What   the    world    teaches   profits   to   the 

world, 

What  the  soul  teaches  profits  to  the  soul, 
Which  then  first  stands   erect  with  God- 
ward  face, 
When  she  lets  fall  her  pack  of  withered 

facts, 
The  gleanings   of   the   outward  eye  and 

ear, 

And  looks  and  listens  with  her  finer  sense ; 
Nor   Truth  nor   Knowledge  cometh  from 

without." 

After  long,  weary  days  I  stood  again 
And  waited  at  the  Parting  of  the  Ways; 
Again  the  figure  of  a  woman  veiled 
Stood  forth  and  beckoned,  and  I  followed 

now: 

Down  to  no  bower  of  roses  led  the  path, 
But  through    the    streets  of   towns  where 

chattering  Cold 
Hewed   wood   for   fires    whose   glow  was 

owned  and  fenced, 
Where  Nakedness  wove  garments  of  warm 

wool 
Not  for   itself;  —  or  through  the  fields  it 

led 
Where    Hunger   reaped   the   unattainable 

grain, 

Where  idleness  enforced  saw  idle  lands, 
Leagues   of   unpeopled   soil,  the   common 

earth, 
Walled  round  with  paper  against  God  and 

Man. 
"I  cannot    look,"   I  groaned,   "at  only 

these; 


The  heart  grows  hardened  with  perpetual 

wont, 

And  palters  with  a  feigned  necessity, 
Bargaining  with  itself  to  be  content; 
Let  me  behold  thy  face." 

The  Form  replied: 
"  Men  follow  Duty,  never  overtake ; 
Duty  nor  lifts  her  veil  nor  looks  behind." 
But,  as  she  spake,  a  loosened  lock  of  hair 
Slipped  from  beneath  her  hood,  and  I,  who 

looked 

To  see  it  gray  and  thin,  saw  amplest  gold; 
Not  that  dull  metal  dug  from  sordid  earth, 
But  such  as  the  retiring  sunset  flood 
Leaves  heaped  on  bays  and  capes  of  island 

cloud. 
"  O  Guide  divine,"  I  prayed,  "  although  not 

yet 

I  may  repair  the  virtue  which  I  feel 
Gone  out  at  touch  of  untuned  things  and 

foul 
With  draughts  of  Beauty,  yet  declare  how 

soon  !  " 

"  Faithless  and  faint  of  heart,"  the  voice 

returned, 
"  Thou  seest  no  beauty  save  thou  make  it 

first; 

Man,  Woman,  Nature  each  is  but  a  glass 
Where  the  soul  sees  the  image  of  herself, 
Visible  echoes,  offsprings  of  herself. 
But,   since  thou  need'st  assurance  of  how 

soon, 

Wait  till  that  angel  comes  who  opens  all, 
The  reconciler,  he  who  lifts  the  veil, 
The  reuniter,  the  rest-bringer,  Death." 

I  waited,  and  methought  he  came;  but 

how, 

Or  in  what  shape,  I  doubted,  for  no  sign, 
By   touch   or   mark,   he   gave   me    as   he 


Only  I  knew  a  lily  that  I  held 

Snapt  short  below  the  head  and  shrivelled 

up; 
Then  turned  my  Guide  and  looked  at  me 

unveiled, 

And  I  beheld  no  face  of  matron  stern, 
But  that  enchantment  I  had  followed  erst, 
Only  more  fair,  more  clear  to  eye  and  brain, 
Heightened  and  chastened  by  a  household 

charm ; 
She   smiled,  and   "Which  is  fairer," said 

her  eyes, 
"  The  hag's  unreal  Florimel  or  mine  ?  " 


300 


UNDER  THE   WILLOWS   AND  OTHER   POEMS 


ALADDIN 

WHEN  I  was  a  beggarly  boy, 

And  lived  in  a  cellar  damp, 
I  had  not  a  friend  nor  a  toy, 

But  I  had  Aladdin's  lamp; 
When  I  could  not  sleep  for  the  cold, 

I  had  fire  enough  in  my  brain, 
And  builded,  with  roofs  of  gold, 

My  beautiful  castles  in  Spain  ! 

Since  then  I  have  toiled  day  and  night, 

I  have  money  and  power  good  store, 
But  I  'd  give  all  my  lamps  of  silver  bright 

For  the  one  that  is  mine  no  more; 
Take,  Fortune,  whatever  you  choose, 

You  gave,  and  may  snatch  again; 
I  have  nothing  't  would  pain  me  to  lose, 

For  I  own  no  more  castles  in  Spain  ! 


AN    INVITATION 
TO  J[OHN]  F[RANCIS]  H[EATH] 

NINE  years  have  slipt  like  hour-glass  sand 
From  life's  still-emptying  globe  away, 
Since   last,   dear   friend,    1   clasped    your 

hand, 

And  stood  upon  the  impoverished  land, 
Watching  the  steamer  down  the  bay. 

I  held  the  token  which  you  gave, 
While  slowly  the  smoke-pennon  curled 
O'er  the  vague  rim  'tween  sky  and  wave, 
And  shut  the  distance  like  a  grave, 
Leaving  me  in  the  colder  world; 

The  old,  worn  world  of  hurry  and  heat, 
The   young,  fresh  world  of  thought  and 

scope ; 

While  you,  where  beckoning  billows  fleet 
Climb  far  sky-beaches  still  and  sweet, 
Sank  wavering  down  the  ocean-slope. 

You  sought  the  new  world  in  the  old, 
I  found  the  old  world  in  the  new, 
All  that  our  human  hearts  can  hold, 
The  inward  world  of  deathless  mould, 
The  same  that  Father  Adam  knew. 

He  needs  no  ship  to  cross  the  tide, 
Who,  in  the  lives  about  him,  sees 
Fair  window-prospects  opening  wide 


O'er  history's  fields  on  every  side, 
To  Ind  and  Egypt,  Rome  and  Greece. 

Whatever  moulds  of  various  brain 
E'er  shaped  the  world  to  weaJ  or  woe, 
Whatever  empires'  wax  and  wane, 
To  him  that  hath  not  eyes  in  vain, 
Our  village-microcosm  can  show. 

Come  back  our  ancient  walks  to  tread, 
Dear  haunts  of  lost  or  scattered  friends, 
Old  Harvard's  scholar-factories  red, 
Where  song  and  smoke  and  laughter  sped 
The  nights  to  proctor-haunted  ends. 

Constant  are  all  our  former  loves, 
Unchanged  the  icehouse-girdled  pond, 
Its  hemlock  glooms,  its  shadowy  coves, 
Where  floats  the  coot  and  never  moves, 
Its  slopes  of  long-tamed  green  beyond. 

Our  old  familiars  are  not  laid, 

Though   snapt   our  wands   and   sunk   our 

books; 

They  beckon,  not  to  be  gainsaid, 
Where,  round  broad  meads  that  mowers 

wade, 
The  Charles  his  steel-blue  sickle  crooks. 

Where,  as  the  cloudbergs  eastward  blow, 
From  glow  to  gloom  the  hillsides  shift 
Their  plumps  of  orchard-trees  arow, 
Their  lakes  of  rye  that  wave  and  flow, 
Their  snowy  whiteweed's  summer  drift. 

There  have  we  watched  the  West  unfurl 
A  cloud  Byzantium  newly  born, 
With  flickering  spires  and  domes  of  pearl, 
And  vapory  surfs  that  crowd  and  curl 
Into  the  sunset's  Golden  Horn. 

There,  as  the  flaming  Occident 
Burned  slowly  down  to  ashes  gray, 
Night  pitched  o'erhead  her  silent  tent, 
And  glimmering  gold  from  Hesper  sprent 
Upon  the  darkened  river  lay, 

Where  a  twin  sky  but  just  before 
Deepened,  and  double  swallows  skimmed, 
And  from  a  visionary  shore 
Hung  visioned  trees,  that  more  and  more 
Grew  dusk  as  those  above  were  dimmed. 

Then  eastward  saw  we  slowly  grow 
Clear-edged  the  lines  of  roof  and  spire, 


THE  NOMADES 


301 


While  great  elm-masses  blacken  slow, 
And  linden-ricks  their  round  heads  show 
Against  a  flush  of  widening  fire. 

Doubtful  at  first  and  far  away, 

The    moon-flood    creeps   more   wide    and 

wide; 

Up  a  ridged  beach  of  cloudy  gray, 
Curved  round  the  east  as  round  a  bay, 
It  slips  and  spreads  its  gradual  tide. 

Then  suddenly,  in  lurid  mood, 
The  disk  looms  large  o'er  town  and  field 
As  upon  Adam,  red  like  blood, 
'Tween  him  and  Eden's  happy  wood, 
Glared  the  commissioned  angel's  shield. 

Or  let  us  seek  the  seaside,  there 
To  wander  idly  as  we  list, 
Whether,  on  rocky  headlands  bare, 
Sharp  cedar-horns,  like  breakers,  tear 
The  trailing  fringes  of  gray  mist, 

Or  whether,  under  skies  full  flown, 
The  brightening  surfs,  with  foamy  din, 
Their   breeze-caught    forelocks    backward 

blown, 

Against  the  beach's  yellow  zone 
Curl  slow,  and  plunge  forever  in. 

And,  as  we  watch  those  canvas  towers 
That  lean  along  the  horizon's  rim, 
"  Sail  on,"  I  '11  say ;  "  may  sunniest  hours 
Convoy  you  from  this  land  of  ours, 
Since  from  my  side  you  bear  not  him  ! " 

For  years  thrice  three,  wise  Horace  said, 
A  poem  rare  let  silence  bind  ; 
And  love  may  ripen  in  the  shade, 
Like  ours,  for  nine  long  seasons  laid 
In  deepest  arches  of  the  mind. 

Come   back !     Not  ours  the  Old  World's 


The  Old  World's  ill,  thank  God,  not  ours  ; 
But  here,  far  better  understood, 
The  days  enforce  our  native  mood, 
And  challenge  all  our  manlier  powers. 

Kindlier  to  me  the  place  of  birth 
That  first  my  tottering  footsteps  trod  ; 
There  may  be  fairer  spots  of  earth, 
But  all  their  glories  are  not  worth 
The  virtue  in  the  native  sod. 


Thence  climbs  an  influence  more  benign 
Through  pulse  and  nerve,  through   heart 

and  brain  ; 

Sacred  to  me  those  fibres  fine 
That  first   clasped   earth.      Oh,   ne'er  be 

mine 
The  alien  sun  and  alien  rain  ! 

These  nourish  not  like  homelier  glows 
Or  waterings  of  familiar  skies, 
And  nature  fairer  blooms  bestows 
On  the  heaped  hush  of  wintry  snows, 
In  pastures  dear  to  childhood's  eyes, 

Than  where  Italian  earth  receives 
The  partial  sunshine's  ampler  boons, 
Where  vines  carve  friezes  'neath  the  eaves, 
And,  in  dark  firmaments  of  leaves, 
The  orange  lifts  its  golden  moons. 

THE   NOMADES 

WHAT  Nature  makes  in  any  mood 
To  me  is  warranted  for  good, 
Though  long  before  I  learned  to  see 
She  did  not  set  us  moral  theses, 
And  scorned  to  have  her  sweet  caprices 
Strait-waistcoated  in  you  or  me. 

I,  who  take  root  and  firmly  cling, 
Thought  fixedness  the  only  thing  ; 
Why  Nature  made  the  butterflies, 
(Those  dreams  of  wings  that  float  and 

hover 

At  noon  the  slumberous  poppies  over,) 
Was  something  hidden  from  mine  eyes, 

Till  once,  upon  a  rock's  brown  bosom, 
Bright  as  a  thorny  cactus-blossom, 
I  saw  a  butterfly  at  rest  ; 
Then  first  of  both  I  felt  the  beauty; 
The  airy  whim,  the  grim-set  duty, 
Each  from  the  other  took  its  best. 

Clearer  it  grew  than  winter  sky 
That  Nature  still  had  reasons  why  ; 
And,  shifting  sudden  as  a  breeze, 
My  fancy  found  no  satisfaction, 
No  antithetic  sweet  attraction, 
So  great  as  in  the  Nomades. 

Scythians,  with  Nature  not  at  strife, 
Light  Arabs  of  our  complex  life, 
They  build  no  houses,  plant  no  mills 


302 


UNDER  THE  WILLOWS   AND   OTHER   POEMS 


To  utilize  Time's  sliding  river, 
Content  that  it  flow  waste  forever, 
If  they,  like  it,  may  have  their  wills. 

An  hour  they  pitch  their  shifting  tents 
In  thoughts,  in  feelings,  and  events  ; 
Beneath  the  palm-trees,  on  the  grass, 
They  sing,   they   dance,    make   love,   and 

chatter, 

Vex  the  grim  temples  with  their  clatter, 
And   make   Truth's   fount   their    looking- 
glass. 

A  picnic  life  ;  from  love  to  love, 
From  faith  to  faith  they  lightly  move, 
And  yet,  hard-eyed  philosopher, 
The  flightiest  maid  that  ever  hovered 
To  me  your  thought-webs  fine  discovered, 
No  lens  to  see  them  through  like  her. 

So  witch  ingly  her  finger- tips 

To  Wisdom,  as  away  she  trips, 

She  kisses,  waves  such  sweet  farewells 

To  Duty,  as  she  laughs  "  To-morrow  !  " 

That  both  from  that  mad  contrast  borrow 

A  perfectness  found  nowhere  else. 

The  beach-bird  on  its  pearly  verge 
Follows  and  flies  the  whispering  surge, 
While,  in  his  tent,  the  rock-stayed  shell 
Awaits  the  flood's  star-timed  vibrations, 
And  both,  the  flutter  and  the  patience, 
The  sauntering  poet  loves  them  well. 

Fulfil  so  much  of  God's  decree 
As  works  its  problem  out  in  thee, 
Nor  dream  that  in  thy  breast  alone 
The  conscience  of  the  changeful  seasons, 
The  Will  that  in  the  planets  reasons 
With  space-wide  logic,  has  its  throne. 

Thy  virtue  makes  not  vice  of  mine, 
Unlike,  but  none  the  less  divine  ; 
Thy  toil  adorns,  not  chides,  my  play  ; 
Nature  of  sameness  is  so  chary, 
With  such  wild  whim  the  freakish  fairy 
Picks  presents  for  the  christening-day. 

SELF-STUDY 

A  PRESENCE  both  by  night  and  day, 
That  made  my  life  seem  just  begun, 

Yet  scarce  a  presence,  rather  say 
The  warning  aureole  of  one. 


And  yet  I  felt  it  everywhere  ; 

Walked  I  the  woodland's  aisles  along 
It  seemed  to  brush  me  with  its  hair  ; 

Bathed  I,  I  heard  a  mermaid's  song. 

How  sweet  it  was  !     A  buttercup 
Could  hold  for  me  a  day's  delight, 

A  bird  could  lift  my  fancy  up 

To  ether  free  from  cloud  or  blight. 

Who  was  the  nymph  ?     Nay,  I  will  see, 
Methought,  and  I  will  know  her  near; 

If  such,  divined,  her  charm  can  be, 
Seen  and  possessed,  how  triply  dear! 

So  every  magic  art  I  tried, 

And  spells  as  numberless  as  sand, 

Until,  one  evening,  by  my  side 
I  saw  her  glowing  fulness  stand. 

I  turned  to  clasp  her,  but  "  Farewell," 
Parting  she  sighed,  "  we  meet  no  more; 

Not  by  my  hand  the  curtain  fell 

That  leaves  you  conscious,  wise,  and  poor. 

"  Since  you  have  found  me  out,  I  go  ; 

Another  lover  I  must  find, 
Content  his  happiness  to  know, 

Nor  strive  its  secret  to  unwind." 


PICTURES  FROM  APPLEDORE 

In  1854  Lowell  contributed  to  The  Crayon, 
then  just  started  by  W.  J.  Stillman,  a  poem, 
My  Appledore  Gallery,  which  reappears  in  part 
in  the  following  poem  under  a  slightly  changed 
title.  In  sending  the  first  portion  to  Mr.  Still 
man,  he  wrote  :  "  You  may  add  a  note,  if  you 
like,  saying  that  Appledore  is  one  of  the  Isles 
of  Shoals,  off  Portsmouth,  N.  H.,  discovered  by 
the  great  Captain  Smith,  and  once  named  after 
him.  A  cairn  on  the  apex  of  Appledore  is 
said  to  be  of  his  building." 


A  HEAP  of  bare  and  splintery  crags 
Tumbled  about  by  lightning  and  frost, 
With  rifts  and  chasms  and  storm-bleached 

jags, 

That  wait  and  growl  for  a  ship  to  be  lost; 
No  island,  but  rather  the  skeleton 
Of  a  wrecked  and  vengeance-smitten  one, 
Where,  aeons  ago,  with  half-shut  eye, 
The  sluggish  saurian  crawled  to  die, 
Gasping  under  titanic  ferns; 


PICTURES   FROM   APPLEDORE 


303 


Ribs  of  rock  that  seaward  jut, 

Granite  shoulders  and  boulders  and  snags, 

Hound  which,  though  the  winds  in  heaven 
be  shut, 

The  nightmared  ocean  murmurs  and  yearns, 

Welters,  and  swashes,  and  tosses,  and  turns, 

And  the  dreary  black  seaweed  lolls  and 
wags; 

Only  rock  from  shore  to  shore, 

Only  a  moan  through  the  bleak  clefts 
blown, 

With  sobs  in  the  rifts  where  the  coarse  kelp 
shifts, 

Falling  and  lifting,  tossing  and  drifting, 

And  under  all  a  deep,  dull  roar, 

Dying  and  swelling,  forevermore,  — 

Rock  and  moan  and  roar  alone, 

And  the  dread  of  some  nameless  thing  un 
known, 

These  make  Appledore. 

These  make  Appledore  by  night: 

Then  there  are  monsters  left  and  right; 

Every  rock  is  a  different  monster; 

All  you  have  read  of,  fancied,  dreamed, 

When  you  waked  at  night  because  you 
screamed, 

There  they  lie  for  half  a  mile, 

Jumbled  together  in  a  pile, 

And  (though  you  know  they  never  once 
stir) 

If  you  look  long,  they  seem  to  be  moving 

Just  as  plainly  as  plain  can  be, 

Crushing  and  crowding,  wading  and  shov 
ing 

Out  into  the  awful  sea, 

Where  you  can  hear  them  snort  and  spout 

With  pauses  between,  as  if  they  were  listen 
ing? 

Then  tumult  anon  when  the  surf  breaks 
glistening 

In  the  blackness  where  they  wallow  about. 

II 

All  this  you  would  scarcely  comprehend, 
Should  you  see  the  isle  on  a  sunny  day  ; 
Then  it  is  simple  enough  in  its  way,  — 
Two  rocky  bulges,  one  at  each  end, 
With  a  smaller  bulge  and  a  hollow  between; 
Patches  of  whortleberry  and  bay; 
Accidents  of  open  green, 
Sprinkled  with  loose  slabs  square  and  gray, 
Like  graveyards  for  ages  deserted ;  a  few 
Unsocial  thistles  ;  an  elder  or  two, 
Foamed  over  with  blossoms  white  as  spray; 


And  on  the  whole  island  never  a  tree 
Save  a  score  of  sumachs,  high  as  your  knee, 
That  crouch  in  hollows  where  they  may, 
(The  cellars  where  once  stood  a  village, 

men  say,) 

Huddling  for  warmth,  and  never  grew 
Tall  enough  for  a  peep  at  the  sea; 
A  general  dazzle  of  open  blue; 
A  breeze  always  blowing  and  playing  rat- 
tat 

With  the  bow  of  the  ribbon  round  your  hat; 
A  score  of  sheep  that  do  nothing  but  stare 
Up  or  down  at  you  everywhere; 
Three  or  four  cattle  that  chew  the  cud 
Lying  about  in  a  listless  despair; 
A  medrick  that  makes  you  look  overhead 
With  short,  sharp  scream,  as  he  sights  his 

prey, 

And,  dropping  straight  and  swift  as  lead, 
Splits  the  water  with  sudden  thud;  — 
This  is  Appledore  by  day. 

A  common  island,  you  will  say; 
But  stay  a  moment:  only  climb 
Up  to  the  highest  rock  of  the  isle, 
Stand  there  alone  for  a  little  while, 
And  with  gentle  approaches  it  grows  sub 
lime, 

Dilating  slowly  as  you  win 
A  sense  from  the  silence  to  take  it  in. 
So  wide  the  loneness,  so  lucid  the  air, 
The  granite  beneath  you  so  savagely  bare, 
You   well   might   think  you  were  looking 

down 

From  some  sky-silenced  mountain's  crown, 
Whose  waist-belt  of  pines  is  wont  to  tear 
Locks  of  wool  from  the  topmost  cloud. 
Only  be  sure  you  go  alone, 
For  Grandeur  is  inaccessibly  proud, 
And  never  yet  has  backward  thrown 
Her  veil  to  feed  the  stare  of  a  crowd; 
To  more  than  one  was  never  shown 
That  awful  front,  nor  is  it  fit 
That  she,  Cothurnus-shod,  stand  bowed 
Until  the  self-approving  pit 
Enjoy  the  gust  of  its  own  wit 
In  babbling  plaudits  cheaply  loud; 
She  hides  her  mountains  and  her  sea 
From  the  harriers  of  scenery, 
Who  hunt  down  sunsets,  and  huddle  and 

bay, 
Mouthing  and  mumbling  the  dying  day. 

Trust  me,  't  is  something  to  be  cast 
Face  to  face  with  one's  Self  at  last, 


UNDER  THE  WILLOWS  AND  OTHER  POEMS 


To  be  taken  out  of  the  fuss  and  strife, 
The  endless  clatter  of  plate  and  knife, 
The  bore  of  books  and  the  bores  of  the 

street, 
From  the  singular  mess  we  agree  to  call 

Life, 
Where  that  is   best  which  the  most  fools 

vote  is, 

And  planted  firm  on  one's  own  two  feet 
So  nigh  to  the  great  warm  heart  of  God, 
You  almost  seem  to  feel  it  beat 
Down  from  the  sunshine  and  up  from  the 

sod; 

To  be  compelled,  as  it  were,  to  notice 
All  the  beautiful  changes  and  chances 
Through  which  the  landscape  flits  and 

glances, 

And  to  see  how  the  face  of  common  day 
Is  written  all  over  with  tender  histories, 
When  you  study  it  that  intenser  way 
In  which  a  lover  looks  at  his  mistress. 

Till  now  you  dreamed  not  what  could  be 

done 

With  a  bit  of  rock  and  a  ray  of  sun  ; 
But  look,  how  fade  the  lights  and  shades 
Of  keen  bare  edge  and  crevice  deep  ! 
How  doubtfully  it  fades  and  fades, 
And  glows  again,  yon  craggy  steep, 
O'er    which,     through    color's     dreamiest 

grades, 

The  musing  sunbeams  pause  and  creep  ! 
Now  pink  it  blooms,  now  glimmers  gray, 
Now  shadows  to  a  filmy  blue, 
Tries  one,  tries  all,  and  will  not  stay, 
But  flits  from  opal  hue  to  hue, 
And  runs  through  every  tenderest  range 
Of  change  that  seems  not  to  be  change, 
So  rare  the  sweep,  so  nice  the  art, 
That  lays  no  stress  on  any  part, 
But  shifts  and  lingers  and  persuades; 
So  soft  that  sun-brush  in  the  west, 
That  asks  no  costlier  pigments'  aids, 
But  mingling  knobs,  flaws,  angles,  dints, 
Indifferent  of  worst  or  best, 
Enchants  the  cliffs  with  wraiths  and  hints 
And  gracious  preludings  of  tints, 
Where  all  seems  fixed,  yet  all  evades, 
And  indefinably  pervades 
Perpetual  movement  with  perpetual  rest ! 

ill 

Away  northeast  is  Boone  Island  light; 
You  might  mistake  it  for  a  ship, 
Only  it  stands  too  plumb  upright, 


And  like  the  others  does  not  slip 
Behind  the  sea's  unsteady  brink; 
Though,  if  a  cloud-shade  chance  to  dip 
Upon  it  a  moment,  't  will  suddenly  sink, 
Levelled  and  lost  in  the  darkened  main, 
Till  the  sun  builds  it  suddenly  up  again, 
As  if  with  a  rub  of  Aladdin's  lamp. 
On  the  mainland  you  see  a  misty  camp 
Of  mountains  pitched  tumultuously: 
That  one  looming  so  long  and  large 
Is  Saddleback,  and  that  point  you  see 
Over  yon  low  and  rounded  marge, 
Like  the  boss  of  a  sleeping  giant's  targe 
Laid  over  his  breast,  is  Ossipee; 
That  shadow  there  may  be  Kearsarge ; 
That    must   be    Great   Haystack;    I   love 

these  names, 

Wherewith  the  lonely  farmer  tames 
Nature  to  mute  companionship 
With  his  own  mind's  domestic  mood, 
And  strives  the  surly  world  to  clip 
In  the  arms  of  familiar  habitude. 
'T  is  well  he  could  not  contrive  to  make 
A  Saxon  of  Agamenticus: 
He  glowers  there  to  the  north  of  us, 
Wrapt  in  his  blanket  of  blue  haze, 
Unconvertibly  savage,  and  scorns  to  take 
The  white  man's  baptism  or  his  ways. 
Him  first  on  shore  the  coaster  divines 
Through    the   early   gray,   and    sees   him 

shake 
The  morning  mist  from  his   scalp-lock  of 

pines ; 
Him  first  the   skipper  makes  out  in   the 

west, 

Ere  the   earliest   sunstreak  shoots  tremu 
lous, 

Plashing  with  orange  the  palpitant  lines 
Of  mutable  billow,  crest  after  crest, 
And  murmurs  Agamenticus! 
As  if  it  were  the  name  of  a  saint. 
But  is  that  a  mountain  playing  cloud, 
Or  a  cloud  playing  mountain,  just  there, 

so  faint  ? 

Look  along  over  the  low  right  shoulder 
Of  Agamenticus  into  that  crowd 
Of  brassy  thunderheads  behind  it; 
Now  you  have  caught  it,  but,  ere  you  are 

older 

By  half  an  hour,  you  will  lose  it  and  find  it 
A  score  of  times;  while  you  look 't  is  gone, 
And,  just  as  you  've  given  it  up,  anon 
It  is  there  again,  till  your  weary  eyes 
Fancy  they  see  it  waver  and  rise, 
With  its  brother  clouds;  it  is  Agiochook, 


PICTURES   FROM   APPLEDORE 


305 


There  if  you  seek  not,   and    gone   if  you 

look, 
Ninety  miles  off  as  the  eagle  flies. 

But  mountains  make  not  all  the  shore 
The  mainland  shows  to  Appledore; 
Eight  miles  the  heaving  water  spreads 
To  a  long,  low   coast   with   beaches   and 

heads 

That  run  through  unimagined  mazes, 
As  the  lights  and  shades  and  magical  hazes 
Put  them  away  or  bring  them  near, 
Shimmering,  sketched  out  for  thirty  miles 
Between  two  capes  that  waver  like  threads, 
And  sink  in  the  ocean,  and  reappear, 
Crumbled  and  melted  to  little  isles, 
With  filmy  trees,  that  seem  the  mere 
Half-fancies  of  drowsy  atmosphere; 
And  see  the  beach  there,  where  it  is 
Flat  as  a  threshing-floor,  beaten  and  packed 
With  the  flashing  flails  of  weariless  seas, 
How  it  lifts  and  looms  to  a  precipice, 
O'er    whose   square    front,   a    dream,   no 

more, 

The  steepened  sand-stripes  seem  to  pour, 
A  murmurless  vision  of  cataract; 
You  almost  fancy  you  hear  a  roar, 
Fitful  and  faint  from  the  distance  wander 
ing; 

But  't  is  only  the  blind  old  ocean  maunder 
ing* 

Raking  the  shingle  to  and  fro, 
Aimlessly  clutching  and  letting  go 
The  kelp-haired  sedges  of  Appledore, 
Slipping  down  with  a  sleepy  forgetting, 
And  anon  his  ponderous  shoulder  setting, 
With  a  deep,  hoarse  pant  against  Apple 
dore. 

IV 

Eastward  as  far  as  the  eye  can  see, 
Still  eastward,  eastward,  endlessly, 
The  sparkle  and  tremor  of  purple  sea 
That  rises  before  you,  a  flickering  hill, 
On  and  on  to  the  shut  of  the  sky, 
And  beyond,  you  fancy  it  sloping  until 
The  same  multitudinous  throb  and  thrill 
That  vibrate  under  your  dizzy  eye 
In  ripples  of  orange  and  pink  are  sent 
Where  the  poppied  sails  doze  on  the  yard, 
And  the  clumsy  junk  and  proa  lie 
Sunk  deep  with  precious  woods  and  nard, 
'Mid  the  palmy  isles  of  the  Orient. 
Those  leaning  towers  of  clouded  white 
On  the  farthest  brink  of  doubtful  ocean, 


That  shorten  and  shorten  out  of  sight, 
Yet  seem  on  the  selfsame  spot  to  stay, 
Receding  with  a  motionless  motion, 
Fading  to  dubious  films  of  gray, 
Lost,  dimly  found,  then  vanished  wholly, 
Will  rise  again,  the  great  world  under/ 
First  films,  then  towers,  then  high-heaped 

clouds, 

Whose  Hearing  outlines  sharpen  slowly 
Into  tall  ships  with  cobweb  shrouds, 
That  fill  long  Mongol  eyes  with  wonder, 
Crushing  the  violet  wave  to  spray 
Past  some  low  headland  of  Cathay ;  — 
What  was  that  sigh  which  seemed  so  near. 
Chilling  your  fancy  to  the  core  ? 
'T  is  only  the  sad  old  sea  you  hear, 
That  seems  to  seek  forevermore 
Something  it  cannot  find,  and  so, 
Sighing,  seeks  on,  and  tells  its  woe 
To  the  pitiless  breakers  of  Appledore. 


How  looks  Appledore  in  a  storm  ? 
I  have   seen  it  when  its  crags 

frantic, 

Butting  against  the  mad  Atlantic, 
When  surge  on  surge  would  heap  enorme, 
Cliffs  of  emerald  topped  with  snow, 
That  lifted  and  lifted,  and  then  let  go 
A  great  white  avalanche  of  thunder, 
A  grinding,  blinding,  deafening  ire 
Monadnock  might  have  trembled  under; 
And  the  island,  whose  rock-roots  pierce 

below 

To  where  they  are  warmed  with  the  cen 
tral  fire, 

You  could  feel  its  granite  fibres  racked, 
As  it  seemed  to  plunge  with  a  shudder 

and  thrill 

Right  at  the  breast  of  the  swooping  hill, 
And  to  rise  again  snorting  a  cataract 
Of  rage-froth  from  every  cranny  and  ledge, 
While  the  sea  drew  its  breath  in  hoarse 

and  deep, 

And  the  next  vast  breaker  curled  its  edge, 
Gathering  itself  for  a  mightier  leap. 

North,  east,  and  south  there  are  reefs  and 

breakers 
You  would  never  dream  of  in  smooth 

weather, 
That  toss  and  gore  the  sea  for  acres, 

Bellowing  and  gnashing  and  snarling  to 
gether; 
Look  northward,  where  Duck  Island  lies, 


306 


UNDER   THE   WILLOWS  AND   OTHER   POEMS 


And  over  its  crown  you  will  see  arise, 
Against  a  background  of  slaty  skies, 

A  row  of  pillars  still  and  white, 

That  glimmer,  and  then  are  gone  from 

sight, 
As  if  the  moon  should  suddenly  kiss, 

While  you  crossed  the  gusty  desert  by 

night, 

The  long  colonnades  of  Persepolis; 
Look  southward  for  White  Island  light, 

The  lantern  stands  ninety  feet  o'er  the 

tide; 
There  is  first  a  half-mile  of  tumult  and 

fight, 
Of  dash  and  roar  and  tumble  and  fright, 

And  surging  bewilderment  wild  and  wide, 
Where  the  breakers  struggle  left  and  right, 

Then  a  mile  or  more  of  rushing  sea, 
And  then  the  lighthouse  slim  and  lone; 
And  whenever  the  weight  of  ocean  is 

thrown 
Full  and  fair  on  White  Island  head, 

A  great  mist-jotun  you  will  see 

Lifting  himseif  up  silently 
High  and  huge  o'er  the  lighthouse  top, 
With  hands  of  wavering  spray  outspread, 

Groping  after  the  little  tower, 

That   seems  to  shrink  and  shorten  and 

cower, 
Till  the  monster's  arms  of  a  sudden  drop, 

And  silently  and  fruitlessly 

He  sinks  back  into  the  sea. 

You,  meanwhile,  where  drenched  you  stand, 
Awaken  once  more  to  the  rush  and  roar, 

And  on  the  rock-point  tighten  your  hand, 

As  you  turn  and  see  a  valley  deep, 
That  was  not  there  a  moment  before, 

Suck  rattling  down  between  you  and  a  heap 
Of  toppling  billow,  whose  instant  fall 
Must  sink  the  whole  island  once  for  all, 

Or  watch  the  silenter,  stealthier  seas 

Feeling  their  way  to  you  more  and  more ; 

If  they  once  should  clutch  you  high  as  the 
knees, 

They  would  whirl  you  down  like  a  sprig  of 
kelp, 

Beyond  all  reach  of  hope  or  help ;  — 
And  such  in  a  storm  is  Appledore. 

VI 

*T  is  the  sight  of  a  lifetime  to  behold 
The  great  shorn  sun  as  you  see  it  now, 
Across  eight  miles  of  undulant  gold 
That  widens  landward,  weltered  and  rolled, 


With  freaks  of  shadow  and  crimson  stains; 

To  see  the  solid  mountain  brow 

As  it  notches  the  disk,  and  gains  and  gains, 

Until  there  comes,  you  scarce  know  when, 

A  tremble  of  fire  o'er  the  parted  lips 

Of  cloud  and  mountain,   which   vanishes; 

then 

From  the  body  of  day  the  sun-soul  slips 
And  the  face  of  earth  darkens;  but  now  the 

strips 

Of  western  vapor,  straight  and  thin, 
From  which  the  horizon's  swervings  win 
A  grace  of  contrast,  take  fire  and  burn 
Like  splinters  of  touchwood,  whose  edges  a 

mould 

Of  ashes  o'erfeathers;  northward  turn 
For  an  instant,  and  let  your  eye  grow  cold 
On  Agamenticus,  and  when  once  more 
You  look,  't  is  as  if  the  land-breeze,  grow 
ing, 
From   the   smouldering  brands    the    film 

were  blowing, 
And   brightening  them  down  to  the  very 

core; 
Yet  they  momently  cool  and  dampen  and 

deaden, 
The  crimson  turns  golden,  the  gold  turns 

leaden, 

Hardening  into  one  black  bar 
O'er  which,  from  the  hollow  heaven  afar, 
Shoots  a  splinter  of  light  like  diamond, 
Half  seen,  half  fancied;  by  and  by 
Beyond  whatever  is  most  beyond 
In  the  uttermost  waste  of  desert  sky, 
Grows  a  star; 

And  over  it,  visible  spirit  of  dew,  — 
Ah,  stir  not,  speak  not,  hold  your  breath, 
Or  surely  the  miracle  vanisheth,  — 
The   new    moon,   tranced   in   unspeakable 

blue  ! 

No  frail  illusion ;  this  were  true, 
Rather,  to  call  it  the  canoe 
Hollowed  out  of  a  single  pearl, 
That  floats  us  from  the  Present's  whirl 
Back  to  those  beings  which  were  ours, 
When  wishes  were  winged  things  like  pow 
ers  ! 

Call  it  not  light,  that  mystery  tender, 
Which  broods  upon  the  brooding  ocean 
That  flush  of  ecstasied  surrender 
To  indefinable  emotion, 
That  glory,  mellower  than  a  mist 
Of  pearl  dissolved  with  amethyst, 
Which  rims  Square  Rock,  like  what  they 
paint 


THE  WIND-HARP 


307 


Of  mitigated  heavenly  splendor 
Hound  the  stern  forehead  of  a  Saint  ! 

No  more  a  vision,  reddened,  largened, 
The  moon  dips  toward  her  mountain  nest, 
And,  fringing  it  with  palest  argent, 
Slow  sheathes  herself  behind  the  margent 
Of  that  long  cloud-bar  in  the  West, 
Whose  nether  edge,  erelong,  you  see 
The  silvery  chrism  in  turn  anoint, 
And  then  the  tiniest  rosy  point 
Touched  doubtfully  and  timidly 
Into  the  dark  blue's  chilly  strip, 
As  some  mute,  wondering  thing  below, 
Awakened  by  the  thrilling  glow, 
Might,  looking  up,  see  Dian  dip 
One  lucent  foot's  delaying  tip 
In  Latmian  fountains  long  ago. 

Knew  you  what  silence  was  before  ? 
Here  is  no  startle  of  dreaming  bird 
That  sings  in  his  sleep,  or  strives  to  sing; 
Here  is  no  sough  of  branches  stirred, 
Nor  noise  of  any  living  thing, 
Such  as  one  hears  by  night  on  shore; 
Only,  now  and  then,  a  sigh, 
With  fickle  intervals  between, 
Sometimes  far,  and  sometimes  nigh, 
Such  as  Andromeda  might  have  heard, 
And  fancied  the  huge  sea-beast  unseen 
Turning  in  sleep ;  it  is  the  sea 
That  welters  and  wavers  uneasily 
Round  the  lonely  reefs  of  Appledore. 

THE   WIND-HARP 

"Your  inspiration  is  still  to  you  a  living 
mistress  —  make  her  immortal  in  her  prompt 
ings  and  her  consolations  by  imaging  her 
truly  in  art.  Mine  looks  at  me  with  eyes  of 
paler  flame  and  beckons  across  a  gulf.  You 
came  into  my  loneliness  like  an  incarnate  as 
piration.  And  it  is  dreary  enough  sometimes, 
for  a  mountain-peak  on  whose  snow  your  foot 
makes  the  first  mortal  print  is  not  so  lonely  as 
a  room  full  of  happy  faces  from  which  one  is 
missing  forever.  This  was  originally  the  fifth 
stanza  of  The  Windharp. 

O  tress  !  that  so  oft  in  my  heart  hast  lain, 

Rocked  to  rest  within  rest  by  its  thankful  beating, 

Say,  which  is  harder  —  to  bear  the  pain 

Of  laughter  and  light,  or  to  wait  in  vain 

'Neath  the  unleaved  tree  the  impossible  meeting  ? 

If  Death's  lips  be  icy,  Life  gives,  iwis, 

Some  kisses  more  clay-cold  and  darkening  than  his  ! 

Forgive  me,  but  you  spoke  of  it  first."    J.  R.  L. 
to  W.  J.  Stillman,  December  7,  1854. 


I    TREASURE    in    secret    some    long,    fine 

hair 
Of  tenderest    brown,   but   so   inwardly 

golden 

I  half  used  to  fancy  the  sunshine  there, 
So  shy,  so  shifting,  so  waywardly  rare, 
Was  only  caught  for  the  moment   and 

holden 
While  I  could  say  Dearest!  and  kiss  it, 

and  then 
In  pity  let  go  to  the  summer  again. 

I  twisted  this  magic  in  gossamer  strings 
Over  a  wind-harp's  Delphian  hollow; 
Then  called  to  the  idle  breeze  that  swings 
All  day  in  the  pine-tops,  and  clings,  and 

sings 
'Mid  the  musical  leaves,  and  said,  "  Oh, 

follow 
The  will  of  those   tears   that  deepen   my 

words, 
And  fly   to   my  window   to   waken   these 

chords." 

So  they  trembled  to  life,  and,  doubtfully 
Feeling  their  way   to  my  sense,   sang, 
"  Say  whether 

They  sit  all  day  by  the  greenwood  tree, 

The  lover  and  loved,  as  it  wont  to  be, 
When  we  —  "    But  grief  conquered,  and 
all  together 

They  swelled  such  weird  murmur  as  haunts 
a  shore 

Of    some    planet    dispeopled,  — "  Never 
more  !  " 

Then  from  deep  in  the  past,  as  seemed  to 

me, 

The  strings  gathered  sorrow  and  sang 
forsaken, 

"One  lover   still   waits  'neath  the  green 
wood  tree, 

But   't    is   dark,"    and    they    shuddered, 

«  where  lieth  she 

Dark  and   cold  !     Forever  must  one  be 
taken?" 

But  I  groaned,  "  O  harp  of  all  ruth  be 
reft, 

This    Scripture    is    sadder,  —  'the    other 
left'!" 

There  murmured,  as  if  one  strove  to  speak, 
And  tears  came  instead;  then  the  sad 

tones  wandered 
And  faltered  among  the  uncertain  chords 


3o8 


UNDER   THE  WILLOWS   AND   OTHER   POEMS 


In  a  troubled  doubt  between  sorrow  and 

words; 
At  last  with  themselves  they  questioned 

and  pondered, 
"  Hereafter  ?  —  who   knoweth?"    and   so 

they  sighed 
Down  the  long  steps  that  lead  to  silence 

and  died. 


AUF  WIEDERSEHEN 

SUMMER 

THE  little  gate  was  reached  at  last, 
Half  hid  in  lilacs  down  the  lane; 
She  pushed  it  wide,  and,  as  she  past, 
A  wistful  look  she  backward  cast, 
And  said,  —  "  Auf  wiedersehen  /" 

With  hand  on  latch,  a  vision  white 

Lingered  reluctant,  and  again 
Half  doubting  if  she  did  aright, 
Soft  as  the  dews  that  fell  that  night, 

She  said,  —  "Auf  wiedersehen ! " 

The  lamp's  clear  gleam  flits  up  the  stair; 

I  linger  in  delicious  pain; 
Ah,  in  that  chamber,  whose  rich  air 
To  breathe  in  thought  I  scarcely  dare, 

Thinks  she,  —  "  Auf  wiedersehen  f  "  .  .  . 

'T  is  thirteen  years ;  once  more  I  press 
The  turf  that  silences  the  lane ; 

I  hear  the  rustle  of  her  dress, 

I  smell  the  lilacs,  and  —  ah,  yes, 
I  hear  "  Auf  wiedersehen  /  " 

Sweet  piece  of  bashful  maiden  art ! 

The    English    words    had    seemed    too 

fain, 

But  these  —  they  drew  us  heart  to  heart, 
Yet  held  us  tenderly  apart; 

She  said,  "  Auf  wiedersehen  !  " 


PALINODE 

AUTUMN 

STILL  thirteen  years:  't  is  autumn  now 
On  field  and  hill,  in  heart  and  brain; 

The  naked  trees  at  evening  sough; 

The  leaf  to  the  forsaken  bough 
Sighs  not,  —  "  Auf  wiedersehen  !  " 


Two  watched  yon  oriole's  pendent  dome, 
That  now  is  void,  and  dank  with  rain, 

And  one,  —  oh,  hope  more  frail  than  foam  f 

The  bird  to  his  deserted  home 

Sings  not,  —  "  Auf  wiedersehen  !  " 

The  loath  gate  swings  with  rusty  creak; 

Once,  parting  there,  we  played  at  pain; 
There  came  a  parting,  when  the  weak 
And  fading  lips  essayed  to  speak 

Vainly,  —  "  Auf  wiedersehen  I  " 

Somewhere  is  comfort,  somewhere  faith, 

Though  thou  in  outer  dark  remain; 
One  sweet  sad  voice  ennobles  death, 
And  still,  for  eighteen  centuries  saith 
Softly,  —  "  Auf  wiedersehen  /  " 

If  earth  another  grave  must  bear, 

Yet  heaven  hath  won  a  sweeter  strain, 
And  something  whispers  .my  despair, 
That,  from  an  orient  chamber  there, 
Floats  down,  "  Auf  wiedersehen  1 " 

AFTER  THE   BURIAL 

Lowell's  second  child,  Rose,  died  after  a 
week's  illness  in  the  spring  of  1850.  Her  father 
wrote  shortly  after  her  death  to  Mr.  Gay : 
"  She  was  very  beautiful  —  fair,  with  large 
dark-gray  eyes  and  fine  features.  Her  smile 
was  especially  charming,  and  she  was  full  of 
smiles  till  her  sickness  began.  Dear  little 
child,  she  had  never  spoken,  only  smiled.  To 
show  you  that  I  am  not  unable  to  go  along 
with  you  in  the  feeling  expressed  in  your  let 
ter,  I  will  copy  a  few  verses  out  of  my  com 
mon-place  book."  The  verses  were  the  first 
form  of  the  following  poem,  and  will  be  found 
in  the  notes  at  the  end  of  this  volume.  The 
poem,  with  its  personal  feeling  over  a  universal 
human  experience,  found  its  way  into  many 
hearts.  It  "  has  roused,"  Lowell  -wrote  in  1875, 
"  strange  echoes  in  men  who  assured  me  they 
were  generally  insensible  to  poetry.  After  all, 
the  only  stuff  a  solitary  man  has  to  spin  is 
himself." 

YES,  faith  is  a  goodly  anchor; 

When  skies  are  sweet  as  a  psalm, 
At  the  bows  it  lolls  so  stalwart, 

In  its  bluff,  broad-shouldered  calm. 

And  when  over  breakers  to  leeward 
The  tattered  surges  are  hurled, 

It  may  keep  our  head  to  the  tempest, 
With  its  grip  on  the  base  of  the  world. 


THE   DEAD   HOUSE 


309 


But,  after  the  shipwreck,  tell  me 

What  help  in  its  iron  thews, 
Still  true  to  the  broken  hawser, 

Deep  down  among  sea-weed  and  ooze  ? 

In  the  breaking  gulfs  of  sorrow, 
When  the  helpless  feet  stretch  out 

And  find  in  the  deeps  of  darkness 
No  footing  so  solid  as  doubt, 

Then  better  one  spar  of  Memory, 
One  broken  plank  of  the  Past, 

That  our  human  heart  may  cling  to, 
Though  hopeless  of  shore  at  last ! 

To  the  spirit  its  splendid  conjectures, 
To  the  flesh  its  sweet  despair, 

Its  tears  o'er  the  thin- worn  locket 
With  its  anguish  of  deathless  hair  ! 

Immortal  ?     I  feel  it  and  know  it, 
Who  doubts  it  of  such  as  she  ? 

But  that  is  the  pang's  very  secret,  — 
Immortal  away  from  me. 

There  's  a  narrow  ridge  in  the  graveyard 
Would  scarce  stay  a  child  in  his  race, 

But  to  me  and  my  thought  it  is  wider 
Than  the  star-sown  vague  of  Space. 

Your  logic,  my  friend,  is  perfect, 
Your  moral  most  drearily  true; 

But,  since  the  earth  clashed  on  her  coffin, 
I  keep  hearing  that,  and  not  you. 

Console  if  you  will,  I  can  bear  it; 

'T  is  a  well-meant  alms  of  breath; 
But  not  all  the  preaching  since  Adam 

Has  made  Death  other  than  Death. 

It  is  pagan;  but  wait  till  you  feel  it,  — 
That  jar  of  our  earth,  that  dull  shock 

When  the  ploughshare  of  deeper  passion 
Tears  down  to  our  primitive  rock. 

Communion  in  spirit  !     Forgive  me, 
But  I,  who  am  earthly  and  weak, 

Would  give  all  my  incomes  from  dream 
land 
For  a  touch  of  her  hand  on  my  cheek. 

That  little  shoe  in  the  corner, 

So  worn  and  wrinkled  and  brown, 

With  its  emptiness  confutes  you, 
And  argues  your  wisdom  down. 


THE    DEAD    HOUSE 

' '  I  have  a  notion  that  the  inmates  of  a  house 
should  never  be  changed.  When  the  first  oc 
cupants  go  out  it  should  be  burned,  and  a  stone 
set  up  with  '  Sacred  to  the  Memory  of  a  Home  ' 
on  it.  Suppose  the  body  were  eternal,  and 
that  when  one  spirit  went  out  another  took  the 
lease.  How  frightful  the  strange  expression 
of  the  eyes  would  be  !  I  fancy  sometimes  that 
the  look  in  the  eyes  of  a  familiar  house  changes 
when  aliens  have  come  into  it.  For  certainly 
a  dwelling  adapts  itself  to  its  occupants.  The 
front  door  of  a  hospitable  man  opens  easily 
and  looks  broad,  and  you  can  read  Welcome  ! 
on  every  step  that  leads  to  it. 

"  I  stopped  there  and  tried  to  put  that  into 
verse.  I  have  only  half  succeeded,  and  I 
shall  not  give  it  to  you.  I  shall  copy  it  and 
thrust  it  into  Jane's  letter."  J.  R.  L.  to  C.  E. 
Norton,  August  31,  1858. 

A  similar  fancy  appears  in  an  earlier  letter 
to  Mrs.  Francis  G.  Shaw,  to  whom  Lowell 
wrote  January  11,  1853 :  "  I  spent  Sunday 
with  Edmund  Quincy  at  Dedham,  and,  as  I 
came  back  over  the  rail  yesterday,  I  was 
roused  from  a  reverie  by  seeing  '  West  Rox- 
bury  Station '  written  up  over  the  door  of  a 
kind  of  Italian  villa  at  which  we  stopped.  I 
almost  twisted  my  head  off  looking  for  the 
house  on  the  hill.  There  it  stood  in  mourning 
still,  just  as  Frank  painted  it.  The  color  suited 
my  mood  exactly.  The  eyes  of  the  house 
were  shut,  the  welcoming  look  it  had  was  gone  ; 
it  was  dead.  I  am  a  Platonist  about  houses. 
They  get  to  my  eye  a  shape  from  the  souls 
that  inhabit  them.  My  friends'  dwellings 
seem  as  peculiar  to  them  as  their  bodies,  looks, 
and  motions.  People  have  no  right  to  sell 
their  dead  houses ;  they  should  burn  them  as 
they  used  to  burn  corpses.  ...  I  have  buried 
that  house  now  and  flung  my  pious  handful  of 
earth  over  it  and  set  up  a  headstone  —  and  I 
shall  never  look  up  to  the  hill-top  again,  let 
me  pass  it  never  so  often." 

HERE  once  my  step  was  quickened, 
Here  beckoned  the  opening  door, 

And  welcome  thrilled  from  the  threshold 
To  the  foot  it  had  known  before. 

A  glow  came  forth  to  meet  me 

From  the  flame  that  laughed  in  the  grate, 
And  shadows  adance  on  the  ceiling, 

Danced  blither  with  mine  for  a  mate. 

"  I  claim  you,  old  friend,"  yawned  the  arm 
chair, 
"  This  corner,  you  know,  is  your  seat;" 


3io 


UNDER   THE   WILLOWS    AND   OTHER   POEMS 


"Rest  your  slippers  on  ine,"  beamed  the 

fender, 
"  I  brighten  at  touch  of  your  feet." 

"  We  know  the  practised  finger," 

Said  the  books,  "  that  seems  like  brain; " 

And  the  shy  page  rustled  the  secret 
It  had  kept  till  I  came  again. 

Sang  the  pillow,  "  My  down  once  quivered 
On  nightingales'  throats  that  flew 

Through  moonlit  gardens  of  Haliz 
To  gather  quaint  dreams  for  you." 

Ah  me,  where  the  Past  sowed  heart's-ease, 
The  Present  plucks  rue  for  us  men  ! 

I  come  back  :  that  scar  unhealing 
Was  not  in  the  churchyard  then. 

But,  I  think,  the  house  is  unaltered, 

I  will  go  and  beg  to  look 
At  the  rooms  that  were  once  familiar 

To  my  life  as  its  bed  to  a  brook. 

Unaltered  !     Alas  for  the  sameness 
That  makes  the  change  but  more  ! 

'T  is  a  dead  man  I  see  in  the  mirrors, 
'Tis  his  tread  that  chills  the  floor  ! 

To  learn  such  a  simple  lesson, 
Need  I  go  to  Paris  and  Rome, 

That  the  many  make  the  household, 
But  only  one  the  home  ? 

'T  was  just  a  womanly  presence, 

An  influence  unexprest, 
But  a  rose  she  had  worn,  on  my  grave- 
sod 

Were  more  than  long  life  with  the  rest  ! 

'T  was  a  smile,  't  was  a  garment's  rustle, 
'T  was  nothing  that  I  can  phrase, 

But  the  whole  dumb  dwelling  grew  con 
scious, 
And  put  on  her  looks  and  ways. 

Were  it  mine  I  would  close  the  shutters, 

Like  lids  when  the  life  is  fled, 
And  the  funeral  fire  should  wind  it, 

This  corpse  of  a  home  that  is  dead. 

For  it  died  that  autumn  morning 

When  she,  its  soul,  was  borne 
To  lie  all  dark  on  the  hillside 

That  looks  over  woodland  and  corn. 


A    MOOD 

I  GO  to  the  ridge  in  the  forest 

I  haunted  in  days  gone  by, 

But  thou,  O  Memory,  pourest 

No  magical  drop  in  mine  eye, 

Nor  the  gleam  of  the  secret  restorest 

That  hath  faded  from  earth  and  sky  : 

A  Presence  autumnal  and  sober 

Invests  every  rock  and  tree, 

And  the  aureole  of  October 

Lights  the  maples,  but  darkens  me. 

Pine  in  the  distance, 
Patient  through  sun  or  rain, 
Meeting  with  graceful  persistence, 
With  yielding  but  rooted  resistance, 
The  northwind's  wrench  and  strain, 
No  memory  of  .past  existence 
Brings  thee  pain; 
Right  for  the  zenith  heading, 
Friendly  with  heat  or  cold, 
Thine  arms  to  the  influence  spreading 
Of  the  heavens,  just  from  of  old, 
Thou  only  aspirest  the  more, 
Unregretful  the  old  leaves  shedding 
That  fringed  thee  with  music  before, 
And  deeper  thy  roots  embedding 
In  the  grace  and  the  beauty  of  yore ; 
Thou  sigh'st  not,  "  Alas,  I  am  older, 
The  green  of  last  summer  is  sear ! " 
But  loftier,  hopef uller,  bolder, 
Winnest  broader  horizons  each  year. 

To  me  Jt  is  not  cheer  thou  art  singing: 

There  *s  a  sound  of  the  sea, 

O  mournful  tree, 

In  thy  boughs  forever  clinging, 

And  the  far-off  roar 

Of  waves  on  the  shore 

A  shattered  vessel  flinging. 

As  thou  musest  still  of  the  ocean 

On  which  thou  must  float  at  last, 

And  seem'st  to  foreknow 

The  shipwreck's  woe 

And  the  sailor  wrenched  from  the  broken 

mast, 

Do  I,  in  this  vague  emotion, 
This  sadness  that  will  not  pass, 
Though  the  air  throb  with  wings, 
And  the  field  laughs  and  sings, 
Do  I  forebode,  alas  ! 
The  ship-building  longer  and  wearier* 


THE  VOYAGE  TO   VINLAND 


The  voyage's  struggle  and  strife, 
And  then  the  darker  and  drearier 
Wreck  of  a  broken  life  ? 


THE  VOYAGE   TO  VINLAND 

In  the  letter  to  Mr.  Norton,  quoted  at  the 
beginning1  of  this  section,  reference  is  made  to 
The  Voyage  to  V inland,  which  Lowell  had  some 
thought  of  making-  the  title-poem  of  the  vol 
ume.  In  the  same  letter  he  says  further  re 
garding  it :  "  Part  of  [this  poem],  you  remem 
ber,  was  written  eighteen  years  ago.  I  meant 
to  have  made  it  much  longer,  but  maybe  it 
is  better  as  it  is.  I  clapt  a  beginning  upon 
it,  patched  it  in  the  middle,  and  then  got  to 
what  has  always  been  my  favorite  part  of  the 
plan.  This  was  to  be  a  prophecy  by  Gudrida, 
a  woman  who  went  with  them,  of  the  future 
America.  I  have  written  in  an  unrhymed 
alliterated  measure,  in  very  short  verse  and 
stanzas  of  five  lines  each.  It  does  not  aim  at 
following  the  law  of  the  Icelandic  alliterated 
stave,  but  hints  at  it  and  also  at  the  asonante, 
without  being  properly  either.  But  it  runs 
well  and  is  melodious,  and  we  think  it  pretty 
good  here,  as  does  also  Howells.  Well,  after 
that,  of  course,  I  was  all  for  alliteration."  The 
poem  had  apparently  first  borne  the  title  of 
Leifs  Voyage,  as  he  writes  of  that  poem  to  Mr. 
Briggs  in  1850. 

I 

BIORN'S   BECKONERS 

Now  Biorn,  the  son  of  Heriulf ,  had  ill  days 
Because  the  heart  within  him  seethed  with 

blood 

That  would  not  be  allayed  with  any  toil, 
Whether  of  war  or  hunting  or  the  oar, 
But  was  anhungered  for  some  joy  untried: 
For  the   brain   grew  not  weary   with  the 

limbs, 
But,  while  they  slept,  still  hammered  like  a 

Troll, 

Building  all  night  a  bridge  of  solid  dream 
Between  him  and  some  purpose  of  his  soul, 
Or  will  to  find  a  purpose.  With  the  dawn 
The  sleep-laid  timbers,  crumbled  to  soft 

mist, 

Denied  all  foothold.     But   the  dream  re 
mained, 

And  every  night  with  yellow-bearded  kings 
His  sleep  was  haunted,  —  mighty  men  of 

old, 
Once  young  as  he,  now  ancient   like   the 

gods, 


And  safe  as  stars  in  all  men's  memories. 
Strange  sagas  read  he  in  their  sea-blue  eyes 
Cold  as  the  sea,  grandly  compassionless; 
Like  life,  they  made  him  eager  and  then 

mocked. 
Nay,  broad  awake,  they  would  not  let  him 

be; 
They  shaped  themselves   gigantic   in  the 

mist, 
They  rose  far-beckoning  in   the  lamps  of 

heaven, 

They  whispered  invitation  in  the  winds, 
And  breath  came  from  them,  mightier  than 

the  wind, 

To  strain  the  lagging  sails  of  his  resolve, 
Till  that  grew  passion  which  before  was 

wish, 
And  youth   seemed   all   too   costly  to   be 

staked 
On  the  soiled  cards  wherewith  men  played 

their  game, 

Letting  Time  pocket  up  the  larger  life, 
Lost  with  base  gain  of  raiment,  food,  and 

roof. 
"What  helpeth   lightness   of   the    feet?" 

they  said, 
"  Oblivion    runs   with   swifter    foot   than 

they; 
Or  strength  of  sinew  ?     New  men  come  as 

strong, 
And  those  sleep  nameless;  or   renown   in 

war? 
Swords  grave  no  name  on  the  long-mem- 

oried  rock 
But   moss   shall   hide   it;  they  alone  who 

wring 
Some  secret  purpose   from   the  unwilling 

gods 

Survive  in  song  for  yet  a  little  while 
To  vex,  like  us,  the  dreams  of  later  men, 
Ourselves  a  dream,  and  dreamlike  all  we 

did." 

II 

THORWALD'S  LAY 

So   Biorn    went    comfortless    but    for   his 

thought, 

And  by  his  thought  the  more  discomforted, 
Till  Eric  Thurlson  kept  his  Yule-tide  feast: 
And  thither  came  he,  called  among  the  rest, 
Silent,  lone-minded,  a  church-door  to  mirth : 
But,  ere  deep  draughts  forbade  such  seri 
ous  song 

As  the  grave  Skald  might  chant  nor  after 
blush, 


UNDER  THE  WILLOWS  AND  OTHER  POEMS 


Then  Eric  looked  at  Thorwald  where  he  sat 
Mute  as  a  cloud  amid  the  stormy  hall, 
And  said:    "  O  Skald,  sing  now  an  olden 

song, 
Such  as  our  fathers  heard  who  led  great 

lives; 

And,  as  the  bravest  on  a  shield  is  borne 
Along  the  waving  host  that  shouts  him  king, 
So  rode  their  thrones  upon  the  thronging 

seas  ! " 
Then  the  old  man  arose;  white-haired  he 

stood, 
White-bearded,  and  with  eyes  that  looked 

afar 

From  their  still  region  of  perpetual  snow, 
Beyond  the  little  smokes  and  stirs  of  men: 
His  head  was  bowed  with  gathered  flakes 

of  years, 

As  winter  bends  the  sea-foreboding  pine, 
But  something  triumphed  in  his  brow  and 

eye, 
Which  whoso   saw  it   could  not   see   and 

crouch: 

Loud  rang  the  emptied  beakers  as  he  mused, 
Brooding  his  eyried  thoughts;  then,  as  an 


Circles   smooth  -  winged   above   the   wind- 
vexed  woods, 

So  wheeled  his  soul  into  the  air  of  song 
High  o'er  the  stormy  hall;    and  thus  he 

sang: 

"  The  fletcher  for  his  arrow-shaft  picks  out 
Wood      closest  -  grained,    long  -  seasoned, 

straight  as  light; 

And  from  a  quiver  full  of  such  as  these 
The  wary  bowman,   matched   against   his 

peers, 
Long  doubting,  singles  yet  once  more  the 

best. 
Who  is   it   needs   such  flawless  shafts  as 

Fate? 

What  archer  of  his  arrows  is  so  choice, 
Or  hits  the  white  so  surely  ?   They  are  men, 
The  chosen  of  her  quiver;  nor  for  her 
Will  every  reed   suffice,  or   cross-grained 

stick 

At  random  from  life's  vulgar  fagot  plucked: 
Such  answer  household  ends;  but  she  will 

have 
Souls  straight  and  clear,  of  toughest  fibre, 

sound 
Down  to  the  heart  of  heart ;  from  these  she 

strips 
All   needless   stuff,   all  sap  wood;   seasons 

them; 


From  circumstance  untoward  feathers 
plucks 

Crumpled  and  cheap;  and  barbs  with  iron 
will: 

The  hour  that  passes  is  her  quiver-boy: 

When  she  draws  bow,  't  is  not  across  the 
wind, 

Nor  'gainst  the  sun  her  haste  -  snatched 
arrow  sings, 

For  sun  and  wind  have  plighted  faith  to 
her: 

Ere  men  have  heard  the  sinew  twang:,  be 
hold 

In  the  butt's  heart  her  trembling  messen 
ger  ! 

"  The  song  is  old  and  simple  that  I  sing; 
But  old  and  simple  are  despised  as  cheap, 
Though  hardest  to  achieve  of  human  things : 
Good  were  the  days  of  yore,  when  men 

were  tried 

By  ring  of  shields,  as  now  by  ring  of  words ; 
But  while  the  gods  are  left,  and  hearts  of 

men, 
And  wide-doored  ocean,  still  the  days  are 

good. 

Still  o'er  the  earth  hastes  Opportunity, 
Seeking  the  hardy  soul  that  seeks  for  her. 
Be  not   abroad,  nor   deaf   with  household 

cares 
That   chatter  loudest    as   they   mean   the 

least; 
Swift- willed  is  thrice -willed;    late  means 

nevermore ; 

Impatient  is  her  foot,  nor  turns  again." 
He  ceased;   upon  his  bosom  sank  his  beard 
Sadly,  as  one  who  oft  had  seen  her  pass 
Nor  stayed  her:  and  forthwith  the  frothy 

tide 

Of  interrupted  wassail  roared  along. 
But  Biorn,  the  son  of  Heriulf,  sat  apart 
Musing,  and,  with  his  eyes  upon  the  fire, 
Saw  shapes  of  arrows,  lost  as  soon  as  seen. 
"  A  ship,"  he  muttered,  "is  a  winged  bridge 
That  leadeth  every  way  to  man's  desire, 
And  ocean  the  wide  gate  to  manful  luck." 
And  then  with  that  resolve  his  heart  was 

bent, 
Which,    like    a   humming    shaft,   through 

many  a  stripe 
Of  day  and  night,  across  the  unpathwayed 


Shot  the  brave  prow  that  cut  on  Vinland 

sands 
The  first  rune  in  the  Saga  of  the  West. 


THE  VOYAGE  TO   VINLAND 


in 


GUDRIDA'S  PROPHECY 
Four  weeks  they  sailed,  a  speck  in  sky-shut 


Life,  where  was  never  life  that  knew  itself, 
But  tumbled  lubber-like  in  blowing  whales; 
Thought,  where  the  like  had  never  been 

before 

Since  Thought  primeval  brooded  the  abyss ; 
Alone  as  men  were  never  in  the  world. 
They  saw  the  icy  foundlings  of  the  sea, 
White  cliffs  of  silence,  beautiful  by  day, 
Or  looming,  sudden-perilous,  at  night 
In  monstrous  hush ;  or  sometimes  in  the  dark 
The  waves  broke  ominous  with  paly  gleams 
Crushed  by  the  prow  in  sparkles  of  cold  fire. 
Then  came  green  stripes  of  sea  that  prom 
ised  land 

But  brought  it  not,  and  on  the  thirtieth  day 
Low  in  the  west  were  wooded  shores  like 

cloud. 
They  shouted  as  men  shout  with  sudden 

hope; 
But  Biorn   was   silent,   such  strange  loss 

there  is 
Between  the  dream's  fulfilment  and   the 

dream, 

Such  sad  abatement  in  the  goal  attained. 
Then  Gudrida,  that  was  a  prophetess, 
Rapt  with  strange  influence  from  Atlantis, 

sang: 
Her  words:  the  vision  was  the  dreaming 

shore's. 

Looms  there  the  New  Land: 
Locked  in  the  shadow 
Long  the  gods  shut  it, 
Niggards  of  newness 
They,  the  o'er-old. 

Little  it  looks  there, 
Slim  as  a  cloud-streak; 
It  shall  fold  peoples 
Even  as  a  shepherd 
Foldeth  his  flock. 

Silent  it  sleeps  now; 
Great  ships  shall  seek  it, 
Swarming  as  salmon; 
Noise  of  its  numbers 
Two  seas  shall  hear. 


Men  from  the  Northland, 
Men  from  the  Southland, 
Haste  empty-handed; 
No  more  than  manhood 
Bring  they,  and  hands. 

Dark  hair  and  fair  hair, 
Red  blood  and  blue  blood, 
There  shall  be  mingled; 
Force  of  the  ferment 
Makes  the  New  Man. 

Pick  of  all  kindreds, 
Kings'  blood  shall  theirs  be, 
Shoots  of  the  eldest 
Stock  upon  Midgard, 
Sons  of  the  poor. 

Them  waits  the  New  Land; 
They  shall  subdue  it, 
Leaving  their  sons'  sons 
Space  for  the  body, 
Space  for  the  soul. 

Leaving  their  sons'  sons 
All  things  save  song-craft, 
Plant  long  in  growing, 
Thrusting  its  tap-root 
Deep  in  the  Gone. 

Here  men  shall  grow  up 
Strong  from  self-helping; 
Eyes  for  the  present 
Bring  they  as  eagles', 
Blind  to  the  Past. 

They  shall  make  over 
Creed,  law,  and  custom; 
Driving-men,  doughty 
Builders  of  empire, 
Builders  of  men. 

Here  is  no  singer; 
What  should  they  sing  of  ? 
They,  the  unresting  ? 
Labor  is  ugly, 
Loathsome  is  change. 

These  the  old  gods  hate, 
Dwellers  in  dream-land, 
Drinking  delusion 
Out  of  the  empty 
Skull  of  the  Past. 


314 


UNDER   THE   WILLOWS   AND   OTHER   POEMS 


These  hate  the  old  gods, 
Warring  against  them; 
Fatal  to  Odin, 
Here  the  wolf  Fenrir 
Lieth  in  wait. 

Here  the  gods'  Twilight 
Gathers,  earth-gulfing; 
Blackness  of  battle, 
Fierce  till  the  Old  World 
Flare  up  in  fire. 

Doubt  not,  my  Northmen; 
Fate  loves  the  fearless; 
Fools,  when  their  roof-tree 
Falls,  think  it  doomsday; 
Firm  stands  the  sky. 

Over  the  ruin 
See  I  the  promise; 
Crisp  waves  the  cornfield, 
Peace-walled,  the  homestead 
Waits  open-doored. 

There  lies  the  New  Land; 
Yours  to  behold  it, 
Not  to  possess  it; 
Slowly  Fate's  perfect 
Fulness  shall  come. 

Then  from  your  strong  loins 
Seed  shall  be  scattered, 
Men  to  the  marrow, 
Wilderness  tamers, 
Walkers  of  waves. 

Jealous,  the  old  gods 
Shut  it  in  shadow, 
Wisely  they  ward  it, 
Egg  of  the  serpent, 
Bane  to  them  all. 

Stronger  and  sweeter 
New  gods  shall  seek  it, 
Fill  it  with  man-folk 
Wise  for  the  future, 
Wise  from  the  past. 

Here  all  is  all  men's, 
Save  only  Wisdom; 
King  he  that  wins  her; 
Him  hail  they  helmsman, 
Highest  of  heart. 


Might  makes  no  master 
Here  any  longer; 
Sword  is  not  swayer; 
Here  e'en  the  gods  are 
Selfish  no  more. 

Walking  the  New  Earth, 
Lo,  a  divine  One 
Greets  all  men  godlike, 
Calls  them  his  kindred, 
He,  the  Divine. 

Is  it  Thor's  hammer 
Rays  in  his  right  hand  ? 
Weaponless  walks  he ; 
It  is  the  White  Christ, 
Stronger  than  Thor. 

Here  shall  a  realm  rise 
Mighty  in  manhood; 
Justice  and  Mercy 
Here  set  a  stronghold 
Safe  without  spear. 

Weak  was  the  Old  World, 
Wearily  war-fenced; 
Out  of  its  ashes, 
Strong  as  the  morning, 
Springeth  the  New. 

Beauty  of  promise, 
Promise  of  beauty, 
Safe  in  the  silence 
Sleep  thou,  till  cometh 
Light  to  thy  lids  ! 

Thee  shall  awaken 
Flame  from  the  furnace, 
Bath  of  all  brave  ones, 
Cleanser  of  conscience, 
Welder  of  will. 

Lowly  shall  love  thee, 
Thee,  open-handed  ! 
Stalwart  shall  shield  thee, 
Thee,  worth  their  best  blood, 
Waif  of  the  West  ! 

Then  shall  come  singers, 
Singing  no  swan-song, 
Birth-carols,  rather, 
Meet  for  the  man  child 
Mighty  of  bone. 


INVITA   MINERVA 


MAHMOOD      THE       IMAGE- 
BREAKER 

OLD  events  have  modern  meanings;  only 

that  survives 
Of  past  history  which  finds  kindred  in  all 

hearts  and  lives. 

Mahmood  once,  the  idol-breaker,  spreader 

of  the  Faith, 
Was   at   Sumnat   tempted   sorely,   as   the 

legend  saith. 

In  the   great  pagoda's   centre,   monstrous 

and  abhorred, 
Granite  on  a   throne   of   granite,   sat   the 

temple's  lord. 

Mahmood  paused  a  moment,  silenced  by 

the  silent  face 
That,  with  eyes  of  stone  unwavering,  awed 

the  ancient  place. 

Then  the  Brahmins  knelt  before   him,  by 

his  doubt  made  bold, 
Pledging  for  their  idol's  ransom  countless 

gems  and  gold. 

Gold  was  yellow  dirt  to  Mahmood,  but  of 

precious  use, 
Since  from  it  the  roots  of  power   suck   a 

potent  juice. 

"  Were  yon  stone   alone  in  question,  this 

would  please  me  well," 
Mahmood  said;  "  but,  with  the  block  there, 

I  my  truth  must  sell. 

"  Wealth  and  rule  slip  down  with  Fortune, 
as  her  wheel  turns  round ; 

He  who  keeps  his  faith,  he  only  cannot  be 
discrowned. 

"  Little   were  a  change  of  station,  loss  of 

life  or  crown, 
But  the  wreck  were   past  retrieving  if  the 

Man  fell  down." 

So  his   iron   mace   he   lifted,   smote   with 

might  and  main, 
And  the  idol,  on  the  pavement  tumbling, 

burst  in  twain. 


Luck  obeys  the   downright   striker  ;  from 

the  hollow  core, 
Fifty  times  the   Brahmins'   offer   deluged 

all  the  floor. 

INVITA   MINERVA 

THE  Bardling  came  where  by  a  river  grew 
The   pennoned   reeds,   that,   as   the   west- 
wind  blew, 
Gleamed  and  sighed  plaintively,  as  if  they 

knew 

What  music  slept  enchanted  in  each  stem, 
Till  Pan  should  choose  some  happy  one  of 

them, 

And  with  wise  lips  enlife  it  through  and 
through. 

The  Bardling  thought,   "A  pipe  is   all  I 

need; 
Once  I  have  sought  me  out  a  clear,  smooth 

reed, 

And  shaped  it  to  my  fancy,  I  proceed 
To  breathe  such  strains  as,  yonder  mid  the 

rocks, 
The  strange   youth  blows,  that  tends  Ad* 

metus'  flocks, 
And  all  the  maidens  shall  to  me  pay  heed." 

The   summer    day   he    spent   in   questful 

round, 
And   many  a  reed  he   marred,  but  never 

found 
A   conjuring-spell  to  free  the  imprisoned 

sound ; 

At  last  his  vainly  wearied  limbs  he  laid 
Beneath  a  sacred  laurel's  flickering  shade, 
And   sleep   about    his   brain   her  cobweb 

wound. 

Then  strode   the  mighty  Mother  through 

his  dreams, 
Saying:     "The    reeds    along    a   thousand 

streams 
Are  mine,  and  who  is  he  that  plots  and 

schemes 

To  snare  the  melodies  wherewith  my  breath 
Sounds  through  the  double  pipes  of  Life 

and  Death, 
Atoning  what  to  men  mad  discord  seems  ? 

"  He  seeks  not  me,  but  I  seek  oft  in  vain 
For  him  who  shall  my  voiceful  reeds  con 
strain, 


3i6 


UNDER  THE  WILLOWS   AND   OTHER   POEMS 


And  make  them  utter  their  melodious  pain ; 
He  flies  the   immortal   gift,   for   well   he 

knows 

His  life  of  life  must  with  its  overflows 
Flood  the  unthankful  pipe,  nor  come  again. 

•'  Thou  fool,  who  dost  my  harmless  subjects 
wrong, 

'T  is  not  the  singer's  wish  that  makes  the 
song: 

The  rhythmic  beauty  wanders  dumb,  how 
long, 

Nor  stoops  to  any  daintiest  instrument, 

Till,  found  its  mated  lips,  their  sweet  con 
sent 

Makes  mortal  breath  than  Time  and  Fate 
more  strong." 

THE   FOUNTAIN   OF   YOUTH 

This  poem,  written  apparently  in  the  win 
ter  of  1849-50,  was  to  have  been  included  in 
the  projected  work,  The  Nooning. 

I 

'T  is  a  woodland  enchanted  ! 

By  no  sadder  spirit 

Than  blackbirds  and  thrushes, 

That  whistle  to  cheer  it 

All  day  in  the  bushes, 

This  woodland  is  haunted: 

And  in  a  small  clearing, 

Beyond  sight  or  hearing 

Of  human  annoyance, 

The  little  fount  gushes, 

First  smoothly,  then  dashes 

And  gurgles  and  flashes, 

To  the  maples  and  ashes 

Confiding  its  joyance; 

Unconscious  confiding, 

Then,  silent  and  glossy, 

Slips  winding  and  hiding 

Through  alder-stems  mossy, 

Through  gossamer  roots 

Fine  as  nerves, 

That  tremble,  as  shoots 

Through  their  magnetized  curves 

The  allurement  delicious 

Of  the  water's  capricious 

Thrills,  gushes,  and  swerves. 


*T  is  a  woodland  enchanted  ! 
I  am  writing  no  fiction; 


And  this  fount,  its  sole  daughter, 
To  the  woodland  was  granted 
To  pour  holy  water 
And  win  benediction; 
In  summer-noon  flushes, 
When  all  the  wood  hushes, 
Blue  dragon-flies  knitting 
To  and  fro  in  the  sun, 
With  sidelong  jerk  flitting 
Sink  down  on  the  rushes, 
And,  motionless  sitting, 
Hear  it  bubble  and  run, 
Hear  its  low  inward  singing, 
With  level  wings  swinging 
On  green  tasselled  rushes, 
To  dream  in  the  sun. 

ill 

'T  is  a  woodland  enchanted  ! 
The  great  August  noonlight ! 
Through  myriad  rifts  slanted, 
Leaf  and  bole  thickly  sprinkles 
With  flickering  gold ; 
There,  in  warm  August  gloaming, 
With  quick,  silent  brightenings, 
From  meadow-lands  roaming, 
The  firefly  twinkles 
His  fitful  heat-lightnings; 
There  the  magical  moonlight 
With  meek,  saintly  glory 
Steeps  summit  and  wold; 
There  whippoorwills  plain  in  the  soli 
tudes  hoary 

With  lone  cries  that  wander 
Now  hither,  now  yonder, 
Like  souls  doomed  of  old 
To  a  mild  purgatory; 
But  through  noonlight  and  moonlight 
The  little  fount  tinkles 
Its  silver  saints'-bells, 
That  no  sprite  ill-boding 
May  make  his  abode  in 
Those  innocent  dells. 

IV 

'T  is  a  woodland  enchanted  ! 
When  the  phebe  scarce  whistles 
Once  an  hour  to  his  fellow, 
And,  where  red  lilies  flaunted, 
Balloons  from  the  thistles 
Tell  summer's  disasters, 
The  butterflies  yellow, 
As  caught  in  an  eddy 
Of  air's  silent  ocean, 


THE  FOUNTAIN   OF  YOUTH 


Sink,  waver,  and  steady 
O'er  goats'-beard  and  asters, 
Like  souls  of  dead  flowers, 
With  aimless  emotion 
Still  lingering  unready 
To  leave  their  old  bowers; 
And  the  fount  is  no  dumber, 
But  still  gleams  and  flashes, 
And  gurgles  and  plashes, 
To  the  measure  of  summer; 
The  butterflies  hear  it, 
And  spell-bound  are  holden, 
Still  balancing  near  it 
O'er  the  goats'-beard  so  golden. 


'T  is  a  woodland  enchanted! 

A  vast  silver  willow, 

I  know  not  how  planted, 

(This  wood  is  enchanted, 

And  full  of  surprises,) 

Stands  stemming  a  billow, 

A  motionless  billow 

Of  ankle-deep  mosses; 

Two  great  roots  it  crosses 

To  make  a  round  basin, 

And  there  the  Fount  rises; 

Ah,  too  pure  a  mirror 

For  one  sick  of  error 

To  see  his  sad  face  in! 

No  dew-drop  is  stiller 

In  its  lupin-leaf  setting 

Than  this  water  moss-bounded; 

But  a  tiny  sand-pillar 

From  the  bottom  keeps  jetting, 

And  mermaid  ne'er  sounded 

Through  the  wreaths  of  a  shell, 

Down  amid  crimson  dulses 

In  some  cavern  of  ocean, 

A  melody  sweeter 

Than  the  delicate  pulses, 

The  soft,  noiseless  metre, 

The  pause  and  the  swell 

Of  that  musical  motion: 

I  recall  it,  not  see  it; 

Could  vision  be  clearer  ? 

Half  I  'm  fain  to  draw  nearer 

Half  tempted  to  flee  it; 

The  sleeping  Past  wake  not, 

Beware! 

One  forward  step  take  not, 

Ah!  break  not 

That  quietude  rare ! 

By  my  step  unaffrighted 

A  thrush  hops  before  it, 


And  o'er  it 

A  birch  hangs  delighted, 

Dipping,  dipping,  dipping  its  tremulous 

hair; 

Pure  as  the  fountain,  once 
I  came  to  the  place, 
(How  dare  I  draw  nearer  ?) 
I  bent  o'er  its  mirror, 
And  saw  a  child's  face 
Mid  locks  of  bright  gold  in  it; 
Yes,  pure  as  this  fountain  once,  — 
Since,  how  much  error! 
Too  holy  a  mirror 
For  the  man  to  behold  in  it 
His  harsh,  bearded  countenance! 

VI 

'T  is  a  woodland  enchanted! 

Ah,  fly  unreturning! 

Yet  stay;  — 

'T  is  a  woodland  enchanted, 

Where  wonderful  chances 

Have  sway; 

Luck  flees  from  the  cold  one, 

But  leaps  to  the  bold  one 

Half-way ; 

Why  should  I  be  daunted  ? 

Still  the  smooth  mirror  glances, 

Still  the  amber  sand  dances, 

One  look,  —  then  away! 

O  magical  glass! 

Canst  keep  in  thy  bosom 

Shades  of  leaf  and  of  blossom 

When  summer  days  pass, 

So  that  when  thy  wave  hardens 

It  shapes  as  it  pleases, 

Unharmed  by  the  breezes, 

Its  fine  hanging  gardens  ? 

Hast  those  in  thy  keeping, 

And  canst  not  uncover, 

Enchantedly  sleeping, 

The  old  shade  of  thy  lover  ? 

It  is  there!  I  have  found  it! 

He  wakes,  the  long  sleeper! 

The  pool  is  grown  deeper, 

The  sand  dance  is  ending, 

The  white  floor  sinks,  blending 

With  skies  that  below  me 

Are  deepening  and  bending, 

And  a  child's  face  alone 

That  seems  not  to  know  me, 

With  hair  that  fades  golden 

In  the  heaven-glow  round  it, 

Looks  up  at  my  own; 

Ah,  glimpse  through  the  portal 


UNDER  THE  WILLOWS  AND  OTHER  POEMS 


That  leads  to  the  throne, 

That  opes  the  child's  olden 

Regions  Elysian! 

Ah,  too  holy  vision 

For  thy  skirts  to  be  holden 

By  soiled  hand  of  mortal! 

It  wavers,  it  scatters, 

'T  is  gone  past  recalling! 

A  tear's  sudden  falling 

The  magic  cup  shatters, 

Breaks  the  spell  of  the  waters, 

And  the  sand  cone  once  more, 

With  a  ceaseless  renewing, 

Its  dance  is  pursuing 

On  the  silvery  floor, 

O'er  and  o'er, 

With  a  noiseless  and  ceaseless  renew 


ing. 


VII 


'T  is  a  woodland  enchanted! 

If  you  ask  me,  Where  is  it  ? 

I  can  but  make  answer, 

'T  is  past  my  disclosing;  " 

Not  to  choice  is  it  granted 

By  sure  paths  to  visit 

The  still  pool  enclosing 

Its  blithe  little  dancer; 

But  in  some  day,  the  rarest 

Of  many  Septembers, 

When  the  pulses  of  air  rest, 

And  all  things  lie  dreaming 

In  drowsy  haze  steaming 

From  the  wood's  glowing  embers, 

Then,  sometimes,  unheeding, 

And  asking  not  whither, 

By  a  sweet  inward  leading 

My  feet  are  drawn  thither, 

And,  looking  with  awe  in  the  magical 

mirror, 

I  see  through  my  tears, 
Half  doubtful  of  seeing, 
The  face  unperverted, 
The  warm  golden  being 
Of  a  child  of  five  years ; 
And  spite  of  the  mists  and  the  error, 
And  the  days  overcast, 
Can  feel  that  I  walk  undeserted, 
But  forever  attended 
By  the  glad  heavens  that  bended 
O'er  the  innocent  past; 
Toward  fancy  or  truth 
Doth  the  sweet  vision  win  me  ? 
Dare  I  think  that  I  cast 


In  the  fountain  of  youth 
The  fleeting  reflection 
Of  some  bygone  perfection 
That  still  lingers  in  me  ? 


YUSSOUF 

A  STRANGER  came  one  night  to  Yussouf's 

tent, 

Saying,  "  Behold,  one  outcast  and  in  dread, 
Against  whose  life  the  bow  of  power  is 

bent, 
Who  flies,  and  hath  not  where  to  lay  his 

head; 

I  come  to  thee  for  shelter  and  for  food, 
To  Yussouf,  called  through  all  our  tribes 

'The  Good.'" 

"  This  tent  is  mine,"  said  Yussouf, "  but  no 

more 

Than  it  is  God's;  come  in  and  be  at  peace; 
Freely  shalt  thou  partake  of  all  my  store 
As  I  of  His  who  buildeth  over  these 
Our  tents  his  glorious  roof  of  night  and 

day, 
And  at  whose  door  none   ever  yet  heard 

Nay." 

So  Yussouf  entertained  his  guest  that  night, 
And,  waking  him  ere  day,  said:  "Here  is 

gold; 

My  swiftest  horse  is  saddled  for  thy  flight; 
Depart  before  the  prying  day  grow  bold." 
As  one  lamp  lights  another,  nor  grows 

less, 
So  nobleness  enkindleth  nobleness. 

That  inward  light  the  stranger's  face  made 
grand, 

Which  shines  from  all  self -conquest;  kneel 
ing  low, 

He  bowed  his  forehead  upon  Yussouf's 
hand, 

Sobbing:  "  O  Sheik,  I  cannot  leave  thee 
so; 

I  will  repay  thee ;  all  this  thou  hast  done 

Unto  that  Ibrahim  who  slew  thy  son  ! " 

"  Take  thrice  the  gold,"  said  Yussouf,  «  for 

with  thee 

Into  the  desert,  never  to  return, 
My  one  black  thought  shall  ride  away  from 

me  ; 


ALL-SAINTS 


First-born,  for  whom  by  day  and  night  I 
yearn, 

Balanced  and  just  are  all  of  God's  de 
crees; 

Thou  art  avenged,  my  first-born,  sleep  in 
peace  ! " 


THE   DARKENED    MIND 

THE  fire  is  burning  clear  and  blithely, 
Pleasantly  whistles  the  winter  wind; 
We  are  about  thee,  thy  friends  and  kin 
dred, 

On  us  all  nickers  the  firelight  kind; 
There  thou  sittest  in  thy  wonted  corner 
Lone  and  awful  in  thy  darkened  mind. 

There   thou   sittest;    now   and   then  thou 

meanest ; 

Thou  dost  talk  with  what  we  cannot  see, 
Lookest  at  us  with  an  eye  so  doubtful, 
It  doth  put  us  very  far  from  thee; 
There  thou  sittest;  we  would  fain  be  nigh 

thee, 
But  we  know  that  it  can  never  be. 

We  can  touch  tliee,  still  we  are  no  nearer; 
Gather  round  thee,  still  thou  art  alone; 
The  wide  chasm  of  reason  is  between  us; 
Thou  confutest  kindness  with  a  moan; 
We  can  speak  to  thee,  and  thou  canst  an 
swer, 
Like  two  prisoners  through  a  wall  of  stone. 

Hardest  heart  would  call  it  very  awful 
When  thou   look'st  at  us  and  seest  —  oh, 

what? 

If  we  move  away,  thou  sittest  gazing 
With  those   vague   eyes   at   the   selfsame 

spot, 
And  thou  mutterest,  thy  hands  thou  wring- 

est, 
Seeing  something,  —  us  thou  seest  not. 

Strange  it  is  that,  in  this  open  bright 
ness, 

Thou  shouldst  sit  in  such  a  narrow  cell; 

Strange  it  is  that  thou  shouldst  be  so  lone 
some 

Where  those  are  who  love  thee  all  so 
well; 

Not  so  much  of  thee  is  left  among  us 

As  the  hum  outliving  the  hushed  bell. 


WHAT   RABBI   JEHOSHA   SAID 

Originally  written  for  a  Fair  in  St.  Louis. 

RABBI  JEHOSHA  used  to  say 
That  God  made  angels  every  day, 
Perfect  as  Michael  and  the  rest 
First  brooded  in  creation's  nest, 
Whose  only  office  was  to  cry 
Hosanna  I  once,  and  then  to  die; 
Or  rather,  with  Life's  essence  blent, 
To  be  led  home  from  banishment. 

Rabbi  Jehosha  had  the  skill 
To  know  that  Heaven  is  in  God's  will; 
And  doing  that,  though  for  a  space 
One  heart-beat  long,  may  win  a  grace 
As  full  of  grandeur  and  of  glow 
As  Princes  of  the  Chariot  know. 

'T  were  glorious,  no  doubt,  to  be 

One  of  the  strong-winged  Hierarchy, 

To  burn  with  Seraphs,  or  to  shine 

With  Cherubs,  deathlessly  divine; 

Yet  I,  perhaps,  poor  earthly  clod, 

Could  I  forget  myself  in  God, 

Could  I  but  find  my  nature's  clue 

Simply  as  birds  and  blossoms  do, 

And  but  for  one  rapt  moment  know 

'T   is   Heaven   must   come,   not   we  must 

go. 

Should  win  my  place  as  near  the  throne 
As  the  pearl-angel  of  its  zone, 
And  God  would  listen  mid  the  throng 
For  my  one  breath  of  perfect  song, 
That,  in  its  simple  human  way, 
Said  all  the  Host  of  Heaven  could  say. 


ALL-SAINTS 

ONE  feast,  of  holy  days  the  crest, 

I,  though  no  Churchman,  love  to  keep, 
All-Saints,  —  the  unknown  good  that  rest 

In  God's  still  memory  folded  deep  ; 
The  bravely  dumb  that  did  their  deed, 

And  scorned  to  blot  it  with  a  name, 
Men  of  the  plain  heroic  breed, 

That  loved  Heaven's  silence  more  than 
fame. 

Such  lived  not  in  the  past  alone, 

But  thread  to-day  the  unheeding  street, 


320 


UNDER   THE   WILLOWS   AND   OTHER   POEMS 


And  stairs  to  Sin  and  Famine  known 
Sing  with  the  welcome  of  their  feet; 

The  den  they  enter  grows  a  shrine, 
The  grimy  sash  an  oriel  burns, 

Their  cup  of  water  warms  like  wine, 

Their  speech  is  filled  from  heavenly  urns. 

About  their  brows  to  me  appears 

An  aureole  traced  in  tenderest  light, 
The  rainbow-gleam  of  smiles  through  tears 

In  dying  eyes,  by  them  made  bright, 
Of  souls  that  shivered  on  the  edge 

Of  that  chill  ford  repassed  no  more, 
And  in  their  mercy  felt  the  pledge 

And  sweetness  of  the  farther  shore. 


A  WINTER-EVENING   HYMN  TO 
MY   FIRE 


BEAUTY  on  my  hearth-stone  blazing  ! 
To-night  the  triple  Zoroaster 
Shall  my  prophet  be  and  master: 
To-night  will  I  pure  Magian  be, 
Hymns  to  thy  sole  honor  raising, 
While  thou  leapest  fast  and  faster, 
Wild  with  self-delighted  glee, 
Or  sink'st  low  and  glowest  faintly 
As  an  aureole  still  and  saintly, 
Keeping  cadence  to  my  praising 
Thee  !  still  thee  !  and  only  thee  ! 


Elfish  daughter  of  Apollo  ! 

Thee,  from  thy  father  stolen  and  bound 

To  serve  in  Vulcan's  clangorous  smithy, 

Prometheus  (primal  Yankee)  found, 

And,  when  he  had  tampered  with  thee, 

(Too  confiding  little  maid  !) 

In  a  reed's  precarious  hollow 

To  our  frozen  earth  conveyed: 

For  he  swore  I  know  not  what; 

Endless  ease  should  be  thy  lot, 

Pleasure  that  should  never  falter, 

Lifelong  play,  and  not  a  duty 

Save  to  hover  o'er  the  altar, 

Vision  of  celestial  beauty, 

Fed  with  precious  woods  and  spices  ; 

Then,  perfidious  !  having  got 

Thee  in  the  net  of  his  devices, 

Sold  thee  into  endless  slavery, 

Made  thee  a  drudge  to  boil  the  pot, 

Thee,  Helios'  daughter,  who  dost  bear 

His  likeness  in  thy  golden  hair; 


Thee,  by  nature  wild  and  wavery, 
Palpitating,  evanescent 
As  the  shade  of  Dian's  crescent, 
Life,  motion,  gladness,  everywhere  I 

in 

Fathom  deep  men  bury  thee 
In  the  furnace  dark  and  still, 
There,  with  dreariest  mockery, 
Making  thee  eat,  against  thy  will, 
Blackest  Pennsylvanian  stone; 
But  thou  dost  avenge  thy  doom, 
For,  from  out  thy  catacomb, 
Day  and  night  thy  wrath  is  blown 
In  a  withering  simoom, 
And,  adown  that  cavern  drear, 
Thy  black  pitfall  in  the  floor, 
Staggers  the  lusty  antique  cheer, 
Despairing,  and  is  seen  no  more  I 

IV 

Elfish  I  may  rightly  name  thee ; 
We  enslave,  but  cannot  tame  thee; 
With  fierce  snatches,  now  and  then, 
Thou  pluckest  at  thy  right  again, 
And  thy  down-trod  instincts  savage 
To  stealthy  insurrection  creep 
While  thy  wittol  masters  sleep, 
And  burst  in  undiscerning  ravage: 
Then  how  thou  shak'st  thy  bacchant  locks  I 
While  brazen  pulses,  far  and  near, 
Throb  thick  and  thicker,  wild  with  fear 
And  dread  conjecture,  till  the  drear 
Disordered  clangor  every  steeple  rocks  1 


But  when  we  make  a  friend  of  thee, 
And  admit  thee  to  the  hall 
On  our  nights  of  festival, 
Then,  Cinderella,  who  could  see 
In  thee  the  kitchen's  stunted  thrall  ? 
Once  more  a  Princess  lithe  and  tall, 
Thou  dancest  with  a  whispering  tread, 
While  the  bright  marvel  of  thy  head 
In  crinkling  gold  floats  all  abroad, 
And  gloriously  dost  vindicate 
The  legend  of  thy  lineage  great, 
Earth-exiled  daughter  of  the  Pythian  god  ! 
Now  in  the  ample  chimney-place, 
To  honor  thy  acknowledged  race, 
We  crown  thee  high  with  laurel  good, 
Thy  shining  father's  sacred  wood, 
Which,  guessing  thy  ancestral  right, 
Sparkles  and  snaps  its  dumb  delight, 
And,  at  thy  touch,  poor  outcast  one, 


A  WINTER-EVENING   HYMN   TO   MY   FIRE 


321 


Feels  through  its  gladdened  fibres  go 
The  tingle  and  thrill  and  vassal  glow 
Of  instincts  loyal  to  the  sun. 

VI 

O  thou  of  home  the  guardian  Lar, 

And,  when  our  earth  hath  wandered  far 

Into  the  cold,  and  deep  snow  covers 

The  walks  of  our  New  England  lovers, 

Their  sweet  secluded  evening-star  ! 

'T  was  with  thy  rays  the  English  Muse 

Ripened  her  mild  domestic  hues ; 

'T  was  by  thy  flicker  that  she  conned 

The  fireside  wisdom  that  enrings 

With  light  from  heaven  familiar  things; 

By  thee  she  found  the  homely  faith 

In  whose  mild  eyes  thy  comfort  stay'th, 

When  Death,  extinguishing  his  torch, 

Gropes  for  the  latch-string  in  the  porch  ; 

The  love  that  wanders  not  beyond 

His  earliest  nest,  but  sits  and  sings 

While  children  smooth  his  patient  wings; 

Therefore  with  thee  I  love  to  read 

Our  brave  old   poets:   at  thy  touch   how 

stirs 
Life   in   the   withered  words  !    how   swift 

recede 

Time's  shadows  !  and  how  glows  again 
Through  its  dead  mass   the  incandescent 

verse, 

As  when  upon  the  anvils  of  the  brain 
It  glittering  lay,  cyclopically  wrought 
By  the  fast  -  throbbing  hammers  of  the 

poet's  thought ! 

Thou  murmurest,  too,  divinely  stirred, 
The  aspirations  unattained, 
The  rhythms  so  rathe  and  delicate, 
They  bent  and  strained 
And  broke,  beneath  the  sombre  weight 
Of  any  airiest  mortal  word. 

VII 

What  warm  protection  dost  thou  bend 
Round  curtained  talk  of  friend  with  friend, 
While  the  gray  snow-storm,  held  aloof, 
To  softest  outline  rounds  the  roof, 
Or  the  rude  North  with  baffled  strain 
Shoulders  the  frost-starred  window-pane  ! 
Now  the  kind  nymph  to  Bacchus  born 
By  Morpheus'  daughter,  she  that  seems 
Gifted  upon  her  natal  morn 
By  him  with  fire,  by  her  with  dreams, 
Nicotia,  dearer  to  the  Muse 
Than  all  the  grape's  bewildering  juice, 
We  worship,  unforbid  of  thee; 


And,  as  her  incense  floats  and  curls 

In  airy  spires  and  wayward  whirls, 

Or  poises  on  its  tremulous  stalk 

A  flower  of  frailest  revery, 

So  winds  and  loiters,  idly  free, 

The  current  of  unguided  talk, 

Now  laughter-rippled,  and  now  caught 

In  smooth,  dark  pools  of  deeper  thought. 

Meanwhile  thou  mellowest  every  word, 

A  sweetly  unobtrusive  third; 

For  thou  hast  magic  beyond  wine, 

To  unlock  natures  each  to  each; 

The  unspoken  thought  thou  canst  divine ; 

Thou  fill'st  the  pauses  of  the  speech 

With  whispers  that  to  dream-land  reach 

And  frozen  fancy-springs  unchain 

In  Arctic  outskirts  of  the  brain  : 

Sun  of  all  inmost  confidences, 

To  thy  rays  doth  the  heart  unclose 

Its  formal  calyx  of  pretences, 

That  close  against  rude  day's  offences, 

And  open  its  shy  midnight  rose  ! 

VIII 

Thou  boldest  not  the  master  key 

With  which  thy  Sire  sets  free  the  mystic 

gates 

Of  Past  and  Future:  not  for  common  fates 
Do  they  wide  open  fling, 
And,  with  a  far-heard  ring, 
Swing  back   their  willing   valves  melodi 
ously; 

Only  to  ceremonial  days, 
And  great  processions  of  imperial  song 
That  set  the  world  at  gaze, 
Doth  such  high  privilege  belong: 
But  thou  a  postern-door  canst  ope 
To    humbler   chambers    of    the    selfsame 


Where    Memory   lodges,   and    her    sister 

Hope, 

Whose  being  is  but  as  a  crystal  chalice 
Which,  with  her  various  mood,  the  elder 

fills 

Of  joy  or  sorrow, 
So  coloring  as  she  wills 
With  hues   of   yesterday  the  unconscious 


IX 

Thou   sinkest,  and  my   fancy  sinks   with 

thee: 

For  thee  I  took  the  idle  shell, 
And  struck  the  unused  chords  again, 
But  they  are  gone  who  listened  well; 


322 


UNDER  THE  WILLOWS  AND  OTHER  POEMS 


Some  are  in  heaven,  and  all  are  far  from 

me: 

Even  as  I  sing,  it  turns  to  pain, 
And  with  vain  tears  my  eyelids  throb  and 

swell: 

Enough;  I  come  not  of  the  race 
That  hawk  their  sorrows  in  the  market 
place. 
Earth  stops  the  ears  I  best  had  loved  to 

please ; 
Then  break,  ye  untuned  chords,  or  rust  in 

peace  ! 
As   if  a   white-haired  actor  should   come 

back 
Some   midnight   to   the   theatre  void   and 

black, 

And  there  rehearse  his  youth's  great  part 
Mid  thin  applauses  of  the  ghosts, 
So    seems    it   now :     ye   crowd   upon    my 

heart, 
And  I  bow  down  in  silence,  shadowy  hosts  ! 


FANCY'S  CASUISTRY 

How  struggles  with  the  tempest's  swells 
That  warning  of  tumultuous  bells  ! 
The  fire  is  loose  !  and  frantic  knells 

Throb  fast  and  faster, 
As  tower  to  tower  confusedly  tells 

News  of  disaster. 

But  on  my  far-off  solitude 
No  harsh  alarums  can  intrude  ; 
The  terror  comes  to  me  subdued 

And  charmed  by  distance, 
To  deepen  the  habitual  mood 

Of  my  existence. 

Are  those,  I  muse,  the  Easter  chimes  ? 
And  listen,  weaving  careless  rhymes 
While  the  loud  city's  griefs  and  crimes 

Pay  gentle  allegiance 
To  the  fine  quiet  that  sublimes 

These  dreamy  regions. 

And  when  the  storm  o'erwhelms  the  shore, 
I  watch  entranced  as,  o'er  and  o'er, 
The  light  revolves  amid  the  roar 

So  still  and  saintly, 
Now  large  and  near,  now  more  and  more 

Withdrawing  faintly. 

This,  too,  despairing  sailors  see 
Flash  out  the  breakers  'neath  their  lee 


In  sudden  snow,  then  liugeringly 

Wane  tow'rd  eclipse, 

While  through   the   dark  the  shuddering 
sea 

Gropes  for  the  ships. 

And  is  it  right,  this  mood  of  mind 
That  thus,  in  revery  enshrined, 
Can  in  the  world  mere  topics  find 

For  musing  stricture, 
Seeing  the  life  of  humankind 

Only  as  picture  ? 

The  events  in  line  of  battle  go  ; 
In  vain  for  me  their  trumpets  blow 
As  unto  him  that  lieth  low 

In  death's  dark  arches, 
And  through  the  sod  hears  throbbing  slow 

The  muffled  marches. 

O  Duty,  am  I  dead  to  thee 
In  this  my  cloistered  ecstasy, 
In  this  lone  shallop  on  the  sea 

That  drifts  tow'rd  Silence  ? 
And  are  those  visioned  shores  I  see 

But  sirens'  islands  ? 

My  Dante  frowns  with  lip-locked  mien, 
As  who  would  say,  "  'T  is  those,  I  ween, 
Whom  lifelong  armor-chafe  makes  lean 

That  win  the  laurel  ; " 
But  where  is  Truth  ?     What  does  it  mean, 

The  world-old  quarrel  ? 

Such  questionings  are  idle  air  : 
Leave  what  to  do  and  what  to  spare 
To  the  inspiring  moment's  care, 

Nor  ask  for  payment 
Of  fame  or  gold,  but  just  to  wear 

Unspotted  raiment. 


TO  MR.  JOHN  BARTLETT 

WHO     HAD     SENT     ME     A     SEVEN-POUND 
TROUT 

Mr.  Bartlett,  the  editor  of  Familiar  Quota 
tions  ,  was  a  near  neighbor  of  Lowell,  and  with 
him  was  long  a  member  of  a  whist-party. 

FIT  for  an  Abbot  of  Theleme, 

For  the  whole  Cardinals'  College,  or 
The  Pope  himself  to  see  in  dream 
Before  his  lenten  vision  gleam, 

He  lies  there,  the  sogdologer  ! 


ODE   TO    HAPPINESS 


323 


His  precious  flanks  with  stars  besprent, 

Worthy  to  swim  in  Castaly  ! 
The  friend  by  whom  such  gifts  are  sent, 
For  him  shall  bumpers  full  be  spent, 
His  health  !  be  Luck  his  fast  ally  ! 

I  see  him  trace  the  wayward  brook 

Amid  the  forest  mysteries, 
Where  at  their  shades  shy  aspens  look, 
Or  where,  with  many  a  gurgling  crook, 

It  croons  its  wo9dland  histories. 

I  see  leaf-shade  and  sun-fleck  lend 

Their  tremulous,  sweet  vicissitude 
To  smooth,  dark  pool,  to  crinkling  bend,  — 
(Oh,  stew  him,  Ann,  as  't  were  your  frieud, 
With  amorous  solicitude  !) 

I  see  him  step  with  caution  due, 
Soft  as  if  shod  with  moccasins, 

Grave  as  in  church,  for  who  plies  you, 

Sweet  craft,  is  safe  as  in  a  pew 

From  all  our  common  stock  o'  sins. 

The  unerring  fly  I  see  him  cast, 

That  as  a  rose-leaf  falls  as  soft, 

A  flash  !  a  whirl  !  he  has  him  fast ! 

We  tyros,  how  that  struggle  last 
Confuses  and  appalls  us  oft. 

Unfluttered  he  :  calm  as  the  sky 
Looks  on  our  tragi-comedies, 

This  way  and  that  he  lets  him  fly, 

A  sunbeam-shuttle,  then  to  die 

Lands  him,  with  cool  aplomb,  at  ease. 

The  friend  who  gave  our  board  such  gust, 
Life's  care  may  he  o'erstep  it  half, 

And,  when  Death  hooks  him,  as  he  must, 

He  '11  do  it  handsomely,  I  trust, 

And  John  H write  his  epitaph! 

Oh,  born  beneath  the  Fishes*  sign, 

Of  constellations  happiest, 
May  he  somewhere  with  Walton  dine, 
May  Horace  send  him  Massic  wine, 

And  Burns  Scotch  drink,  the  nappi 
es  t! 

And  when  they  come  his  deeds  to  weigh, 

And  how  he  used  the  talents  his, 
One  trout-scale  in  the  scales  he  '11  lay 
(If   trout    had    scales),    and   't  will    out- 
sway 
The  wrong  side  of  the  balances. 


ODE  TO  HAPPINESS 

SPIRIT,  that  rarely  comest  now 

And  only  to  contrast  my  gloom, 

Like  rainbow-feathered  birds  that  bloom 
A  moment  on  some  autumn  bough 
That,  with  the  spurn  of  their  farewell, 
Sheds  its    last   leaves,  —  thou  once   didst 
dwell 

With  me  year-long,  and  make  intense 
To  boyhood's  wisely  vacant  days 
Their  fleet  but  all-sufficing  grace 

Of  trustful  inexperience, 

While  soul  could  still  transfigure  sense, 
And  thrill,  as  with  love's  first  caress, 
At  life's  mere  unexpectedness. 

Days  when  my  blood  would  leap  and  run 
As  full  of  sunshine  as  a  breeze, 
Or  spray  tossed  up  by  Summer  seas 

That  doubts  if  it  be  sea  or  sun! 
Days  that  flew  swiftly  like  the  band 

That  played  iu  Grecian  games  at  strife, 
And  passed  from  eager  hand  to  hand 

The  onward-dancing  torch  of  life! 

Wing-footed!  thou  abid'st  with  him 
Who  asks  it  not;  but  he  who  hath 
Watched  o'er  the  waves  thy  waning  path, 
Shall  nevermore  behold  returning 
Thy  high-heaped  canvas  shoreward  yearn 
ing! 

Thou  first  reveal'st  to  us  thy  face 
Turned  o'er  the  shoulder's  parting  grace, 
A    moment     glimpsed,    then    seen     no 

more,  — 

Thou  whose  swift  footsteps  we  can  trace 
Away  from  every  mortal  door. 

Nymph  of  the  unreturning  feet, 

How  may  I  win  thee  back  ?    But  no, 
I  do  thee  wrong  to  call  thee  so; 

'T  is  I  am  changed,  not  thou  art  fleet: 

The  man  thy  presence  feels  again, 

Not  in  the  blood,  but  iu  the  brain, 

Spirit,  that  lov'st  the  upper  air 

Serene  and  passionless  and  rare, 

Such  as  on  mountain  heights  we  find 
And  wide-viewed  uplands  of  the  mind; 

Or  such  as  scorns  to  coil  and  sing 

Round  any  but  the  eagle's  wing 

Of  souls  that  with  long  upward  beat 
Have  won  an  undisturbed  retreat 

Where,  poised  like  winged  victories, 

They  mirror  in  relentless  eyes 


324 


UNDER   THE  WILLOWS   AND   OTHER  POEMS 


The    life    broad  -  basking    'neath    their 
feet,— 

Man  ever  with  his  Now  at  strife, 

Pained  with  first  gasps  of  earthly  air, 
Then  praying  Death  the  last  to  spare, 

Still  fearful  of  the  ampler  life. 

Not  unto  them  dost  thou  consent 

Who,  passionless,  can  lead  at  ease 
A  life  of  unalloyed  content 

A  life  like  that  of  land-locked  seas, 
Who  feel  no  elemental  gush 
Of  tidal  forces,  no  fierce  rush 

Of  storm  deep-grasping  scarcely  spent 

'Twixt  continent  and  continent. 
Such  quiet  souls  have  never  known 

Thy  truer  inspiration,  thou 

Who  lov'st  to  feel  upon  thy  brow 
Spray  from  the  plunging  vessel  thrown 

Grazing  the  tusked  lee  shore,  the  cliff 
That  o'er  the  abrupt  gorge  holds  its  breath, 

Where  the  frail  hair-breadth  of  an  if 
Is  all  that  sunders  life  and  death: 
These,  too,  are  cared  for,  and  round  these 
Bends  her  mild  crook  thy  sister  Peace; 

These  in  unvexed  dependence  lie, 

Each  'neath  his  strip  of  household  sky; 
O'er  these  clouds  wander,  and  the  blue 
Hangs  motionless  the  whole  day  through; 

Stars   rise  for  them,   and   moons   grow 

large 

And  lessen  in  such  tranquil  wise 
As  joys  and  sorrows  do  that  rise 

Within  their  nature's  sheltered  marge; 
Their  hours  into  each  other  flit 

Like  the  leaf-shadows  of  the  vine 
And  fig-tree  under  which  they  sit, 

And  their  still  lives  to  heaven  incline 
With  an  unconscious  habitude, 

Unhistoried  as  smokes  that  rise 
From  happy  hearths  and  sight  elude 

In  kindred  blue  of  morning  skies. 

Wayward!  when  once  we  feel  thy  lack, 
'T  is  worse  than  vain  to  woo  thee  back! 

Yet  there  is  one  who  seems  to  be 
Thine  elder  sister,  in  whose  eyes 
A  faint  far  northern  light  will  rise 

Sometimes,  and  bring  a  dream  of  thee ; 
She  is  not  that  for  which  youth  hoped, 

But  she  hath  blessings  all  her  own, 
Thoughts  pure  as  lilies  newly  oped, 

And  faith  to  sorrow  given  alone: 
Almost  I  deem  that  it  is  thou 
Come  back  with  graver  matron  brow, 


With  deepened  eyes  and  bated  breath, 
Like  one  that  somewhere  hath  met  Death: 
But  "  No,"  she  answers,  "  I  am  she 
Whom  the  gods  love,  Tranquillity; 
That  other  whom  you  seek  forlorn 
Half  earthly  was;  but  I  am  born 
Of  the  immortals,  and  our  race 
Wears  still  some  sadness  on  its  face: 

He  wins  me  late,  but  keeps  me  long, 
Who,  dowered  with  every  gift  of  passion, 
In  that  fierce  flame  can  forge  and  fashion 

Of  sin  and  self  the  anchor  strong; 
Can  thence  compel  the  driving  force 
Of  daily  life's  mechanic  course, 
Nor  less  the  nobler  energies 
Of  needful  toil  and  culture  wise; 
Whose  soul  is  worth  the  tempter's  lure 
Who  can  renounce,  and  yet  endure, 
To  him  I  come,  not  lightly  wooed, 
But  won  by  silent  fortitude." 


VILLA  FRANCA 
1859 

WAIT  a  little:  do  we  not  wait  ? 
Louis  Napoleon  is  not  Fate, 
Francis  Joseph  is  not  Time; 
There  's  One  hath  swifter  feet  than  Crime; 
Cannon-parliaments  settle  naught; 
Venice  is  Austria's,  —  whose  is  Thought  ? 
Minid  is  good,  but,  spite  of  change, 
Gutenberg's  gun  has  the  longest  range. 

Spin,  spin,  Clotho,  spin  ! 

Lachesis,  twist!  and,  Atropos,  sever! 

In  the  shadow,  year  out,  year  in, 

The  silent  headsman  waits  forever. 

Wait,  we  say:  our  years  are  long; 
Men  are  weak,  but  Man  is  strong; 
Since  the  stars  first  curved  their  rings, 
We  have  looked  on  many  things; 
Great  wars  come  and  great  wars  go, 
Wolf-tracks  light  on  polar  snow; 
We  shall  see  him  come  and  gone, 
This  second-hand  Napoleon. 

Spin,  spin,  Clotho,  spin! 

Lachesis,  twist!  and,  Atropos,  sever! 

In  the  shadow,  year  out,  year  in, 

The  silent  headsman  waits  forever. 

We  saw  the  elder  Corsican, 

And  Clotho  muttered  as  she  span, 

While  crowned  lackeys  bore  the  train, 


THE   MINER 


325 


Of  the  pinchbeck  Charlemagne  : 
"  Sister,  stint  not  length  of  thread! 
Sister,  stay  the  scissors  dread! 
On  Saint  Helen's  granite  bleak, 
Hark,  the  vulture  whets  his  beak!" 

Spin,  spin,  Clotho,  spin! 

Lachesis,  twist!  and,  Atropos,  sever! 

In  the  shadow,  year  out,  year  in, 

The  silent  headsman  waits  forever. 

The  Bonapartes,  we  know  their  bees 
That  wade  in  honey  red  to  the  knees; 
Their  patent  reaper,  its  sheaves  sleep  sound 
In  dreamless  garners  underground: 
We  know  false  glory's  spendthrift  race 
Pawning  nations  for  feathers  and  lace; 
It  may  be  short,  it  may  be  long, 
"'Tis     reckoning -day!"    sneers     unpaid 
Wrong. 

Spin,  spin,  Clotho,  spin! 

Lachesis,  twist!  and,  Atropos,  sever! 

In  the  shadow,  year  out,  year  in, 

The  silent  headsman  waits  forever. 

The  Cock  that  wears  the  Eagle's  skin 
Can  promise  what  he  ne'er  could  win; 
Slavery  reaped  for  fine  words  sown, 
System  for  all,  and  rights  for  none, 
Despots  atop,  a  wild  clan  below, 
Such  is  the  Gaul  from  long  ago; 
Wash  the  black  from  the  Ethiop's  face, 
Wash  the  past  out  of  man  or  race  ! 

Spin,  spin,  Clotho,  spin! 

Lachesis,  twist !  and,  Atropos,  sever! 

In  the  shadow,  year  out,  year  in, 

The  silent  headsman  waits  forever. 

'Neath  Gregory's  throne  a  spider  swings, 
And  snares  the  people  for  the  kings; 
"  Luther  is  dead;  old  quarrels  pass; 
The  stake's   black   scars  are  healed   with 

grass; " 

So  dreamers  prate;  did  man  e'er  live 
Saw  priest  or  woman  yet  forgive  ? 
But  Luther's  broom  is  left,  and  eyes 
Peep  o'er  their  creeds  to  where  it  lies. 

Spin,  spin,  Clotho,  spin! 

Lachesis,  twist!  and,  Atropos,  sever! 

In  the  shadow,  year  out,  year  in, 

The  silent  headsman  waits  forever. 

Smooth  sails  the  ship  of  either  realm, 
Kaiser  and  Jesuit  at  the  helm  ; 
We  look  down  the  depths,  and  mark 
Silent  workers  in  the  dark 


Building  slow  the  sharp-tusked  reefs, 
Old  instincts  hardening  to  new  beliefs; 
Patience  a  little;  learn  to  wait; 
Hours  are  long  on  the  clock  of  Fate. 

Spin,  spin,  Clotho,  spin! 

Lachesis,  twist!  and,  Atropos,  sever! 

Darkness  is  strong,  and  so  is  Sin, 

But  surely  God  endures  forever! 

THE  MINER 

DOWN  'mid  the  tangled  roots  of  things 
That  coil  about  the  central  fire, 

I  seek  for  that  which  giveth  wings 
To  stoop,  not  soar,  to  my  desire. 

Sometimes  I  hear,  as  't  were  a  sigh, 
The  sea's  deep  yearning  far  above, 

"  Thou  hast  the  secret  not,"  I  cry, 
"  In  deeper  deeps  is  hid  my  Love." 

They  think  I  burrow  from  the  sun, 
In  darkness,  all  alone,  and  weak; 

Such  loss  were  gain  if  He  were  won, 
For  't  is  the  sun's  own  Sun  I  seek. 

"  The  earth,"  they  murmur,  "  is  the  tomb 
That  vainly  sought  his  life  to  prison ; 

Why  grovel  longer  in  the  gloom  ? 
He  is  not  here;  he  hath  arisen." 

More  life  for  me  where  he  hath  lain 
Hidden  while  ye  believed  him  dead, 

Than  in  cathedrals  cold  and  vain, 
Built  on  loose  sands  of  It  is  said. 

My  search  is  for  the  living  gold; 

Him  I  desire  who  dwells  recluse, 
And  not  his  image  worn  and  old, 

Day-servant  of  our  sordid  use. 

If  him  I  find  not,  yet  I  find 

The  ancient  joy  of  cell  and  church, 

The  glimpse,  the  surety  undefined, 
The  unquenched  ardor  of  the  search. 

Happier  to  chase  a  flying  goal 

Than  to  sit  counting  laurelled  gains, 

To  guess  the  Soul  within  the  soul 
Than  to  be  lord  of  what  remains. 

Hide  still,  best  Good,  in  subtile  wise, 
Beyond  my  nature's  utmost  scope; 

Be  ever  absent  from  mine  eyes 
To  be  twice  present  in  my  hope  I 


326 


UNDER   THE   WILLOWS    AND   OTHER   POEMS 


GOLD  EGG:  A  DREAM-FANTASY 

HOW  A  STUDENT  IN  SEARCH  OF  THE 
BEAUTIFUL  FELL  ASLEEP  IN  DRESDEN 
OVER  HERR  PROFESSOR  DOCTOR  VI- 
SCHER'S  WISSENSCHAFT  DES  SCHONEN, 

AND   WHAT   CAME   THEREOF 

I  SWAM  with  undulation  soft, 

Adrift  on  Vischer's  ocean, 
And,  from  my  cockboat  up  aloft, 
Sent  down  my  mental  plummet  oft 

In  hope  to  reach  a  notion. 

But  from  the  metaphysic  sea 

No  bottom  was  forthcoming, 
And  all  the  while  (how  drearily  !) 
In  one  eternal  note  of  B 

My  German  stove  kept  humming. 

"  What 's  Beauty  ?  "  mused  I;  "is  it  told 

By  synthesis  ?  analysis  ? 
Have  you  not  made  us  lead  of  gold  ? 
To  feed  your  crucible,  not  sold 

Our  temple's  sacred  chalices  ?  " 

Then  o'er  my  senses  came  a  change; 

My  book  seemed  all  traditions, 
Old  legends  of  profoundest  range, 
Diablery,  and  stories  strange 

Of  goblins,  elves,  magicians. 

Old  gods  in  modern  saints  I  found, 
Old  creeds  in  strange  disguises; 
I  thought  them  safely  underground, 
And  here  they  were,  all  safe  and  sound, 
Without  a  sign  of  phthisis. 

Truth  was,  my  outward  eyes  were  closed, 

Although  I  did  not  know  it; 
Deep  into  dream-land  I  had  dozed, 
And  thus  was  happily  transposed 

From  proser  into  poet. 

So  what  I  read  took  flesh  and  blood, 

And  turned  to  living  creatures: 
The  words  were  but  the  dingy  bud 
That  bloomed,  like  Adam,  from  the  mud, 
To  human  forms  and  features. 

I  saw  how  Zeus  was  lodged  once  more 

By  Baucis  and  Philemon; 
The  text  said,  "  Not  alone  of  yore, 
But  every  day,  at  every  door 

Knocks  still  the  masking  Demon." 


D  AIM  ON  't  was  printed  in  the  book 

And,  as  I  read  it  slowly, 
The  letters  stirred  and  changed,  and  took 
Jove's  stature,  the  Olympian  look 

Of  painless  melancholy. 

He  paused  upon  the  threshold  worn: 
"  With  coin  I  cannot  pay  you ; 

Yet  would  I  fain  make  some  return; 

The  gift  for  cheapness  do  not  spurn, 
Accept  this  hen,  I  pray  you. 

"  Plain  feathers  wears  my  Hemera, 

And  has  from  ages  olden; 
She  makes  her  nest  in  common  hay, 
And  yet,  of  all  the  birds  that  lay, 

Her  eggs  alone  are  golden." 

He  turned,  and  could  no  more  be  seen; 

Old  Baucis  stared  a  moment, 
Then  tossed  poor  Partlet  on  the  green, 
And  with  a  tone,  half  jest,  half  spleen, 

Thus  made  her  housewife's  comment: 

u  The  stranger  had  a  queerish  face, 

His  smile  was  hardly  pleasant, 
And,  though  he  meant  it  for  a  grace, 
Yet  this  old  hen  of  barnyard  race 
Was  but  a  stingy  present. 

"  She 's  quite  too  old  for  laying  eggs, 

Nay,  even  to  make  a  soup  of; 
One  only  needs  to  see  her  legs,  — 
You  might  as  well  boil  down  the  pegs 
I  made  the  brood-hen's  coop  of  ! 

"  Some  eighteen  score  of  such  do  I 

Raise  every  year,  her  sisters; 
Go,  in  the  woods  your  fortunes  try, 
All  day  for  one  poor  earthworm  pry, 

And  scratch  your  toes  to  blisters  ! " 

Philemon  found  the  rede  was  good, 

And,  turning  on  the  poor  hen, 
He    clapt   his    hands,   and    stamped,   and 

shooed, 
Hunting  the  exile  tow'rd  the  wood, 

To  house  with  snipe  and  moor-hen. 

A  poet  saw  and  cried:  "  Hold  !  hold  ! 

What  are  you  doing,  madman  ? 
Spurn    you    more     wealth    than    can    be 

told, 
The  fowl  that  lays  the  eggs  of  gold, 

Because  she 's  plainly  clad,  man  ?  " 


A   FAMILIAR   EPISTLE   TO   A   FRIEND 


327 


To  him  Philemon:  M  I  '11  not  balk 

Thy  will  with  any  shackle; 
Wilt  add  a  burden  to  thy  walk  ? 
There  !  take  her  without  further  talk: 

You  're  both  but  fit  to  cackle  !  " 

But  scarce  the  poet  touched  the  bird, 

It  swelled  to  stature  regal; 
And  when  her  cloud-wide  wings  she  stirred, 
A  whisper  as  of  doom  was  heard, 

'T  was  Jove's  bolt-bearing  eagle. 

As  when  from  far-off  cloud-bergs  springs 

A  crag,  and,  hurtling  under, 
From  cliif  to  cliif  the  rumor  flings, 
So  she  from  flight-foreboding  wings 

Shook  out  a  murmurous  thunder. 

She  gripped  the  poet  to  her  breast, 

And  ever,  upward  soaring, 
Earth  seemed  a  new  moon  in  the  west, 
And  then  one  light  among  the  rest 

Where  squadrons  lie  at  mooring. 

How  tell  to  what  heaven  hallowed  seat 

The  eagle  bent  his  courses  ? 
The  waves  that  on  its  bases  beat, 
The  gales  that  round  it  weave  and  fleet, 

Are  life's  creative  forces. 

Here  was  the  bird's  primeval  nest, 

High  on  a  promontory 
Star-pharosecl,  where  she  takes  her  rest 
To  brood  new  aeons  'neath  her  breast, 

The  future's  unfledged  glory. 

I  know  not  how,  but  I  was  there 

All  feeling,  hearing,  seeing; 
It  was  not  wind  that  stirred  my  hair 
But  living  breath,  the  essence  rare 

Of  unembodied  being. 

And  in  the  nest  an  egg  of  gold 

Lay  soft  in  self-made  lustre, 
Gazing  whereon,  what  depths  untold 
Within,  what  marvels  manifold, 

Seemed  silently  to  muster  ! 

Daily  such  splendors  to  confront 

Is  still  to  me  and  you  sent  ? 
It  glowed  as  when  Saint  Peter's  front, 
Illumed,  forgets  its  stony  wont, 

And  seems  to  throb  translucent. 


One  saw  therein  the  life  of  man, 

(Or  so  the  poet  found  it,) 
The  yolk  and  white,  conceive  who  can, 
Were  the  glad  earth,  that,  floating,  span 

In  the  glad  heaven  around  it. 

I  knew  this  as  one  knows  in  dream, 

Where  no  effects  to  causes 
Are  chained  as  in  our  work-day  scheme, 
And  then  was  wakened  by  a  scream 

That  seemed  to  come  from  Baucis. 

«  Bless  Zeus  !  "  she  cried,  "  I  'm  safe  be- 
low  !  " 

First  pale,  then  red  as  coral ; 
And  I,  still  drowsy,  pondered  slow, 
And  seemed  to  find,  but  hardly  know, 

Something  like  this  for  moral. 

Each  day  the  world  is  born  anew 

For  him  who  takes  it  rightly; 
Not  fresher  that  which  Adam  knew, 
Not  sweeter  that  whose  moonlit  dew 

Entranced  Arcadia  nightly. 

Rightly  ?     That  's  simply:  't  is  to  see 
Some  substance  casts  these  shadows 
Which  we  call  Life  and  History, 
That  aimless  seem  to  chase  and  flee 
Like  wind-gleams  over  meadows. 

Simply  ?     That  's  nobly:  't  is  to  know 

That  God  may  still  be  met  with, 
Nor  groweth  old,  nor  doth  bestow 
These  senses  fine,  this  brain  aglow, 
To  grovel  and  forget  with. 

Beauty,  Herr  Doctor,  trust  in  me, 

No  chemistry  will  win  you; 
Charis  still  rises  from  the  sea: 
If  you  can't  find  her,  might  it  be 

Because  you  seek  within  you  ? 


A   FAMILIAR    EPISTLE   TO  A 
FRIEND 

The  friend  was  Miss  Jane  Norton,  sister  of 
Mr.  C.  E.  Norton. 

ALIKE  I  hate  to  be  your  debtor, 
Or  write  a  mere  perfunctory  letter; 
For  letters,  so  it  seems  to  me, 
Our  careless  quintessence  should  be, 
Our  real  nature's  truant  play 


328 


UNDER   THE   WILLOWS   AND   OTHER  POEMS 


When  Consciousness  looks  t'  other  way; 
Not  drop  by  drop,  with  watchful  skill, 
Gathered  in  Art's  deliberate  still, 
But  life's  insensible  completeness 
Got  as  the  ripe  grape  gets  its  sweetness, 
As  if  it  had  a  way  to  fuse 
The  golden  sunlight  into  juice. 
Hopeless  my  mental  pump  I  try, 
The  boxes  hiss,  the  tube  is  dry; 
As  those  petroleum  wells  that  spout 
Awhile  like  M.  C.'s,  then  give  out, 
My  spring,  once  full  as  Arethusa, 
Is  a  mere  bore  as  dry  's  Creusa; 
And  yet  you  ask  me  why  I  'm  glum, 
And  why  my  graver  Muse  is  dumb. 
Ah  me  !     I  've  reasons  manifold 
Condensed  in  one,  —  I  'm  getting  old  ! 

When  life,  once  past  its  fortieth  year, 
Wheels  up  its  evening  hemisphere, 
The  mind's  own  shadow,  which  the  boy 
Saw  onward  point  to  hope  and  joy, 
Shifts  round,  irrevocably  set 
Tow'rd  morning's  loss  and  vain  regret 
And,  argue  with  it  as  we  will, 
The  clock  is  unconverted  still. 

"  But  count  the  gains,"  I  hear  you  say, 
11  Which  far  the  seeming  loss  outweigh; 
Friendships   built   firm   'gainst  flood   and 

wind 

On  rock-foundations  of  the  mind; 
Knowledge  instead  of  scheming  hope; 
For  wild  adventure,  settled  scope; 
Talents,  from  surface-ore  profuse, 
Tempered  and  edged  to  tools  for  use; 
Judgment,  for  passion's  headlong  whirls; 
Old  sorrows  crystalled  into  pearls; 
Losses  by  patience  turned  to  gains, 
Possessions  now,  that  once  were  pains; 
Joy's  blossom  gone,  as  go  it  must, 
To  ripen  seeds  of  faith  and  trust ; 
Why  heed  a  snow-flake  on  the  roof 
If  fire  within  keep  Age  aloof, 
Though  blundering  north-winds  push  and 

strain 
With  palms  benumbed  against  the  pane  ?  " 

My  dear  old  Friend,  you're  very  wise; 
We  always  are  with  others'  eyes, 
And  see  so  clear  !  (our  neighbor's  deck  on) 
What  reef  the  idiot 's  sure  to  wreck  on; 
Folks  when  they  learn  how  life  has  quizzed 

'em 
Are  fain  to  make  a  shift  with  Wisdom, 


And,  finding  she  nor  breaks  nor  bends, 
Give  her  a  letter  to  their  friends. 
Draw  passion's  torrent  whoso  will 
Through  sluices  smooth  to  turn  a  mill, 
And,  taking  solid  toll  of  grist, 
Forget  the  rainbow  in  the  mist, 
The  exulting  leap,  the  aimless  haste 
Scattered  in  iridescent  waste; 
Prefer  who  likes  the  sure  esteem 
To  cheated  youth's  midsummer  dream, 
When  every  friend  was  more  than  Damon, 
Each  quicksand  safe  to  build  a  fame  on ; 
Believe  that  prudence  snug  excels 
Youth's  gross  of  verdant  spectacles, 
Through  which   earth's   withered   stubble 

seen 

Looks  autumn-proof  as  painted  green,  — 
I  side  with  Moses  'gainst  the  masses, 
Take  you  the  drudge,  give  me  the  glasses  ! 
And,  for  your  talents  shaped  with  practice, 
Convince  me  first  that  such  the  fact  is; 
Let  whoso  likes  be  beat,  poor  fool, 
On  life's  hard  stithy  to  a  tool, 
Be  whoso  will  a  ploughshare  made, 
Let  me  remain  a  jolly  blade  ! 

What  's  Knowledge,  with  her  stocks  and 

lands, 

To  gay  Conjecture's  yellow  strands  ? 
What  's  watching  her  slow  flock's  increase 
To  ventures  for  the  golden  fleece  ? 
What  her  deep  ships,  safe  under  lee, 
To  youth's  light  craft,  that  drinks  the  sea, 
For  Flying  Islands  making  sail, 
And  failing  where  't  is  gain  to  fail  ? 
Ah  me  !     Experience  (so  we  're  told), 
Time's  crucible,  turns  lead  to  gold; 
Yet  what 's  experience  won  but  dross, 
Cloud-gold  transmuted  to  our  loss  ? 
What  but  base  coin  the  best  event 
To  the  untried  experiment  ? 

'T  was  an  old  couple,  says  the  poet, 

That  lodged  the  gods  and  did  not  know  it; 

Youth  sees  and  knows  them  as  they  were 

Before  Olympus'  top  was  bare; 

From  Swampscot's  flats  his  eye  divine 

Sees  Venus  rocking  on  the  brine, 

With  lucent  limbs,  that  somehow  scatter  a 

Charm  that  turns  Doll  to  Cleopatra  ; 

Bacchus  (that  now  is  scarce  induced 

To  give  Eld's  lagging  blood  a  boost), 

With  cymbals'  clang  and   pards  to  draw 

him, 
Divine  as  Ariadne  saw  him, 


AN   EMBER   PICTURE 


329 


Stprms  through  Youth's  pulse  with  all  his 

train 

And  wins  new  Indies  in  his  brain; 
Apollo  (with  the  old  a  trope, 
A  sort  of  finer  Mister  Pope), 
Apollo  —  but  the  Muse  forbids: 
At  his  approach  cast  down  thy  lids, 
And  think  it  joy  enough  to  hear 
Far  off  his  arrows  singing  clear; 
He  knows  enough  who  silent  knows 
The  quiver  chiming  as  he  goes; 
He  tells  too  much  who  e'er  betrays 
The  shining  Archer's  secret  ways. 

Dear    Friend,   you   're    right    and  I    am 

wrong; 

My  quibbles  are  not  worth  a  song, 
And  I  sophistically  tease 
My  fancy  sad  to  tricks  like  these. 
I  could  not  cheat  you  if  I  would; 
You  know  me  and  my  jesting  mood, 
Mere  surface-foam,  for  pride  concealing 
The  purpose  of  my  deeper  feeling. 
I  have  not  spilt  one  drop  of  joy 
Poured  in  the  senses  of  the  boy, 
Nor  Nature  fails  my  walks  to  bless 
With  all  her  golden  inwardness; 
And  as  blind  nestlings,  unafraid, 
Stretch  up  wide-mouthed  to  every  shade 
By  which  their  downy  dream  is  stirred, 
Taking  it  for  the  mother-bird, 
So,  when  God's  shadow,  which  is  light, 
Unheralded,  by  day  or  night, 
My  wakening  instincts  falls  across, 
Silent  as  sunbeams  over  moss, 
In  my  heart's  nest  half-conscious  things 
Stir  with  a  helpless  sense  of  wings, 
Lift  themselves  up,  and  tremble  long 
With  premonitions  sweet  of  song. 

Be  patient,  and  perhaps  (who  knows  ?) 

These  may  be  winged  one  day  like  those; 

If  thrushes,  close-embowered  to  sing, 

Pierced  through  with  June's  delicious  sting; 

If  swallows,  their  half-hour  to  run 

Star- breasted  in  the  setting  sun. 

At  first  they  're  but  the  unfledged  proem, 

Or  songless  schedule  of  a  poem; 

When  from  the  shell  they  're  hardly  dry 

If  some  folks  thrust  them  forth,  must  I  ? 

But  let  me  end  with  a  comparison 
Never  yet  hit  upon  by  e'er  a  son 
Of  our  American  Apollo, 


(And  there  's  where  I  shall  beat  them  hol 
low, 

If  he  indeed 's  no  courtly  St.  John, 
But,  as  West  said,  a  Mohawk  Injun.) 
A  poem  's  like  a  cruise  for  whales: 
Through  untried  seas  the  hunter  sails, 
His  prow  dividing  waters  known 
To  the  blue  iceberg's  hulk  alone; 
At  last,  on  farthest  edge  of  day, 
He  marks  the  smoky  puff  of  spray; 
Then  with  bent  oars  the  shallop  flies 
To  where  the  basking  quarry  lies; 
Then  the  excitement  of  the  strife, 
The  crimsoned  waves,  —  ah,  this  is  life! 

But,  the  dead  plunder  once  secured 
And  safe  beside  the  vessel  moored, 
All  that  had  stirred  the  blood  before 
Is  so  much  blubber,  nothing  more, 
(I  mean  no  pun,  nor  image  so 
Mere  sentimental  verse,  you  know,) 
And  all  is  tedium,  smoke,  and  soil, 
In  trying  out  the  noisome  oil. 

Yes,  this  is  life!    And  so  the  bard 
Through  briny  deserts,  never  scarred 
Since  Noah's  keel,  a  subject  seeks, 
And  lies  upon  the  watch  for  weeks ; 
That  once  harpooned  and  helpless  lying, 
What  follows  is  but  weary  trying. 

Now  I  've  a  notion,  if  a  poet 
Beat  up  for  themes,  his  verse  will  show  it; 
I  wait  for  subjects  that  hunt  me, 
By  day  or  night  won't  let  me  be, 
And  hang  about  me  like  a  curse, 
Till  they  have  made  me  into  verse, 
From  line  to  line  my  fingers  tease 
Beyond  my  knowledge,  as  the  bees 
Build  no  new  cell  till  those  before 
With  limpid  summer-sweet  run  o'er; 
Then,  if  I  neither  sing  nor  shine, 
Is  it  the  subject's  fault,  or  mine  ? 


AN  EMBER  PICTURE 

How  strange  are  the  freaks  of  memory! 

The  lessons  of  life  we  forget, 
While  a  trifle,  a  trick  of  color, 

In  the  wonderful  web  is  set,  — 

Set  by  some  mordant  of  fancy, 
And,  spite  of  the  wear  and  tear 


33° 


UNDER   THE   WILLOWS   AND   OTHER    POEMS 


Of  time  or  distance  or  trouble, 
Insists  on  its  right  to  be  there. 

A  chance  had  brought  us  together; 

Our  talk  was  of  matters-of-course ; 
We  were  nothing,  one  to  the  other, 

But  a  short  half-hour's  resource. 

We  spoke  of  French  acting  and  actors, 

And  their  easy,  natural  way : 
Of  the  weather,  for  it  was  raining 

As  we  drove  home  from  the  play. 

We  debated  the  social  nothings 
We  bore  ourselves  so  to  discuss; 

The  thunderous  rumors  of  battle 
Were  silent  the  while  for  us. 

Arrived  at  her  door,  we  left  her 
With  a  drippingly  hurried  adieu, 

And  our  wheels  went  crunching  the  gravel 
Of  the  oak-darkened  avenue. 

As  we  drove  away  through  the  shadow, 
The  candle  she  held  in  the  door 

From   rain-varnished   tree-trunk   to    tree- 
trunk 
Flashed  fainter,  and  flashed  no  more;  — 

Flashed  fainter,  then  wholly  faded 
Before  we  had  passed  the  wood; 

But  the  light  of  the  face  behind  it 
Went  with  me  and  stayed  for  good. 

The  vision  of  scarce  a  moment, 
And  hardly  marked  at  the  time, 

It  comes  unbidden  to  haunt  me, 
Like  a  scrap  of  ballad-rhyme. 

Had  she  beauty?    Well,  not  what  they  call 
so; 

You  may  find  a  thousand  as  fair; 
And  yet  there  's  her  face  in  my  memory 

With  no  special  claim  to  be  there. 

As  I  sit  sometimes  in  the  twilight, 
And  call  back  to  life  in  the  coals 

Old  faces  and  hopes  and  fancies 

Long  buried,  (good  rest  to  their  souls!) 

Her  face  shines  out  in  the  embers; 

I  see  her  holding  the  light, 
And  hear  the  crunch  of  the  gravel 

And  the  sweep  of  the  rain  that  night. 


'T  is  a  face  that  can  never  grow  older, 
That  never  can  part  with  its  gleam, 

'T  is  a  gracious  possession  forever, 
For  is  it  not  all  a  dream  ? 


TO   H.    W.    L. 


ON  HIS  BIRTHDAY,  27TH   FEBRUARY,  1867 

"  ELMWOOD,  February  27,  1867. 

"MY  DEAR  LONGFELLOW,  —  On  looking 
back,  I  find  that  our  personal  intercourse  is  now 
of  nearly  thirty  years'  date.  It  began  on  your 
part  in  a  note  acknowledging1  my  Class  Poem 
much  more  kindly  than  it  deserved.  Since 
then  it  has  ripened  into  friendship,  and  there 
has  never  been  a  jar  between  us.  If  there  had 
been,  it  would  certainly  have  been  my  fault 
and  not  yours.  Friendship  is  called  the  wine 
of  life,  and  there  certainly  is  a  stimulus  in  it 
that  warms  and  inspires  as  we  grow  older. 
Ours  should  have  some  body  to  have  kept  so 
long. 

"  I  planned  you  a  little  surprise  in  the  Ad 
vertiser  for  your  birthday  breakfast.  I  hope 
my  nosegay  did  not  spoil  the  flavor  of  your 
coffee.  It  is  a  hard  thing  to  make  one  that 
will  wholly  please,  for  some  flowers  will  not 
bear  to  be  handled  without  wilting,  and  the 
kind  I  have  tried  to  make  a  pretty  bunch  of  is 
of  that  variety.  But  let  me  hope  the  best  from 
your  kindness,  if  not  from  their  color  or  per 
fume. 

"  In  case  they  should  please  you  (and  be 
cause  there  was  one  misprint  in  the  Advertiser, 
and  two  phrases  which  1  have  now  made  more 
to  my  mind),  I  have  copied  them  that  you 
might  have  them  in  my  own  handwriting.  In 
print,  you  see,  I  have  omitted  the  tell-tale 
ciphers  —  not  that  there  was  anything  to  regret 
in  them,  for  we  have  a  proverbial  phrase  '  like 
sixty  '  which  implies  not  only  unabated  but  ex 
traordinary  vigor. 

"  Wishing  you  as  many  happy  returns  as  a 
wise  man  should  desire,  I  remain  always  affec 
tionately  yours,  J.  R.  L."  Letters  I.  378,  379. 

I  NEED  not  praise  the  sweetness  of  his  song, 
Where    limpid    verse   to   limpid   verse 

succeeds 
Smooth  as  our  Charles,  when,  fearing  lest 

he  wrong 
The  new  moon's  mirrored  skiff,  he  slides 

along, 

Full  without  noise,  and  whispers  in  his 
reeds. 


THE   NIGHTINGALE   IN   THE   STUDY 


331 


With  loving  breath  of   all  the  winds  his 

name 
Is  blown   about  the   world,  but  to  his 

friends 

A  sweeter  secret  hides  behind  his  fame, 
And   Love  steals   shyly  through  the  loud 

acclaim 

To  murmur  a  God  bless  you  I  and  there 
ends. 

As   I  muse   backward   up   the   checkered 

years 
Wherein  so  much  was  given,  so  much 

was  lost, 
Blessings  in  both  kinds,  such  as   cheapen 

tears,  — 

But  hush  !  this  is  not  for  profaner  ears; 
Let  them  driuk  molten  pearls  nor  dream 
the  cost. 

Some  suck  up  poison  from  a  sorrow's  core, 
As   naught   but   nightshade   grew  upon 

earth's  ground; 
Love  turned  all  his  to  heart's-ease,  and  the 

more 
Fate  tried  his  bastions,  she  but  forced  a 

door 

Leading  to  sweeter  manhood  and  more 
sound. 

Even  as  a  wind-waved  fountain's  swaying 

shade 
Seems  of  mixed  race,  a  gray  wraith  shot 

with  sun, 

So  through  his  trial  faith  translucent  rayed 
Till  darkness,  half  disnatured  so,  betrayed 
A   heart   of   sunshine   that    would   fain 
o'errun. 

Surely  if  skill  in  song  the  shears  may  stay 
And  of  its  purpose  cheat  the  charmed 

abyss, 

If  our  poor  life  be  lengthened  by  a  lay, 
He    shall   not   go,   although   his   presence 

may, 

And  the  next  age  in  praise  shall  double 
this. 

Long  days  be  his,  and  each  as  lusty-sweet 
As  gracious  natures  find  his  song  to  be; 
May  Age  steal  on  with  softly-cadenced  feet 
Falling  in  music,  as  for  him  were  meet 
Whose   choicest   verse  is   harsher-toned 
than  he  ! 


THE   NIGHTINGALE   IN    THE 
STUDY 

"  While  I  was  most  unwell,"  Lowell  wrote 
to  a  friend,  September  21,  1875,  "  I  could  not 
find  any  reading  that  would  seclude  me  from 
myself  till  one  day  I  bethought  me  of  Cal- 
deron.  I  took  down  a  volume  of  his  plays, 
and  in  half  an  hour  was  completely  absorbed. 
He  is  surely  one  of  the  most  marvellous  of 
poets.  I  have  recorded  my  debt  to  him  in  a 
poem,  The  Nightingale  in  the  Study." 

"  COME  forth  !  "  my  catbird  calls  to  me, 
"  And  hear  me  sing  a  cavatina 

That,  in  this  old  familar  tree, 
Shall  hang  a  garden  of  Alcina. 

"  These  buttercups  shall  brim  with  wine 
Beyond  all  Lesbian  juice  or  Massic; 

May  not  New  England  be  divine  ? 
My  ode  to  ripening  summer  classic  ? 

"  Or,  if  to  me  you  will  not  hark, 

By  Beaver  Brook  a  thrush  is  ringing 

Till  all  the  alder-coverts  dark 

Seem    sunshine-dappled    with   his   sing 
ing. 

"  Come  out  beneath  the  unmastered  sky, 
With  its  emancipating  spaces, 

And  learn  to  sing  as  well  as  I, 
Without  premeditated  graces. 

"  What  boot  your  many-volumed  gains, 
Those  withered  leaves  forever  turning, 

To  win,  at  best,  for  all  your  pains, 
A  nature  mummy-wrapt  in  learning  ? 

"  The  leaves  wherein  true  wisdom  lies 
On  living  trees  the  sun  are  drinking; 

Those  white  clouds,  drowsing  through  the 

skies, 
Grew  not  so  beautiful  by  thinking. 

"  '  Come  out  ! '  with  me  the  oriole  cries, 
Escape  the  demon  that  pursues  you  ! 

And,  hark,  the  cuckoo  weatherwise, 

Still  hiding  farther  onward,  wooes  you." 

"Alas,  dear  friend,  that,  all  my  days, 
Hast  poured  from  that  syringa  thicket 

The  quaintly  discontinuous  lays 
To  which  I  hold  a  season-ticket, 


332 


UNDER  THE  WILLOWS   AND   OTHER   POEMS 


"  A  season-ticket  cheaply  bought 
With  a  dessert  of  pilfered  berries, 

And  who  so  oft  my  soul  hast  caught 
With  morn  and  evening  voluntaries, 

"  Deem  me  not  faithless,  if  all  day 
Among  my  dusty  books  I  linger, 

No  pipe,  like  thee,  for  June  to  play 
With  fancy-led,  half-conscious  finger. 

"  A  bird  is  singing  in  my  brain 

And  bubbling   o'er   with   mingled  fan 
cies, 
Gay,  tragic,  rapt,  right  heart  of  Spain 

Fed  with  the  sap  of  old  romances. 

"  I  ask  no  ampler  skies  than  those 
His  magic  music  rears  above  me, 

No  falser  friends,  no  truer  foes,  — 
And  does  not  Dona  Clara  love  me  ? 

"Cloaked  shapes,  a  twanging  of  guitars, 
A  rush  of  feet,  and  rapiers  clashing, 

Then  silence  deep  with  breathless  stars, 
And  overhead  a  white  hand  flashing. 

"  O  music  of  all  moods  and  climes, 
Vengeful,  forgiving,  sensuous,  saintly, 

Where  still,  between  the  Christian  chimes, 
The  Moorish  cymbal  tinkles  faintly  ! 

"  O  life  borne  lightly  in  the  hand, 

For  friend    or    foe    with   grace   Castil- 

ian  ! 
O  valley  safe  in  Fancy's  land, 

Not  tramped  to  mud  yet  by  the  mil 
lion  ! 

"  Bird  of  to-day,  thy  songs  are  stale 
To  his,  my  singer  of  all  weathers, 

My  Calderon,  my  nightingale, 

My  Arab  soul  in  Spanish  feathers. 

"  Ah,  friend,  these  singers  dead  so  long, 
And  still,  God  knows,  in  purgatory, 

Give  its  best  sweetness  to  all  song, 
To  Nature's  self  her  better  glory." 


IN   THE   TWILIGHT 

MEN  say  the  sullen  instrument, 
That,  from  the  Master's  bow, 
With  pangs  of  joy  or  woe, 


Feels  music's  soul  through  every  fibre  sent, 

Whispers  the  ravished  strings 
More  than  he  knew  or  meant  ; 

Old  summers  in  its  memory  glow  ; 
The  secrets  of  the  wind  it  sings  ; 
It  hears  the  April-loosened  springs  ; 
And  mixes  with  its  mood 
All  it  dreamed  when  it  stood 
In  the  murmurous  pine-wood 
Long  ago ! 

The  magical  moonlight  then 

Steeped  every  bough  and  cone  ; 
The  roar  of  the  brook  in  the  glen 

Came  dim  from  the  distance  blown  ; 
The  wind  through  its  glooms  sang  low, 
And  it  swayed  to  and  fro 
With  delight  as  it  stood, 
In  the  wonderful  wood, 
Long  ago  ! 

O  my  life,  have  we  not  had  seasons 
That  only  said,  Live  and  rejoice  ? 
That  asked  not  for  causes  and  reasons, 
But  made  us  all  feeling  and  voice  ? 
When  we   went  with   the  winds  in   their 

blowing, 

When  Nature  and  we  were  peers, 
And  we  seemed  to  share  in  the  flowing 
Of  the  inexhaustible  years  ? 
Have  we  not  from  the  earth  drawn  juices 
Too  fine  for  earth's  sordid  uses  ? 
Have  I  heard,  have  I  seen 

All  I  feel,  all  I  know  ? 
Doth  my  heart  overween  ? 
Or  could  it  have  been 
Long  ago  ? 

Sometimes  a  breath  floats  by  me, 

An  odor  from  Dreamland  sent, 
That  makes  the  ghost  seem  nigh  me 

Of  a  splendor  that  came  and  went, 
Of  a  life  lived  somewhere,  I  know  not 

In  what  diviner  sphere, 
Of  memories  that  stay  not  and  go  not, 

Like  music  heard  once  by  an  ear 

That  cannot  forget  or  reclaim  it, 
A  something  so  shy,  it  would  shame  it 

To  make  it  a  show, 
A  something  too  vague,  could  I  name  it, 

For  others  to  know, 
As  if  I  had  lived  it  or  dreamed  it, 
As  if  I  had  acted  or  schemed  it, 
Long  ago ! 


THE   FOOT-PATH 


333 


And  yet,  could  I  live  it  over, 

This  life  that  stirs  in  my  brain, 
Could  I  be  both  maiden  and  lover, 
Moon  and  tide,  bee  and  clover, 

As  I  seem  to  have  been,  once  again, 
Could  I  but  speak  it  and  show  it, 
This  pleasure  more  sharp  than  pain, 

That  baffles  and  lures  me  so, 
The  world  should  once  more  have  a  poet, 
Such  as  it  had 
In  the  ages  glad, 
Long  ago ! 


THE   FOOT-PATH 

IT  mounts  athwart  the  windy  hill 

Through  sallow  slopes  of  upland  bare, 

And  Fancy  climbs  with  foot-fall  still 
Its  narrowing  curves  that  end  in  air. 

By  day,  a  warmer-hearted  blue 

Stoops  softly  to  that  topmost  swell  ; 

Its  thread-like  windings  seem  a  clue 
To  gracious  climes  where  all  is  well. 

By  night,  far  yonder,  I  surmise 

An  ampler  world  than  clips  my  ken, 

Where  the  great  stars  of  happier  skies 
Commingle  nobler  fates  of  men. 

I  look  and  long,  then  haste  me  home, 
Still  master  of  my  secret  rare  ; 

Once  tried,  the  path  would  end  in  Rome, 
But  now  it  leads  me  everywhere. 

Forever  to  the  new  it  guides, 

From  former  good,  old  overmuch  ; 

What  Nature  for  her  poets  hides, 
'T  is  wiser  to  divine  than  clutch. 

The  bird  I  list  hath  never  come 
Within  the  scope  of  mortal  ear  ; 

My  prying  step  would  make  him  dumb, 
And  the  fair  tree,  his  shelter,  sear. 

Behind  the  hill,  behind  the  sky, 

Behind  my  inmost  thought,  he  sings  ; 


No  feet  avail  ;  to  hear  it  nigh, 

The  song  itself  must  lend  the  wings. 

Sing  on,  sweet  bird  close  hid,  and  raise 
Those  angel  stairways  in  my  brain, 

That  climb  from  these  low- vaulted  days 
To  spacious  sunshines  far  from  pain. 

Sing  when  thou  wilt,  enchantment  fleet, 
I  leave  thy  covert  haunt  untrod, 

And  envy  Science  not  her  feat 
To  make  a  twice-told  tale  of  God. 

They  said  the  fairies  tript  no  more, 
And  long  ago  that  Pan  was  dead; 

'T  was  but  that  fools  preferred  to  bore 
Earth's  rind  inch-deep  for  truth  instead. 

Pan  leaps  and  pipes  all  summer  long, 
The  fairies  dance  each  full-mooned  night, 

Would  we  but  doff  our  lenses  strong, 
And  trust  our  wiser  eyes'  delight. 

City  of  Elf-land,  just  without 

Our  seeing,  marvel  ever  new, 
Glimpsed  in  fair  weather,  a  sweet  doubt 

Sketched-in,  mirage-like,  on  the  blue, 

I  build  thee  in  yon  sunset  cloud, 

Whose  edge  allures  to  climb  the  height; 
I  hear  thy  drowned  bells,  inly-loud, 

From  still  pools  dusk  with  dreams  of 
night. 

Thy  gates  are  shut  to  hardiest  will, 

Thy  countersign  of  long-lost  speech,  — 

Those  fountained   courts,   those   chambers 

still, 
Fronting  Time's  far  East, who  shall  reach? 

I  know  not,  and  will  never  pry, 
But  trust  our  human  heart  for  all; 

Wonders  that  from  the  seeker  fly 
Into  an  open  sense  may  fall. 

Hide  in  thine  own  soul,  and  surprise 
The  password  of  the  unwary  elves; 

Seek  it,  thou  canst  not  bribe  their  spies; 
Unsought,  they  whisper  it  themselves. 


334 


POEMS   OF  THE  WAR 


POEMS   OF  THE  WAR 


THE  WASHERS  OF  THE  SHROUD 

OCTOBER,    l86l 

Lowell  wrote  at  some  length  to  C.  E.  Norton 
concerning  the  production  of  this  poem. 

ELMWOOD,  Oct.  12, 1861. 

.  .  .  You  urged  me  to  read  poetry  —  to  feed 
myself  on  bee  bread  —  so  that  I  might  g'et  into 
the  mood  of  writing  some.  Well,  I  have  n't  been 
reading  any,  but  I  have  written  something  — 
whether  poetry  or  no  I  cannot  tell  yet.  But  I 
want  you  to  like  it  if  you  can.  Leigh  Hunt 
speaks  somewhere  of  our  writing  things  for  par 
ticular  people,  and  wondering  as  we  write  if 
such  or  such  a  one  will  like  it.  Just  so  I 
thought  of  you,  after  I  had  written  —  for  while 
I  was  writing  I  was  wholly  absorbed.  I  had 
just  two  days  allowed  me  by  Fields  for  the 
November  Atlantic,  and  I  got  it  done.  It  had 
been  in  my  head  some  time,  and  when  you  see 
it  you  will  remember  my  having  spoken  to  you 
about  it.  Indeed,  I  owe  it  to  you,  for  the  hint 
came  from  one  of  those  books  of  Souvestre's 
you  lent  me  —  the  Breton  legends.  The  writ 
ing  took  hold  of  me  enough  to  leave  me  tired 
out  and  to  satisfy  me  entirely  as  to  what  was 
the  original  of  my  head  and  back  pains.  But 
whether  it  is  good  or  not,  I  am  not  yet  far 
enough  off  to  say.  But  do  like  it,  if  you  can. 
Fields  says  it  is  "  splendid,"  with  tears  in  his 
eyes  —  but  then  I  read  it  to  him,  which  is  half 
the  battle.  I  began  it  as  a  lyric,  but  it  would 
be  too  aphoristic  for  that,  and  finally  flatly 
refused  to  sing  at  any  price.  So  I  submit 
ted,  took  to  pentameters,  and  only  hope  the 
thoughts  are  good  enough  to  be  preserved  in 
the  ice  of  the  colder  and  almost  glacier-slow 
measure.  I  think  I  have  done  well  —  in  some 
stanzas  at  least  —  and  not  wasted  words.  It 
is  about  present  matters  —  but  abstract  enough 
to  be  above  the  newspapers.  .  .  . 

/ALONG  a  river-side,  I  know  not  where, 
I  walked  one  night  in  mystery  of  dream; 
A  chill   creeps   curdling  yet   beneath   my 

hair, 
To  think  what  chanced  me   by  the   pallid 

gleam 
Of   a   moon-wraith    that    waned    through 

haunted  air. 


Pale  fireflies  pulsed  within  the  meadow- 

inist 
Their    halos,    wavering   thistle    downs   of 

light; 
The  loon,  that  seemed  to  mock  some  goblin 

tryst, 
Laughed;  and  the  echoes,  huddling  in  af 

fright, 
Like  Odin's  hounds,  fled  baying  down  the 

night. 

Then  all  was  silent,  till  there  smote  my 

ear 
A  movement  in  the  stream  that  checked 

my  breath: 

Was  it  the  slow  plash  of  a  wading  deer  ? 
But   something    said,    "  This   water  is   of 

Death  ! 
The  Sisters  wash  a  shroud,  —  ill  thing  to 

tear!" 


I,  looking  then,  beheld  the  ancient  Three 
Known  to  the  Greek's  and  to  the  North 

man's  creed, 

That  sit  in  shadow  of  the  mystic  Tree, 
Still  crooning,  as  they  weave  their  endless 

brede, 

One  song:  "Time  was,  Time  is,  and  Time 
—       shall  be." 

No  wrinkled  crones  were  they,  as  I  had 

deemed, 

But  fair  as  yesterday,  to-day,  to-morrow, 
To  mourner,  lover,  poet,  ever  seemed; 
Something  too  high  for  joy,  too  deep   for 

sorrow, 
Thrilled   in   their  tones,   and    from   their 

faces  gleamed. 

I  "  Still  men  and  nations  reap  as  they  have 

strawn," 
So   sang   they,  working  at  their  task  the 

while  ; 
"  The  fatal  raiment  must  be  cleansed  ere 

dawn: 
For    Austria?    Italy?    the    Sea  -Queen's 

isle? 
O'er   what   quenched  grandeur  must   our 

shroud  be  drawn  ? 


THE   WASHERS   OF   THE   SHROUD 


335 


"  Or  is  it  for  a  younger,  fairer  corse, 
That  gatnered  States   like  children  round 

his  knees, 

That  tamed  the  wave  to  be  his  posting- 
horse, 

Feller  of  forests,  linker  of  the  seas, 
Bridge-builder,  hammerer,  youngest  son  of 
Thor's  ? 

"  What   make   we,   murmur'st  thou  ?   and 

what  are  we  ? 
When  empires  must   be  wound,  we   bring 

the  shroud, 

The  time-old  web  of  the  implacable  Three : 
Is  it  too  coarse  for   him,  the   young   and 

proud  ? 
Earth's   mightiest  deigned   to   wear  it,  — 

why  not  he  ?  " 

**  Is  there  no  hope?  "  I  moaned,  "  so  strong, 

' — -       so  fair! 

Our  Fowler  whose  proud  bird  would  brook 

erewhile 

No  rival's  swoop  in  all  our  western  air! 
Gather  the  ravens,  then,  in  funeral  file 
For  him,  life's  morn  yet  golden  in  his  hair? 

"Leave    me    not   hopeless,   ye   unpitying 
U_^          dames! 

I  see,  half  seeing.    Tell  me,  ye  who  scanned 
The  stars,  Earth's  elders,  still  must  noblest 

aims 

Be  traced  upon  oblivious  ocean-sands? 
Must  Hesper  join   the  wailing   ghosts    of 

names  ?  " 

"  When  grass-blades  stiffen  with  red  battle- 
dew, 

Ye  deem  we  choose  the  victor  and  the  slain: 

Say,  choose  we  them  that  shall  be  leal  and 
true 

To  the  heart's  longing,  the  high  faith  of 
brain? 

Yet  there  the  victory  lies,  if  ye  but  knew. 

"Three  roots  bear  up  Dominion:  Know 
ledge,  Will,  — 

These  twain  are  strong,  but  stronger  yet 
the  third,  — 

Obedience,  —  't  is  the  great  tap-root  that 
still, 

Knit  round  the  rock  of  Duty,  is  not  stirred, 

Though  Heaven  -  loosed  tempests  spend 
their  utmost  skill. 


"  Is  the  doom  sealed  for  Hesper?  'T  is  not 
we 

Denounce  it,  but  the  Law  before  all  time: 

The  brave  makes  danger  opportunity; 

The  waverer,  paltering  with  the  chance  sub 
lime, 

Dwarfs  it  to  peril:  which  shall  Hesper  be? 

"  Hath  he  let  vultures  climb   his   eagle's 

seat 
To  make  Jove's  bolts  purveyors  of  their 

maw  ? 
Hath  he  the  Many's  plaudits  found  more 

sweet 
Than  Wisdom  ?    held  Opinion's  wind  for 

Law? 
Then  let  him  hearken  for  the  doomster's 

feet! 

"  Hough  are  the  steps,  slow-hewn  in  flint 
iest  rock, 

States  climb  to  power  by;  slippery  those 
with  gold 

Down  which  they  stumble  to  eternal  mock: 

No  chafferer's  hand  shall  long  the  sceptre 
hold, 

Who,  given  a  Fate  to  shape,  would  sell  the 
block. 

"  We  sing  old  Sagas,  songs  of  weal  and  woe, 
Mystic  because  too  cheaply  understood; 
Dark  sayings  are  not  ours;  men  hear  and 

know, 

See  Evil  weak,  see  strength  alone  in  Good, 
Yet  hope  to  stem  God's  fire  with  walls  of 

tow. 

"Time  Was  unlocks  the  riddle  of  Time  Is, 
That  offers  choice  of  fflory  or  of  gloom; 
The  solver  makes  Time  Shall   Be  surely 

his. 

But  hasten,  Sisters!  for  even  now  the  tomb 
Grates  its    slow  hinge  and  calls  from  the 

abyss." 

"  But  not  for  him,"  I  cried,  "  not  yet  for  ' 

him, 
Whose  large   horizon,  westering,  star  by 

star 
Wins  from  the  void  to  where  on  Ocean's 

rim 

The  sunset  shuts  the  world  with  golden  bar, 
Not  yet  his  thews  shall  fail,  his  eye  grow 

dim! 


336 


POEMS    OF  THE  WAR 


"  His  shall  be  larger  manhood,  saved  for 
those 

That  walk  uublenching  through  the  trial- 
fires  ; 

Not  suffering,  but  faint  heart,  is  worst  of 


And  he  no  base-born  son  of  craven  sires, 
Whose  eye  need  blench  confronted  with  his 
foes. 

"  Tears  may  be  ours,  but  proud,  for  those 
who  win 

Death's  royal  purple  in  the  foeman's  lines; 

Peace,  too,  brings  tears  ;  and  mid  the  bat 
tle-din, 

The  wiser  ear  some  text  of  God  divines, 

For  the  sheathed  blade  may  rust  with 
darker  sin. 

"God,  give  us  peace!  not  such  as  lulls  to 

sleep, 
But  sword  on  thigh,  and  brow  with  purpose 

knit! 

And  let  our  Ship  of  State  to  harbor  sweep, 
Her  ports  all  up,  her  battle-lanterns  lit, 
And  her  leashed  thunders    gathering   for 

their  leap! " 

So  cried  I  with  clenched  hands  and  passion 
ate  pain, 

Thinking  of  dear  ones  by  Potomac's  side ; 

Again  the  loon  laughed  mocking,  and 
again 

The  echoes  bayed  far  down  the  night  and 
died, 

While  waking  I   recalled   my   wandering 

U  brain. 

• 

TWO   SCENES    FROM   THE   LIFE 
OF   BLONDEL 

AUTUMN,  1863 

SCENE  I.  —  Near  a  castle  in  Germany. 

'TWERE  no  hard  task,  perchance,  to  win 

The  popular  laurel  for  my  song  ; 
'T  were  only  to  comply  with  sin, 

And  own  the  crown,  though  snatched  by 

wrong: 
Rather  Truth's  chaplet  let  me  wear, 

Though  sharp  as  death  its  thorns  may 

sting; 
Loyal  to  Loyalty,  I  bear 

No  badge  but  of  my  rightful  king. 


Patient  by  town  and  tower  I  wait, 

Or  o'er  the  blustering  moorland  go; 
I  buy  no  praise  at  cheaper  rate, 

Or  what  faint  hearts  may  fancy  so; 
For  me,  no  joy  in  lady's  bower, 

Or  hall,  or  tourney,  will  I  sing, 
Till  the  slow  stars  wheel  round  the  hour 

That  crowns  my  hero  and  my  king. 

While  all  the  land  runs  red  with  strife, 

And  wealth  is  won  by  pedler-crimes, 
Let  who  will  find  content  in  life 

And  tinkle  in  unmanly  rhymes; 
I  wait  and  seek  ;  through  dark  and  light, 

Safe  in  my  heart  my  hope  I  bring, 
Till  I  once  more  my  faith  may  plight 

To  him  my  whole  soul  owns  her  king. 

When  power  is  filched  by  drone  and  dolt, 

And,  with  caught  breath  and  flashing  eye, 
Her  knuckles  whitening  round  the  bolt, 

Vengeance  leans  eager  from  the  sky, 
While  this  and  that  the  people  guess, 

And  to  the  skirts  of  praters  cling, 
Who  court  the  crowd  they  should  compress, 

I  turn  in  scorn  to  seek  my  king. 

Shut  in  what  tower  of  darkling  chance 

Or  dungeon  of  a  narrow  doom, 
Dream'st  thou  of  battle-axe  and  lance 

That  for  the  Cross  make  crashing  room  ? 
Come!  with  hushed  breath  the  battle  waits 

In  the  wild  van  thy  mace's  swing; 
While  doubters  parley  with  their  fates, 

Make  thou  thine  own  and  ours,  my  king! 

O  strong  to  keep  upright  the  old, 

And  wise  to  buttress  with  the  new, 
Prudent,  as  only  are  the  bold, 

Clear-eyed,  as  only  are  the  true, 
To  foes  benign,  to  friendship  stern, 

Intent  to  imp  Law's  broken  wing, 
Who  would  not  die,  if  death  might  earn 

The  right  to  kiss  thy  hand,  my  king  ? 

SCENE  II.  —  An  Inn  near  the   Chateau  of 
Chains. 

Well,  the  whole  thing  is  over,  and  here  I  sit 
With  one  arm  in  a  sling  and  a  milk-score 

of  gashes, 
And  this  flagon  of  Cyprus  must  e'en  warm 

my  wit, 

Since  what's  left  of  youth's  flame  is  a 
head  flecked  with  ashes. 


MEMORLE   POSITUM 


337 


I  remember  I  sat  in  this  very  same  inn,  — 
I  was  young  then,  and  one  young  man 

thought  I  was  handsome,  — 
I  had  found  out  what  prison  King  Richard 

was  in, 

And  was  spurring  for  England  to  push  on 
the  ransom. 

How  I  scorned  the  dull  souls  that  sat  guz 
zling  around 
And  knew  not  my  secret  nor  recked  my 

derision! 
Let  the  world  sink  or  swim,  John  or  Richard 

be  crowned, 

All  one,  so  the  beer-tax  got  lenient  revi 
sion. 
How  little  I  dreamed,  as  I  tramped  up  and 

down, 
That  granting  our  wish  one  of  Fate's 

saddest  jokes  is! 
I  had  mine  with  a  vengeance,  —  my  king 

got  his  crown, 

And  made  his  whole  business  to  break 
other  folks's. 

I  might  as  well  join  in  the  safe  old  turn, 

turn: 
A  hero  's  an  excellent  loadstar,  —  but, 

bless  ye, 
What  infinite  odds  'twixt  a  hero  to  come 

And  your  only  too  palpable  hero  in  esse  ! 

Precisely  the  odds  (such  examples  are  rife) 

'Twixt  the  poem  conceived  and  the  rhyme 

we  make  show  of, 
'Twixt  the  boy's  morning  dream  and  the 

wake-up  of  life, 

'Twixt   the   Blondel  God  meant  and  a 
Blondel  I  know  of! 

But  the  world  's  better  off,  I  'm  convinced 

of  it  now, 
Than  if  heroes,  like  buns,  could  be  bought 

for  a  penny 
To  regard  all  mankind  as  their  haltered 

milch-cow, 
And  just   care   for  themselves.     Well, 

God  cares  for  the  many; 
For  somehow  the  poor  old  Earth  blunders 

along, 
Each  son  of  hers  adding  his  mite  of  un- 

fitness, 
And,  choosing  the  sure  way  of  coming  out 

wrong, 

Gets  to  port  as  the  next  generation  will 
witness. 


You  think  her  old  ribs  have  come  all  crash 
ing  through, 
If  a  whisk  of  Fate's  broom  snap  your 

cobweb  asunder; 
But  her  rivets  were  clinched  by  a  wiser 

than  you, 
And  our  sins  cannot  push  the  Lord's  right 

hand  from  under. 
Better  one  honest  man  who  can  wait  for 

God's  mind 
In  our  poor  shifting  scene  here  though 

heroes  were  plenty! 
Better  one  bite,  at  forty,  of  Truth's  bitter 

rind, 

Than  the  hot  wine  that  gushed  from  the 
vintage  of  twenty! 

I  see  it  all  now:  when  I  wanted  a  king, 
'T  was  the  kingship  that  failed  in  myself 

I  was  seeking, — 

'T  is  so  much  less  easy  to  do  than  to  sing, 
So  much  simpler  to  reign  by  a  proxy 

than  be  king! 
Yes,  I  think  I  do  see:  after  all's  said  and 

sung, 
Take  this  one  rule  of  life  and  you  never 

will  rue  it,  — 
'T  is  but  do  your  own  duty  and  hold  your 

own  tongue 

And  Blondel  were  royal  himself,  if  he 
knew  it! 


MEMORLE   POSITUM 

R.   G.   SHAW 

In  a  letter  to  Colonel  Shaw's  mother,  written 
August  28,  1863,  Lowell  says :  "  I  have  been 
writing  something  about  Robert ;  and  if,  after 
keeping  a  little  while,  it  should  turn  out  to  be 
a  poem  I  shall  print  it,  but  not  unless  I  think 
it  some  way  worthy  of  what  I  feel,  however, 
for  the  best  verse  falls  short  of  noble  living 
and  dying  such  as  his.  I  would  rather  have 
my  name  known  and  blest,  as  his  will  be, 
through  all  the  hovels  of  an  outcast  race,  than 
blaring  from  all  the  trumpets  of  repute."  He 
kept  the  poem  three  months  and  then  wrote 
to  Mr.  Fields, —  "You  know  I  owe  you  a 
poem  —  two  in  my  reckoning,  and  here  is  one 
of  them.  If  this  is  not  to  your  mind,  I  can 
hammer  you  out  another.  I  have  a  feeling 
that  some  of  it  is  good  —  but  is  it  too  long  ?  I 
want  to  fling  my  leaf  on  dear  Shaw's  grave. 
Perhaps  I  was  wrong  in  stiffening  the  feet  of 
my  verses  a  little,  in  order  to  give  them  a  kind 


338 


POEMS   OF   THE   WAR 


of  slow  funeral  tread.  But  I  conceived  it  so, 
and  so  it  would  be.  I  wanted  the  poem  a 
little  monumental,  perhaps  I  have  made  it  obit 
uary.  But  tell  me  just  how  it  strikes  you, 
and  don't  be  afraid  of  my  nerves.  They  can 
stand  much  in  the  way  of  friendly  frankness, 
and  besides,  I  find  I  am  acquiring  a  vice  of 
modesty  as  I  grow  older." 

In  another  letter,  when  speaking  of  the  dis 
tinction  between  odes  for  the  closet  and  odes 
for  recitation,  he  says:  "  I  chose  my  measures 
with  my  ears  open.  So  I  did  in  writing  the 
poem  on  Rob  Shaw.  That  is  regular  because 
meant  only  to  be  read,  and  because  also  I 
thought  it  should  have  in  the  form  of  its  stanza 
something  of  the  formality  of  an  epitaph." 

When,  in  the  last  stanza,  Lowell  wrote 

"  I  write  of  one, 
While  with  dim  eyes  I  think  of  three," 

the  reader  recalls  that  moving  passage  in  No.  X. 
of  the  second  series  of  Biglow  Papers,  where 
Mr.  Hosea  Biglow  in  his  homely  speech  bursts 
forth:  — 

"  Why,  hain't  I  held  'em  on  my  knee  ? 

Did  n't  1  love  to  see  'em  growin', 
Three  likely  lads  ez  wal  could  be,"  — 

and  one  knows  of  whom  Lowell  was  thinking. 


BENEATH  the  trees, 
My  lifelong  friends  in  this  dear  spot, 
Sad  now  for  eyes  that  see  them  not, 

I  hear  the  autumnal  breeze 
Wake  the  dry  leaves  to  sigh  for  gladness 

gone, 
Whispering  vague  omens  of  oblivion, 

Hear,  restless  as  the  seas, 
Time's  grim  feet  rustling  through  the  with 
ered  grace 

Of  many  a  spreading  realm  and  strong- 
stemmed  race, 
Even  as  my  own  through  these. 

Why  make  we  moan 
For  loss  that  doth  enrich  us  yet 
With  upward  yearnings  of  regret  ? 

Bleaker  than  unmossed  stone 
Our  lives  were  but  for  this  immortal  gain 
Of  unstillerl  longing  and  inspiring  pain  ! 

As  thrills  of  long-hushed  tone 
Live  in  the  viol,  so  our  souls  grow  fine 
With  keen  vibrations  from  the  touch  divine 

Of  noble  natures  gone. 

'T  were  indiscreet 
To  vex  the  shy  and  sacred  grief 
With  harsh  obtrusions  of  relief; 


Yet,  Verse,  with  noiseless  feet, 
Go  whisper  :  "  This  death  hath  far  choicer 

ends 
Than  slowly  to  impearl  in  hearts  of  friends  ; 

These  obsequies  't  is  meet 
Not  to  seclude  in  closets  of  the  heart, 
But,  church-like,  with  wide  doorways,  to 

impart 
Even  to  the  heedless  street." 

II 

Brave,  good,  and  true, 
I  see  him  stand  before  me  now, 
And  read  again  on  that  young  brow, 

Where  every  hope  was  new, 
How  sweet  were  life!     Yet,  by  the  mouth 

firm-set, 
And  look  made  up  for  Duty's  utmost  debt, 

I  could  divine  he  knew 
That  death  within  the  sulphurous  hostile 

lines, 

In  the  mere  wreck  of  nobly-pitched  designs, 
Plucks  heart's-ease,  and  not  rue. 

Happy  their  end 

Who  vanish  down  life's  evening  stream 
Placid  as  swans  that  drift  in  dream 

Round  the  next  river-bend  ! 
Happy  long  life,  with  honor  at  the  close, 
Friends'  painless  tears,  the  softened  thought 

of  foes  ! 

And  yet,  like  him,  to  spend 
All  at  a  gush,  keeping  our  first  faith  sure 
From  mid-life's  doubt  and  eld's  content 
ment  poor, 
What  more  could  Fortune  send  ? 

Right  in  the  van, 

On  the  red  rampart's  slippery  swell, 
With  heart  that  beat  a  charge,  he  fell 

Foe  ward,  as  fits  a  man  ; 
But  the  high  soul  burns  011  to  light  men's 

feet 
Where  death  for  noble  ends  makes  dying 

sweet  ; 

His  life  her  crescent's  span 
Orbs  full  with  share  in  their  undarkening 

days 
Who  ever  climbed  the  battailous  steeps  of 

praise 
Since  valor's  praise  began. 

in 

His  life's  expense 
Hath  won  him  coeternal  youth 


ON   BOARD   THE   '76 


339 


With  the  immaculate  prime  of  Truth  ; 

While  we,  who  make  pretence 
At  living  on,  and  wake  and  eat  and  sleep, 
And  life's  stale  trick  by  repetition  keep, 

Our  fickle  permanence 
(A  poor  leaf -shadow  on  a  brook,  whose  play 
Of  busy  idlesse  ceases  with  our  day) 

Is^the  mere  cheat  of  sense. 

We  bide  our  chance, 
Unhappy,  and  make  terms  with  Fate 
A  little  more  to  let  us  wait  ; 

He  leads  for  aye  the  advance, 
Hope's  forlorn-hopes   that  plant   the  des 
perate  good 
For  nobler   Earths   and   days   of   manlier 

mood  ; 

Our  wall  of  circumstance 
Cleared  at  a  bound,  he  flashes  o'er  the 

fight, 
A  saintly  shape  of  fame,  to  cheer  the 

right 
And  steel  each  wavering  glance. 

I  write  of  one, 

While  with  dim  eyes  I  think  of  three  ; 
Who  weeps  not  others  fair  and  brave  as 

he? 

Ah,  when  the  fight  is  won, 
Dear  Land,  whom  triflers  now  make  bold  to 

scorn, 
(Thee  !  from  whose  forehead  Earth  awaits 

her  morn,) 

How  nobler  shall  the  sun 
Flame  in  thy  sky,  how  braver  breathe  thy 

air, 
That  thou  bred'st  children  who  for  thee 

could  dare 
And  die  as  thine  have  done  ! 


ON    BOARD   THE   '76 

WRITTEN    FOR    MR.    BRYANT'S    SEVEN 
TIETH    BIRTHDAY 

NOVEMBER   3,    1864 

In  a  letter  written  to  R.  W.  Gilder,  Febru 
ary  9,  1887,  Lowell  characterizes  this  poem  as 
"  a  kind  o£  palinode  to  what  I  said  of  him  in 
the  Fable  for  Critics,  which  has  something1  of 
youth's  infallibility  in  it,  or  at  any  rate  of 
youth's  irresponsibility." 


OUR  ship  lay  tumbling  in  an  angry  sea, 
Her  rudder  gone,  her  mainmast  o'er  the 

side  ; 

Her  scuppers,  from  the  waves'  clutch  stag 
gering  free, 
Trailed    threads    of    priceless    crimson 

through  the  tide  ; 
Sails,  shrouds,  and  spars  with  pirate  cannon 

torn, 
We  lay,  awaiting  morn. 

Awaiting   morn,  such  morn  as  mocks  de 
spair  ; 
And  she  that  bare  the  promise   of  the 

world 
Within  her  sides,  now  hopeless,  helmless, 

bare, 
At   random    o'er   the    wildering    waters 

hurled  ; 

The  reek  of  battle  drifting  slow  alee 
Not  sullener  than  we. 

Morn  came  at  last  to  peer  into  our  woe, 
When  lo,  a  sail !     Now  surely  help  was 

nigh  ; 
The  red  cross  flames  aloft,  Christ's  pledge  ; 

but  no, 
Her  black  guns  grinning  hate,  she  rushes 

by 

And  hails  us  :  —  "  Gains  the  leak  !  Ay,  so 

we  thought  ! 
Sink,  then,  with  curses  fraught !  " 

I  leaned  against  my  gun  still  angry-hot, 
And  my  lids  tingled  with  the  tears  held 

back  : 
This  scorn   methought   was   crueller  than 

shot: 

The    manly   death-grip    in   the    battle- 
wrack, 
Yard-arm  to  yard-arm,  were  more  friendly 

far 
Than  such  fear-smothered  war. 

There  our   foe   wallowed,  like  a  wounded 

brute 
The   fiercer   for   his    hurt.     What   now 

were  best  ? 

Once  more  tug  bravely  at  the  peril's  root, 
Though  death  came  with  it  ?     Or  evade 

the  test 
If  right  or  wrong  in  this   God's   world   of 

ours 
Be  leagued  with  mightier  powers  ? 


340 


POEMS    OF   THE   WAR 


Some,  faintly  loyal,  felt  their  pulses  lag 
With  the  slow  beat  that  doubts  and  then 

despairs; 
Some,  caitiff,  would  have  struck  the  starry 

flag 
That  knits  us  with  our  past,  and  makes 

us  heirs 

Of  deeds  high-hearted  as  were  ever  done 
'Neath  the  all-seeing  sun. 

But  there  was  one,  the  Singer  of  our  crew, 
Upon  whose  head  Age  waved  his  peace 
ful  sign, 
But  whose  red  heart's-blood  no  surrender 

knew; 
And  couchant  under  brows   of   massive 

line, 
The  eyes,  like  guns  beneath  a  parapet, 

Watched,  charged  with  lightnings  yet. 

The  voices  of  the  hills  did  his  obey; 

The  torrents  flashed  and  tumbled  in  his 

song; 
He   brought    our    native    fields   from   far 

away, 

Or  set  us  'mid  the  innumerable  throng 
Of  dateless  woods,  or  where  we  heard  the 

calm 
Old  homestead's  evening  psalm. 

But  now  he  sang  of  faith  to  things  unseen, 
Of  freedom's  birthright   given  to  us  in 

trust; 

And  words  of  doughty  cheer  he  spoke  be 
tween, 
That  made  all  earthly  fortune  seem  as 

dust, 
Matched  with  that  duty,  old  as  Time  and 

new, 
Of  being  brave  and  true. 

We,    listening,  learned  what    makes  the 

might  of  words,  — 
Manhood  to  back  them,  constant   as   a 

star; 
His  voice  rammed  home  our  cannon,  edged 

our  swords, 
And  sent  our  boarders  shouting;  shroud 

and  spar 
Heard  him  and  stiffened;  the  sails  heard, 

and  wooed 
The  winds  with  loftier  mood. 

In  our  dark   hours   he  manned   our  guns 
again; 


Remanned  ourselves  from  his  own  man 
hood's  stores; 
Pride,   honor,   country,   throbbed   through 

all  his  strain; 
And  shall  we  praise  ?     God's  praise  was 

his  before; 

And  on  our  futile  laurels  he  looks  down, 
Himself  our  bravest  crown. 


ODE  RECITED  AT  THE  HAR 
VARD  COMMEMORATION 


JULY   21, 


1865 


Of  none  of  his  poems  did  Lowell  himself 
write  more  critically,  and  into  none,  perhaps, 
did  he  pour  so  much  fervor  in  the  composition. 
In  a  playful  letter  to  Miss  Norton,  written  in 
somewhat  of  a  reaction  four  days  after  the  de 
livery  of  the  poem,  he  wrote :  "  Was  I  not  so 
rapt  with  the  fervor  of  conception  as  I  have 
not  been  these  ten  years,  losing  my  sleep,  my 
appetite  and  my  flesh,  those  attributes  to  which 
I  before  alluded  as  iiobly  uniting1  us  in  a  com 
mon  nature  with  our  kind  ?  Did  I  not  for  two 
days  exasperate  everybody  that  came  near  me 
by  reciting  passages  in  order  to  try  them  on  ? 
Did  I  not  even  fall  backward  and  downward  to 
the  old  folly  of  hopeful  youth,  and  think  I  had 
written  something  really  good  at  last  ?  And 
am  I  not  now  enduring  those  retributive  dumps 
which  ever  follow  such  sinful  exultations,  the 
Erynnyes  of  Vanity  ?  .  .  .  Like  a  boy,  I  mis 
took  my  excitement  for  inspiration,  and  here  I 
am  in  the  mud.  You  see  I  am  a  little  disap 
pointed  and  a  little  few  (un  petit  pen)  vexed. 
I  did  not  make  the  hit  I  expected,  and  am 
ashamed  at  having  been  again  tempted  into 
thinking  I  could  write  poetry,  a  delusion  from 
which  I  have  been  tolerably  free  these  dozen 
years."  The  next  day  in  a  postscript  he  added  : 
"  I  have  not  got  cool  yet  (I  mean  as  to  nerves), 
and  lie  awake  at  night  thinking  how  much 
better  my  verses  might  have  been,  only  I  can't 
make  'em  so."  Twenty  years  later  in  recall 
ing  the  circumstances  of  composition  he  wrote 
to  Mr.  Gilder :  "  The  passage  about  Lincoln 
was  not  in  the  ode  as  originally  recited,  but 
added  immediately  after.  .  .  .  The  ode  itself 
was  an  improvisation.  Two  days  before  the 
Commemoration  I  had  told  my  friend  [F.  J.j 
Child  that  it  was  impossible  —  that  I  was  dull 
as  a  door-mat.  But  the  next  day  something 
gave  me  a  jog  and  the  whole  thing  came  out 
of  me  with  a  rush.  I  sat  up  all  night  writing 
it  out  clear,  and  took  it  on  the  morning  of  the 
day  to  Child.  '  I  have  something,  but  don't 
yet  know  what  it  is,  or  whether  it  will  do. 


ODE   RECITED   AT   THE   HARVARD    COMMEMORATION     341 


1  Look  at  it  and  tell  me.'  He  went  a  little  way 
apart  with  it  under  an  elm-tree  in  the  College 
Yard.  He  read  a  passage  here  and  there, 
brought  it  back  to  me  and  said :  '  Do  ?  I 
should  think  so  !  Don't  you  be  scared.'  And 
I  was  n't,  but  virtue  enough  had  gone  out  of  me 
to  make  me  weak  for  a  fortnight  after.  I  was 
amazed  at  the  praises  I  got.  Trevelyan  told 
me  afterwards  that  he  never  could  have  carried 
through  the  abolition  of  purchase  in  the  Brit 
ish  Army  but  for  the  re-enforcement  he  got 
from  that  poem." 

A  few  months  after  the  delivery  of  the  Ode 
the  proposal  to  reprint  it  in  Harvard  Memorial 
Biographies  led  to  a  correspondence  with  the 
editor,  Col.  T.  W.  Higginson,  in  which  some 
emendations  and  additions  were  proposed. 
"  Your  criticism,"  Lowell  writes,  "  is  perfectly 
just,  and  I  am  much  obliged  to  you  for  it  — 
though  I  might  defend  myself,  I  believe,  by 
some  constructions  even  looser  in  some  of  the 
Greek  choruses.  But,  on  the  whole,  where  I 
have  my  choice  I  prefer  to  make  sense.  The 
fact  is  that  the  Ode  was  written  at  a  heat 
—  such  a  one,  indeed,  as  leaves  one  colder 
than  common  afterwards  —  and  I  have  hardly 
looked  at  it  since.  There  is  a  horrible  truth 
in  the  liter  a  scripta  manet,  and  the  confounded 
things  make  mouths  at  us  when  we  try  to 
alter,  but  I  think  this  may  do  :  — 

'  Ere  yet  the  sharp,  decisive  word 
Redden  the  cannon's  lips,  and  while  the  sword.' 

(Stanza  v.) 

On  looking  farther,  I  find  to  my  intense  dis 
gust  a  verse  without  a  mate  in  the  last  stanza 
but  one,  and  I  must  put  in  a  patch.  If  I  had 
only  kept  my  manuscript !  We  must  read 

'  And  bid  her  navies,  that  so  lately  hurled 
Their  crashing  battle,  hold  their  thunders  in,' 

or  else  the  poor  *  world  '  just  below  will  have 
no  law  of  gravitation  to  hold  itself  up  by.  I 
know  I  had  something  better  originally,  but  I 
can't  get  it  back.  Item,  in  the  eighth  please 
make  this  change  :  — 

'  Virtue  treads  paths  that  end  not  in  the  grave, 
But  through  those  constellations  go 
That  shed  celestial  influence  on  the  brave. 
If  life  were  but  to  draw  this  dusty  breath 
That  doth  our  wits  enslave, 
And  with  the  crowd  to  hurry  to  and  fro, 
Seeking  we  know  not  what,  and  finding  death, 
These  did  unwisely  ;  but  if  living  be, 
As  some  are  born  to  know, 
The  power  to  ennoble,  and  inspire 
In  other  souls  our  brave  desire 
For  fruit,  not  leaves,  of  Time's  immortal  tree, 
These  truly  live,  our  thought's  essential  fire, 
And  to  the  saner,'  etc. 

There !  I  won't  open  the  book  again,  or  I 
shall  write  you  another  ode  instead  of  mending 
this.  But  in  this  latter  passage  the  metre 
wanted  limbering  a  little  —  it  was  built  too 


much  with  blank- verse  bricks  —  and  I  think  I 
have  bettered  it,  at  least  to  the  ear."  The 
second  only  of  these  emendations  was  incorpo 
rated  in  the  ode  at  some  later  date. 

In  writing  some  time  afterward  to  J.  B. 
Thayer,  who  had  been  raising  some  questions 
regarding  the  structure  of  the  Ode,  Lowell 
again  recurred  to  the  manner  in  which  he  had 
been  possessed  by  the  poem.  "  I  am  not 
sure,"  he  writes,  "  if  I  understand  what  you 
say  about  the  tenth  strophe.  You  will  observe 
that  it  leads  naturally  to  the  eleventh,  and 
that  I  there  justify  a  certain  narrowness  in  it 
as  an  expression  of  the  popular  feeling  as  well 
as  my  own.  I  confess  I  have  never  got  over 
the  feeling  of  wrath  with  which  (just  after 
the  death  of  my  nephew  Willie)  I  read  in  an 
English  paper  that  nothing  was  to  be  hoped  of 
an  army  officered  by  tailors'  apprentices  and 
butcher-boys.  The  poem  was  written  with  a 
vehement  speed,  which  I  thought  I  had  lost  in 
the  skirts  of  my  professor's  gown.  Till  within 
two  days  of  the  celebration  I  was  hopelessly 
dumb,  and  then  it  all  came  with  a  rush,  liter 
ally  making  me  lean  (mi  fece  magro)  and  so 
nervous  that  I  was  weeks  in  getting  over  it. 
I  was  longer  in  getting  the  new  (eleventh) 
strophe  to  my  mind  than  in  writing  the  rest  of 
the  poem.  In  that  I  hardly  changed  a  word, 
and  it  was  so  undeliberate  that  I  did  not  find 
out  till  after  it  was  printed  that  some  of  the 
verses  lacked  corresponding  rhymes.  ...  I 
doubt  you  are  right  in  wishing  it  more  histori 
cal.  But  then  1  could  not  have  written  it.  I 
had  put  the  ethical  and  political  view  so  often 
in  prose  that  I  was  weary  of  it.  The  motives 
of  the  war  ?  I  had  impatiently  argued  them 
again  and  again  —  but  for  an  ode  they  must 
be  in  the  blood  and  not  the  memory.  One  of 
my  great  defects  (I  have  always  been  conscious 
of  it)  is  an  impatience  of  mind  which  makes 
me  contemptuously  indifferent  about  arguing 
matters  that  have  once  become  convictions." 

Once  more,  in  1877,  in  writing  to  the  same 
correspondent,  he  quotes  a  passage  from  a 
paper  in  the  Cornhill :  "  Mr.  Lowell's  Com 
memoration  Ode  is  a  specimen  of  the  formless 
poem  of  unequal  lines  and  broken  stanzas  sup 
posed  to  be  in  the  manner  of  Pindar,  but  truly 
the  descendant  of  our  royalist  poet's  [Cowley] 
'  majestick  numbers.'  "  In  animadversion  on 
this  Lowell  goes  on :  "  Whatever  my  other 
shortcomings  (and  they  are  plenty,  as  none 
knows  better  than  I),  want  of  reflection  is  not 
one  of  them.  The  poems  [this  and  Lowell's 
other  odes]  were  all  intended  for  public  reci 
tation.  That  was  the  first  thing  to  be  consid 
ered.  I  suppose  my  ear  (from  long  and  pain 
ful  practice  on  *  B  K  poems)  has  more  tech 
nical  experience  in  this  than  almost  any.  The 
least  tedious  measure  is  the  rhymed  heroic, 


342 


POEMS   OF  THE  WAR 


but  this,  too,  palls  unless  relieved  by  passages 
of  wit  or  even  mere  fun.  A  long  series  of  uni 
form  stanzas  (I  am  always  speaking  of  public 
recitation)  with  regularly  recurring  rhymes 
produces  somnolence  among  the  men  and  a 
desperate  resort  to  their  fans  on  the  part  of 
the  women.  No  method  has  yet  been  invented 
by  which  the  train  of  thought  or  feeling  can 
be  shunted  off  from  the  epical  to  the  lyrical 
track.  My  ears  have  been  jolted  often  enough 
over  the  sleepers  on  such  occasions  to  know 
that.  I  know  something  (of  course  an  Amer 
ican  can't  know  much)  about  Pindar.  But 
his  odes  had  the  advantage  of  being  chanted. 
Now,  my  problem  was  to  contrive  a  measure 
which  should  not  be  tedious  by  uniformity, 
which  should  vary  with  varying  moods,  in 
which  the  transitions  (including  those  of  the 
voice)  should  be  managed  without  jar.  I  at 
first  thought  of  mixed  rhymed  and  blank 
verses  of  unequal  measures,  like  those  in  the 
choruses  of  Samson  Agonistes,  which  are  in  the 
main  masterly.  Of  course  Milton  deliberately 
departed  from  that  stricter  form  of  the  Greek 
Chorus  to  which  it  was  bound  quite  as  much 
(I  suspect)  by  the  law  of  its  musical  accom 
paniment  as  by  any  sense  of  symmetry.  I 
wrote  some  stanzas  of  the  Commemoration  Ode 
on  this  theory  at  first,  leaving  some  verses 
without  a  rhyme  to  match.  But  my  ear  was 
better  pleased  when  the  rhyme,  coming  at  a 
longer  interval,  as  a  far-off  echo  rather  than 
instant  reverberation,  produced  the  same  effect 
almost,  and  yet  was  grateful  by  unexpectedly 
recalling  an  association  and  faint  reminiscence 
of  consonance." 

I 

WEAK-WINGED  is  song, 
Nor  aims  at  that  clear-ethered  height 
Whither  the  brave  deed  climbs  for  light: 

We  seem  to  do  them  wrong, 
Bringing    our    robin's-leaf  to    deck  their 

hearse 
Who  in  warm  life-blood  wrote  their  nobler 

verse, 

Our  trivial  song  to  honor  those  who  come 
With  ears  attuned  to  strenuous  trump  and 

drum, 

And  shaped  in  squadron-strophes  their  de 
sire, 
Live  battle-odes  whose  lines  were  steel  and 

fire: 
Yet   sometimes   feathered   words  are 

strong, 

A  gracious  memory  to  buoy  up  and  save 
From  Lethe's  dreamless  ooze,  the  common 

grave 
Of  the  unventurous  throng. 


To-day  our  Reverend  Mother    welcomes 

back 

Her  wisest  Scholars,   those  who   under 
stood 

The  deeper  teaching  of  her  mystic  tome, 
And  offered  their  fresh  lives  to  make  it 
good: 

No  lore  of  Greece  or  Rome, 
No   science   peddling   with   the   names  of 

things, 
Or  reading  stars  to  find  inglorious  fates, 

Can  lift  our  life  with  wings 
Far  from  Death's  idle  gulf  that  for  the 
many  waits, 

And  lengthen  out  our  dates 
With  that  clear  fame  whose  memory  sings 
In  manly  hearts  to  come,  and  nerves  them 

and  dilates: 

Nor  such  thy  teaching,  Mother  of  us  all ! 
Not  such  the  trumpet-call 
Of  thy  diviner  mood, 
That  could  thy  sons  entice 
From  happy  homes  and  toils,  the  fruitful 

nest 

Of  those  half-virtues  which  the  world  calls 
best, 

Into  War's  tumult  rude; 
But  rather  far  that  stern  device 
The  sponsors  chose  that  round  thy  cradle 

stood 

In  the  dim,  un ventured  wood, 
The  VERITAS  that  lurks  beneath 
The  letter's  unprolific  sheath, 
Life  of  whate'er  makes  life  worth  living, 
Seed-grain  of  high  emprise,  immortal  food, 
One  heavenly  thing  whereof  earth  hath 
the  giving. 

Ill 

Many  loved  Truth,  and  lavished  life's  best 

oil 

Amid  the  dust  of  books  to  find  her, 
Content  at  last,  for  guerdon  of  their  toil, 
With  the  cast  mantle  she  hath  left  be 
hind  her. 

Many  in  sad  faith  sought  for  her, 
Many  with  crossed  hands   sighed  for 

her; 
But  these,   our  brothers,   fought  for 

her, 

At  life's  dear  peril  wrought  for  her, 
So  loved  her  that  they  died  for  her, 
Tasting  the  raptured  fleetness 


ODE   RECITED   AT  THE  HARVARD   COMMEMORATION    343 


Of  her  divine  completeness: 
Their  higher  instinct  knew 
Those  love  her  best  who  to  themselves  are 

true, 
And  what  they  dare  to  dream  of,  dare  to 

do; 

They  followed  her  and  found  her 
Where  all  may  hope  to  find, 
Not  in  the  ashes  of  the  burnt-out  mind, 
But    beautiful,    with    danger's    sweetness 

round  her. 

Where  faith  made  whole  with  deed 
Breathes  its  awakening  breath 
Into  the  lifeless  creed, 
They  saw  her  plumed  and  mailed, 
With  sweet,  stern  face  unveiled, 
And  all-repaying  eyes,  look  proud  on  them 
in  death. 

IV 

Our    slender    life   runs   rippling  by,  and 

glides 
Into  the  silent  hollow  of  the  past; 

What  is  there  that  abides 
To  make  the  next  age  better  for  the  last  ? 

Is  earth  too  poor  to  give  us 
Something  to   live   for  here   that   shall 

outlive  us  ? 

Some  more  substantial  boon 
Than  such  as  flows  and  ebbs  with  Fortune's 

fickle  moon  ? 
The  little  that  we  see 
From  doubt  is  never  free; 
The  little  that  we  do 
Is  but  half-nobly  true; 
With  our  laborious  hiving 
What  men  call  treasure,  and  the  gods  call 

dross, 

Life  seems  a  jest  of  Fate's  contriving, 

Only  secure  in  every  one's  conniving, 

A  long  account  of  nothings  paid  with  loss, 

Where  we  poor  puppets,  jerked  by  unseen 

wires, 

After  our  little  hour  of  strut  and  rave, 
With  all  our  pasteboard  passions  and  de 
sires, 

Loves,  hates,  ambitions,  and  immortal  fires, 
Are   tossed   pell-mell   together  in   the 

grave. 

But  stay  !  no  age  was  e'er  degenerate, 
Unless  men  held  it  at  too  cheap  a  rate, 
For  in  our  likeness  still  we  shape  our 

fate. 

Ah,  there  is  something  here 
Unfathomed  by  the  cynic's  sneer, 


Something  that  gives  our  feeble  light 
A  high  immunity  from  Night, 
Something  that  leaps  life's  narrow  bars 
To  claim  its  birthright  with   the  hosts  of 

heaven; 

A  seed  of  sunshine  that  can  leaven 
Our  earthly  dullness  with  the  beams  of 
stars, 

And  glorify  our  clay 
With  light  from  fountains  elder  than  the 

Day; 

A  conscience  more  divine  than  we, 
A  gladness  fed  with  secret  tears, 
A  vexing,  forward-reaching  sense 
Of  some  more  noble  permanence; 

A  light  across  the  sea, 
Which  haunts  the  soul  and  will  not  let  it  be, 
Still  beaconing  from  the  heights  of  unde- 
generate  years. 


Whither  leads  the  path 
To  ampler  fates  that  leads  ? 
Not  down  through  flowery  meads, 
To  reap  an  aftermath 
Of  youth's  vainglorious  weeds, 
But  up  the  steep,  amid  the  wrath 
And  shock  of  deadly-hostile  creeds, 
Where  the  world's  best  hope  and  stay 
By  battle's  flashes  gropes  a  desperate  way, 
And  every   turf  the  fierce  foot  clings  to 

bleeds. 

Peace  hath  her  not  ignoble  wreath, 
Ere  yet  the  sharp,  decisive  word 
Light  the  black  lips  of  cannon,  and   the 

sword 

Dreams  in  its  easeful  sheath; 
But   some  day  the   live   coal   behind  the 

thought, 

Whether  from  Baal's  stone  obscene, 
Or  from  the  shrine  serene 
Of  God's  pure  altar  brought, 
Bursts  up  in  flame ;  the  war  of  tongue  and 

pen 
Learns  with   what  deadly  purpose  it  was 

fraught, 

And,  helpless  in  the  fiery  passion  caught, 
Shakes  all  the  pillared  state  with  shock  of 

men: 

Some  day  the  soft  Ideal  that  we  wooed 
Confronts  us  fiercely,  foe-beset,  pursued, 
And  cries  reproachful:  "Was  it,  then,  my 

praise, 

And  not  myself  was  loved?    Prove  now 
thy  truth; 


344 


POEMS   OF   THE   WAR 


I  claim  of  thee  the  promise  of  thy  youth; 
Give  me  thy  life,  or  cower  in  empty  phrase, 
The  victim  of  thy  genius,  not  its  mate  !  " 
Life  may  be  given  in  many  ways, 
And  loyalty  to  Truth  be  sealed 
As  bravely  in  the  closet  as  the  field, 
So  bountiful  is  Fate; 
But  then  to  stand  beside  her, 
When  craven  churls  deride  her, 
To  front  a  lie  in  arms  and  not  to  yield, 
This  shows,  methinks,  God's  plan 
And  measure  of  a  stalwart  man, 
Limbed  like  the  old  heroic  breeds, 
Who  stands  self-poised  on  manhood's 

solid  earth, 
Not  forced   to   frame    excuses    for   his 

birth, 

Fed  from  within  with  all  the  strength  he 
needs. 

VI 

Such  was  he,  our  Martyr-Chief, 

Whom  late  the  Nation  he  had  led, 
With  ashes  on  her  head, 
Wept  with  the  passion  of  an  angry  grief: 
Forgive  me,  if  from  present  things  I  turn 
To  speak  what  in  my  heart  will  beat  and 

burn, 
And  hang  my  wreath  on  his  world-honored 

urn. 

Nature,  they  say,  doth  dote, 
And  cannot  make  a  man 
Save  on  some  worn-out  plan, 
Repeating  us  by  rote: 
For  him  her  Old-World  moulds  aside  she 

threw, 
And,   choosing  sweet  clay  from  the 

breast 

Of  the  unexhausted  West, 
With  stuff  untainted  shaped  a  hero  new, 
Wise,  steadfast  in  the  strength  of  God,  and 

true. 

How  beautiful  to  see 

Once  more  a  shepherd  of  mankind  indeed, 
Who  loved  his  charge,  but  never  loved  to 

lead; 
One  whose  meek  flock  the  people  joyed  to 

be, 

Not  lured  by  any  cheat  of  birth, 
But  by  his  clear-grained  human  worth, 
And  brave  old  wisdom  of  sincerity! 

They  knew  that  outward  grace  is  dust; 
They  could  not  choose  but  trust 
In  that  sure-footed  mind's  unfaltering  skill, 
And  supple-tempered  will 


That  bent  like  perfect  steel  to  spring  again 

and  thrust. 
His  was  no  lonely  mountain-peak  of 

mind, 
Thrusting  to  thin  air  o'er  our  cloudy 

bars, 
A  sea-mark  now,  now  lost  in  vapors 

blind; 

Broad   prairie    rather,   genial,   level- 
lined, 
Fruitful  and  friendly   for  all  human 

kind, 

Yet  also  nigh  to  heaven  and  loved  of  lofti 
est  stars. 

Nothing  of  Europe  here, 
Or,  then,  of  Europe   fronting  mornward 

still, 

Ere  any  names  of  Serf  and  Peer 
Could  Nature's  equal  scheme  deface 
And  thwart  her  genial  will; 
Here  was  a  type  of  the  true  elder  race, 
And  one  of  Plutarch's  men  talked  with  us 

face  to  face. 

I  praise  him  not;  it  were  too  late; 
And  some  iunative  weakness  there  must  be 
In  him  who  condescends  to  victory 
Such  as  the  Present  gives,  and  cannot  wait, 
Safe  in  himself  as  in  a  fate. 
So  always  firmly  he: 
He  knew  to  bide  his  time, 
And  can  his  fame  abide, 
Still  patient  in  his  simple  faith  sublime, 

Till  the  wise  years  decide. 
Great    captains,    with    their    guns   and 

drums, 
Disturb  our  judgment  for  the  hour, 

But  at  last  silence  comes; 
These  all  are  gone,  and,  standing  like  a 

tower, 

Our  children  shall  behold  his  fame. 
The  kindly-earnest,  brave,  foreseeing 

man, 
Sagacious,   patient,   dreading  praise,    not 

blame, 
New  birth  of  our  new  soil,  the  first  Amer- 


VII 

Long  as  man's  hope  insatiate  can  discern 
Or   only   guess   some   more  inspiring 

goal 

Outside  of  Self,  enduring  as  the  pole, 
Along  whose  course  the  flying  axles  burn 
Of  spirits  bravely-pitched,  earth's  man 
lier  brood; 


ODE   RECITED   AT   THE   HARVARD    COMMEMORATION     345 


Long  as  below  we  cannot  find 
The  meed  that  stills  the  inexorable  mind; 
So  long  this  faith  to  some  ideal  Good, 
Under  whatever  mortal  names  it  masks, 
Freedom,  Law,    Country,   this   ethereal 

mood 
That  thanks  the  Fates  for   their  severer 

tasks, 

Feeling  its  challenged  pulses  leap, 
While  others  skulk  in  subterfuges  cheap, 
And,  set  in  Danger's  van,  has  all  the  boon 

it  asks, 

Shall  win  man's  praise  and  woman's  love, 
Shall  be  a  wisdom  that  we  set  above 
All  other  skills  and  gifts  to  culture  dear, 
A  virtue  round  whose  forehead  we  in- 

wreathe 

Laurels  that  with  a  living  passion  breathe 
When  other  crowns  grow,  while  we  twine 

them,  sear. 
What   brings   us   thronging   these   high 

rites  to  pay, 

And  seal  these  hours  the  noblest  of  our  year, 
Save  that  our  brothers  found  this  better 
way? 

VIII 

We  sit  here  in  the  Promised  Land 
That  flows  with  Freedom's  honey  and 

milk; 

But  't  was  they  won  it,  sword  in  hand, 
Making  the  nettle  danger  soft  for  us  as  silk. 
We  welcome  back  our  bravest  and  our 

best;  — 
Ah  me!  not  all!  some  come  not  with  the 

rest, 
Who  went  forth  brave  and  bright  as  any 

here! 

I  strive  to  mix  some  gladness  with  my  strain, 
But  the  sad  strings  complain, 
And  will  not  please  the  ear: 
I  sweep  them  for  a  paean,  but  they  wane 

Again  and  yet  again 
Into  a  dirge,  and  die  away,  in  pain. 
In  these  brave  ranks  I  only  see  the  gaps, 
Thinking   of   dear   ones  whom   the  dumb 

turf  wraps, 
Dark  to  the  triumph  which  they  died  to 

gain: 

Fitlier  may  others  greet  the  living, 
For  me  the  past  is  unforgiving; 
I  with  uncovered  head 
Salute  the  sacred  dead, 
Who  went,  and  who  return  not.  —  Say  not 
so! 


'T  is  not  the  grapes  of  Canaan  that  repay, 

But  the  high  faith  that  failed  not  by  the 
way; 

Virtue  treads  paths  that  end  not  in   the 
grave; 

No  ban  of  endless  night  exiles  the  brave ; 
And  to  the  saner  mind 

We  rather  seem  the  dead  that  stayed  be 
hind. 

Blow,  trumpets,  all  your  exultations  blow! 

For  never  shall  their  aureoled  presence  lack: 

I  see  them  muster  in  a  gleaming  row, 

With  ever-youthful  brows  that  nobler  show; 

We   find  in  our  dull    road  their   shining 
track; 

In  every  nobler  mood 

We  feel  the  orient  of  their  spirit  glow, 

Part  of  our  life's  unalterable  good, 

Of  all  our  saintlier  aspiration; 

They  come  transfigured  back, 

Secure  from  change  in  their  high-hearted 
ways, 

Beautiful  evermore,  and  with  the  rays 

Of  morn  on  their  white  Shields  of  Expecta 
tion! 

IX 

But  is  there  hope  to  save 
Even   this   ethereal    essence    from    the 

grave  ? 
What    ever    'scaped     Oblivion's    subtle 

wrong 

Save  a  few  clarion  names,  or  golden  threads 
of  song  ? 

Before  my  musing  eye 
The  mighty  ones  of  old  sweep  by, 
Disvoiced  now  and  insubstantial  things, 
As  noisy  once  as  we ;  poor  ghosts  of  kings, 
Shadows  of  empire  wholly  gone  to  dust, 
And  many  races,  nameless  long  ago, 
To   darkness  driven  by  that  imperious 

gust 
Of   ever-rushing  Time   that   here   doth 

blow: 

O  visionary  world,  condition  strange, 
Where  naught  abiding  is  but  only  Change, 
Where  the   deep-bolted   stars   themselves 

still  shift  and  range! 
Shall  we  to  more  continuance  make  pre 
tence  ? 
Renown  builds  tombs;  a  life-estate  is  Wit; 

And,  bit  by  bit, 

The  cunning  years  steal  all  from  us  but  woe ; 
Leaves  are  we,  whose  decays  no  harvest 
sow. 


346 


POEMS    OF   THE   WAR 


But,  when  we  vanish  hence, 
Shall  they  lie  forceless  in  the  dark  below, 
Save  to  make  green  their  little  length  of 

sods, 

Or  deepen  pansies  for  a  year  or  two, 
Who  now  to  us  are  shining-sweet  as  gods? 
Was  dying  all  they  had  the  skill  to  do? 
That  were  not  fruitless  :    but  the  Soul 

resents 

Such  short-lived  service,  as  if  blind  events 
Kuled  without   her,   or   earth   could   so 

endure ; 

She  claims  a  more  divine  investiture 
Of  longer  tenure  than  Fame's  airy  rents; 
Whate'er  she   touches   doth  her  nature 

share ; 
Her  inspiration  haunts  the  ennobled  air, 

Gives  eyes  to  mountains  blind, 
Ears  to  the   deaf  earth,  voices   to   the 

wind, 

And  her  clear  trump  sings  succor  every 
where 

By  lonely  bivouacs  to  the  wakeful  mind; 
For  soul  inherits  all  that  soul  could  dare : 
Yea,  Manhood  hath  a  wider  span 
And  larger  privilege  of  life  than  man. 
The  single  deed,  the  private  sacrifice, 
So  radiant  now  through  proudly-hidden 

tears, 

Is  covered  up  erelong  from  mortal  eyes 
With  thoughtless  drift  of  the  deciduous 

years; 
But  that  high  privilege  that  makes  all 

men  peers, 
That  leap  of  heart  whereby  a  people  rise 

Up  to  a  noble  anger's  height, 
And,  flamed  on  by  the  Fates,  not  shrink, 

but  grow  more  bright, 
That  swift  validity  in  noble  veins, 
Of  choosing   danger  and    disdaining 
shame, 

Ot  being  set  on  flame 
By  the  pure  fire  that  flies  all  contact  base 
But  wraps  its  chosen  with  angelic  might, 

These  are  imperishable  gains, 
Sure  as  the  sun,  medicinal  as  light, 
These  hold  great  futures  in  their  lusty 

reins 
And  certify  to  earth  a  new  imperial  race. 


Who  now  shall  sneer? 
Who  dare  again  to  say  we  trace 
Our  lines  to  a  plebeian  race? 

Roundhead  and  Cavalier! 


Dumb  are  those  names  erewhile  in  battle 

loud; 
Dream-footed  as  the  shadow  of  a  cloud, 

They  flit  across  the  ear: 
That  is  best   blood   that  hath   most  iron 

in't. 

To  edge  resolve  with,  pouring  without  stint 
For  what  makes  manhood  dear. 
Tell  us  not  of  Plantagenets, 
Hapsburgs,  and  Guelfs,  whose  thin  bloods 

crawl 
Down  from  some  victor  in  a  border-brawl! 

How  poor  their  outworn  coronets, 
Matched  with  one  leaf  of  that  plain  civic 

wreath 

Our  brave  for  honor's  blazon  shall  bequeath, 
Through  whose  desert  a  rescued  Nation 

sets 

Her  heel  on  treason,  and  the  trumpet  hears 
Shout  victory,  tingling  Europe's  sullen  ears 
With  vain  resentments  and   more  vain 
regrets! 

XI 

Not  in  anger,  not  in  pride, 
Pure  from  passion's  mixture  rude 
Ever  to  base  earth  allied, 
But  with  far-heard  gratitude, 
Still  with  heart  and  voice  renewed, 

To  heroes  living  and  dear  martyrs  dead, 
The  strain  should  close  that  consecrates  our 
brave. 

Lift  the  heart  and  lift  the  head  ! 
Lofty  be  its  mood  and  grave, 
Not  without  a  martial  ring, 
Not  without  a  prouder  tread 
And  a  peal  of  exultation  : 
Little  right  has  he  to  sing 
Through  whose  heart  in  such  an  hour 
Beats  no  march  of  conscious  power, 
Sweeps  no  tumult  of  elation  ! 
'T  is  no  Man  we  celebrate, 
By  his  country's  victories  great, 

A  hero  half,  and  half  the  whim  of  Fate, 
But  the  pith  and  marrow  of  a  Nation 
Drawing  force  from  all  her  men, 
Highest,  humblest,  weakest,  all, 
For  her  time  of  need,  and  then 
Pulsing  it  again  through  them, 

Till  the  basest  can  no  longer  cower, 

Feeling  nis  soul  spring  up  divinely  tall, 

Touched  but  in  passing  by  her  mantle- 
hem. 

Come  back,  then,  noble  pride,  for  't  ia 
her  dower  ! 


TO   THE   MUSE 


347 


How  could  poet  ever  tower, 
If  his  passions,  hopes,  and  fears, 
If  his  triumphs  and  his  tears, 
Kept  not  measure  with  his  people  ? 
Boom,  cannon,  boom  to  all  the  winds  and 

waves  ! 
Clash  out,  glad  bells,  from  every  rocking 

steeple  ! 
Banners,  adance  with  triumph,  bend  your 

staves  ! 

And  from  every  mountain-peak 
Let   beacon-fire  to  answering  beacon 

speak, 
Katahdin  tell  Monadnock,  Whiteface 

he, 

And  so  leap  on  in  light  from  sea  to  sea, 
Till  the  glad  news  be  sent 
Across  a  kindling  continent, 
Making  earth  feel  more  firm  and  air  breathe 

braver : 
"  Be  proud  !  for  she  is  saved,  and  all  have 

helped  to  .save  her  ! 
She  that  lifts  up  the  manhood  of  the 

poor, 

She  of  the  open  soul  and  open  door, 
With  room  about  her  hearth  for  all 

mankind  ! 
The   fire  is  dreadful  in  her   eyes  no 

more  ; 
From  her  bold  front  the  helm  she  doth 

unbind, 
Sends  all  her  handmaid  armies  back  to 

spin, 
And   bids   her  navies,  that   so  lately 

hurled 

Their  crashing  battle,  hold  their  thun 
ders  in, 

Swimming  like  birds  of  calm  along  the 
imharmful  shore. 


No  challenge  sends  she  to  the  elder 
world, 

That  looked  askance  and  hated  ;  a  light 
scorn 

Plays  o'er  her  mouth,  as  round   her 
mighty  knees 

She  calls  her  children  back,  and  waits 

the  morn 

Of  nobler  day,  enthroned  between  her  sub 
ject  seas." 

XII 

Bow  down,  dear  Land,  for  thou  hast  found 

release  ! 

Thy  God,  in  these  distempered  days, 
Hath  taught   thee   the   sure  wisdom  of 

His  ways, 
And  through  thine   enemies  hath  wrought 

thy  peace  ! 

Bow  down  in  prayer  and  praise! 
No  poorest  in  thy  borders  but  may  now 
Lift  to  the   juster   skies   a  man's  enfran 
chised  brow. 
O    Beautiful !   my    Country  !   ours    once 

more  ! 

Smoothing  thy  gold  of  war-dishevelled  hair 
O'er  such  sweet  brows  as  never  other  wore, 
And  letting  thy  set  lips, 
Freed  from  wrath's  pale  eclipse, 
The  rosy  edges  of  their  smile  lay  bare, 
What  words  divine  of  lover  or  of  poet 
Could  tell  our  love  and  make  thee  know  it, 
Among   the  Nations  bright   beyond  com 
pare  ? 

What  were  our  lives  without  thee  ? 
What  all  our  lives  to  save  thee  ? 
We  reck  not  what  we  gave  thee; 
We  will  not  dare  to  doubt  thee, 
But  ask  whatever  else,  and  we  will  dare  ! 


L'ENVOI 


TO   THE   MUSE 

WHITHER  ?    Albeit  I  follow  fast, 

In  all  life's  circuit  I  but  find, 
Not  where  thou  art,  but  where  thou  wast, 

Sweet  beckoner,  more  fleet  than  wind  ! 
I  haunt  the  pine-dark  solitudes, 

With  soft  brown  silence  carpeted, 
And  plot  to  snare  thee  in  the  woods: 

Peace  I  o'ertake,  but  thou  art  fled! 


I  find  the  rock  where  thou  didst  rest, 
The  moss  thy  skimming  foot  hath  prest; 

All  Nature  with  thy  parting  thrills, 
Like  branches  after  birds  new-flown; 

Thy  passage  hill  and  hollow  fills 
With  hints  of  virtue  not  their  own; 
In  dimples  still  the  water  slips 
Where  thou  hast  dipt  thy  finger-tips; 

Just,  just  beyond,  forever  burn 

Gleams  of  a  grace  without  return; 


348 


L'ENVOI 


Upon  thy  shade  I  plant  my  foot, 
And  through  my  frame  strange   raptures 

shoot; 
All  of  thee  but  thyself  I  grasp; 

I  seem  to  fold  thy  luring  shape, 
And  vague  air  to  my  bosom  clasp, 

Thou  lithe,  perpetual  Escape  ! 

One  mask  and  then  another  drops, 
And  thou  art  secret  as  before: 

Sometimes  with  flooded  ear  I  list, 

And  hear  thee,  wondrous  organist, 
From  mighty  continental  stops 
A  thunder  of  new  music  pour  ; 
Through  pipes  of  earth  and  air  and  stone 
Thy  inspiration  deep  is  blown; 
Through  mountains,  forests,  open  downs, 
Lakes,  railroads,  prairies,  states,  and  towns, 
Thy  gathering  fugue  goes  rolling  on 
From  Maine  to  utmost  Oregon; 
The  factory-wheels  in  cadence  hum, 
From  brawling  parties  concords  come; 
All  this  I  hear,  or  seem  to  hear, 
But  when,  enchanted,  I  draw  near 
To  mate  with  words  the  various  theme, 
Life  seems  a  whiff  of  kitchen  steam, 
History  an  organ-grinder's  thrum, 

For  thou  hast  slipt  from  it  and  me 
And  all  thine  organ-pipes  left  dumb, 

Most  mutable  Perversity  ! 

Not  weary  yet,  I  still  must  seek, 
And  hope  for  luck  next  day,  next  week; 
I  go  to  see  the  great  man  ride, 
Shiplike,  the  swelling  human  tide 
That  floods  to  bear  him  into  port, 
Trophied  from  Senate-hall  and  Court; 
Thy  magnetism,  I  feel  it  there, 
Thy  rhythmic  presence  fleet  and  rare, 
Making  the  Mob  a  moment  fine 
With  glimpses  of  their  own  Divine, 
As  in  their  demigod  they  see 

Their  cramped  ideal  soaring  free; 
'T  was  thou  didst  bear  the  fire  about, 

That,  like  the  springing  of  a  mine, 
Sent  up  to  heaven  the  street-long  shout; 
Full  well  I  know  that  thou  wast  here, 
It  was  thy  breath  that  brushed  my  ear; 
But  vainly  in  the  stress  and  whirl 
I  dive  for  thee,  the  moment's  pearl. 

Through    every    shape    thou    well    canst 

run, 

Proteus,  'twixt  rise  and  set  of  sun, 
Well  pleased  with  logger-camps  in  Maine 


As  where  Milan's  pale  Duomo  lies 
A  stranded  glacier  on  the  plain, 
Its  peaks  and  pinnacles  of  ice 
Melted  in  many  a  quaint  device, 
And  sees,  above  the  city's  din, 
Afar  its  silent  Alpine  kin: 
I  track  thee  over  carpets  deep 
To  wealth's  and  beauty's  inmost  keep; 
Across  the  sand  of  bar-room  floors 
Mid  the  stale  reek  of  boosing  boors; 
Where    drowse    the    hay-field's   fragrant 

heats, 

Or  the  flail-heart  of  Autumn  beats; 
I  dog  thee  through  the  market's  throngs 
To  where  the  sea  with  myriad  tongues 
Laps  the  green  edges  of  the  pier, 
And  the  tall  ships  that  eastward  steer, 
Curtsy  their  farewells  to  the  town, 
O'er  the  curved  distance  lessening  down; 
I  follow  allwhere  for  thy  sake, 
Touch  thy  robe's  hem,  but  ne'er  o'ertake, 
Find  where,  scarce  yet  unmoving,  lies, 
Warm  from  thy  limbs,  thy  last  disguise; 
But  thou  another  shape  hast  donned, 
And  lurest  still  just,  just  beyond  ! 

But  here  a  voice,  I  know  not  whence, 
Thrills  clearly  through  my  inward  sense, 
Saying  :  "  See  where  she  sits  at  home 
While  thou  in  search  of  her  dost  roam  ! 
All  summer  long  her  ancient  wheel 

Whirls  humming  by  the  open  door, 
Or,  when  the  hickory's  social  zeal 

Sets  the  wide  chimney  in  a  roar, 
Close-nestled  by  the  tinkling  hearth, 
It  modulates  the  household  mirth 
With  that  sweet  serious  undertone 
Of  duty,  music  all  her  own; 
Still  as  of  old  she  sits  and  spins 
Our  hopes,  our  sorrows,  and  our  sins; 
With  equal  care  she  twines  the  fates 
Of  cottages  and  mighty  states; 
She  spins  the  earth,  the  air,  the  sea, 
The  maiden's  unschooled  fancy  free, 
The  boy's  first  love,  the  man's  first  grief, 
The  budding  and  the  fall  o'  the  leaf; 
The  piping  west-wind's  snowy  care 
For  her  their  cloudy  fleeces  spare, 
Or  from  the  thorns  of  evil  times 
She  can  glean  wool  to  twist  her  rhymes; 
Morning  and  noon  and  eve  supply 
To  her  their  fairest  tints  for  dye, 
But  ever  through  her  twirling  thread 
There  spires  one  line  of  warmest  red, 
Tinged  from  the  homestead's  genial  heart, 


THE   CATHEDRAL 


349 


The  stamp  and  warrant  of  her  art; 
With  this  Time's  sickle  she  outwears, 
And  blunts  the  Sisters'  baffled  shears. 

"  Harass  her  not :  thy  heat  and  stir 
But  greater  coyness  breed  in  her; 
Yet  thou  mayst  find,  ere  Age's  frost, 
Thy  long  apprenticeship  not  lost, 
Learning  at  last  that  Stygian  Fate 
Unbends  to  him  that  knows  to  wait. 
The  Muse  is  womanish,  nor  deigns 
Her  love  to  him  that  pules  and  plains; 
With  proud,  averted  face  she  stands 
To  him  that  wooes  with  empty  hands. 
Make  thyself  free  of  Manhood's  guild; 
Pull  down  thy  barns  and  greater  build; 


The  wood,  the  mountain,  and  the  plain 
Wave  breast-deep  with  the  poet's  grain; 
Pluck  thou  the  sunset's  fruit  of  gold, 
Glean  from  the  heavens  and  ocean  old; 
From  fireside  lone  and  trampling  street 
Let  thy  life  garner  daily  wheat; 
The  epic  of  a  man  rehearse, 
Be  something  better  than  thy  verse; 
Make  thyself  rich,  and  then  the  Muse 
Shall  court  thy  precious  interviews, 
Shall  take  thy  head  upon  her  knee, 
And  such  enchantment  lilt  to  thee, 
That  thou  shalt  hear  the  life-blood  flow 
From  farthest  stars  to  grass-blades  low, 
And  find  the  Listener's  science  still 
Transcends  the  Singer's  deepest  skill ! " 


THE   CATHEDRAL 


To 

MR.  JAMES  T.  FIELDS 
MY  DEAR  FIELDS  : 

Dr.  Johnson's  sturdy  self-respect  led  him  to  invent  the  Bookseller  as  a  substitute  for 
the  Patron.  My  relations  with  you  have  enabled  me  to  discover  how  pleasantly  the 
Friend  may  replace  the  Bookseller.  Let  me  record  my  sense  of  many  thoughtful  ser 
vices  by  associating  your  name  with  a  poem  which  owes  its  appearance  in  this  form  to 
your  partiality. 

Cordially  yours, 

J.  R.   LOWELL. 
CAMBRIDGE,  November  29,  1869. 


The  Cathedral  was  printed  first  in  The  Atlan 
tic  Monthly  for  January,  1870,  but  was  shortly 
after  published  in  a  volume  by  itself  with 
changes  and  additions.  The  poem  was  wrought 
at  apparently  with  something  of  the  loving 
enthusiasm  which  we  are  wont  to  ascribe  to 
the  builders  of  actual  cathedrals.  It  was  writ 
ten  in  the  summer  of  1869  and  returned  to 
frequently  before  publication.  When  in  the 
midst  of  the  work  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Howells, 
then  editor  of  the  Atlantic,  "  Up  to  time  indeed ! 
The  fear  is  not  about  time,  but  space.  You 
won't  have  room  in  your  menagerie  for  such  a 
displeaseyousaurus.  The  verses  if  stretched 
end  to  end  in  a  continuous  line  would  go  clear 
round  the  cathedral  they  celebrate,  and  nobody 
(I  fear)  the  wiser.  I  can't  tell  yet  what  they 
are.  There  seems  a  bit  of  clean  carving  here 
and  there,  a  solid  buttress  or  two,  and  perhaps 
a  gleam  through  painted  glass  —  but  I  have 
not  copied  it  out  yet,  nor  indeed  read  it  over 


consecutively."  A  little  later  he  wrote  to 
Miss  Norton :  "  I  hope  it  is  good,  for  it  fairly 
trussed  me  at  last  and  bore  me  up  as  high 
as  my  poor  lungs  will  bear  into  the  heaven 
of  invention.  I  was  happy  writing  it,  and 
so  steeped  in  it  that  if  I  had  written  to  you 
it  would  have  been  in  blank  verse.  It  is  a 
kind  of  religious  poem,  and  is  called  A  Day  at 
Chartres.  ...  I  can't  tell  yet  how  it  will 
stand.  Already  I  am  beginning  to  —  to  —  you 
know  what  I  mean  —  to  taste  my  champagne 
next  morning." 

The  poem  received  some  comment  from  two 
distinguished  critics,  Mr.  Leslie  Stephen  and 
Mr.  Ruskin.  To  the  former  Lowell  wrote  :  "  I 
am  glad  you  liked  The  Cathedral  and  sorry  for 
anything  in  it  you  did  n't  like.  The  name  was 
none  of  my  choosing.  I  called  it  A  Day  at 
Chartres,  and  Fields  rechristened  it.  You  see 
with  my  name  the  episode  of  the  Britons  comes 
in  naturally  enough  (it  is  historical,  by  the 


35° 


THE   CATHEDRAL 


way).  The  truth  is,  I  had  no  notion  of  being 
satirical,  but  wrote  what  I  did  just  as  I  might 
have  said  it  to  you  in  badinage.  But  of  course 
the  tone  is  lost  in  print.  Anyhow,  there  is  one 
Englishman  I  am  fond  enough  of  to  balance 
any  spite  I  might  have  against  others,  as  you 
know.  But  I  have  n't  a  particle.  If  I  had 
met  two  of  my  own  countrymen  at  Chartres  I 
should  have  been  quite  as  free  with  them." 
In  reply  to  some  advice  and  strictures  of  Mr. 
Ruskin,  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Norton  :  "  I  am  glad  to 
find  that  the  poem  sticks.  Those  who  liked  it 
at  first  like  it  still,  some  of  them  better  than 
ever,  some  extravagantly.  At  any  rate  it  wrote 
itself  ;  all  of  a  sudden  it  was  there,  and  that  is 
something  in  its  favor.  Now  Ruskin  wants  me 
to  go  over  it  with  a  file.  That  is  just  what  I 
did.  I  wrote  in  pencil,  then  copied  it  out  in 

FAR  through  the  memory  shines  a  happy 

day, 
Cloudless    of    care,   down-shod    to    every 

sense, 

And  simply  perfect  from  its  own  resource, 
As  to  a  bee  the  new  campanula's 
Illuminate  seclusion  swung  in  air. 
Such  days  are  not  the  prey  of  setting  suns, 
Nor    ever    blurred    with    mist    of    after 
thought; 

Like  words  made  magical  by  poets  dead, 
Wherein  the  music  of  all  meaning  is 
The    sense    hath    garnered    or    the    soul 

divined, 

They  mingle  with  our  life's  ethereal  part, 
Sweetening  and  gathering  sweetness  ever 
more, 
By  beauty's  franchise  disenthralled  of  time. 

I  can  recall,  nay,  they  are  present  still, 
Parts  of  myself,  the  perfume  of  my  mind, 
Days  that  seem  farther  off  than  Homer's 

now 

Ere  yet  the  child  had  loudened  to  the  boy, 
And  I,  recluse  from  playmates,  found  per 
force 

Companionship  in  things  that  not  denied 
Nor  granted  wholly;  as  is  Nature's  wont, 
Who,  safe  in  uncontaminate  reserve, 
Lets  us  mistake  our  longing  for  her  love, 
And  mocks  with  various  echo  of  ourselves. 

These  first  sweet  frauds  upon  our  con 
sciousness, 

That  blend  the  sensual  with  its  imaged 
world, 

These  virginal  cognitions,  gifts  of  morn, 


ink,  and  worked  over  it  as  I  never  worked  over 
anything  before.  I  may  fairly  say  there  is  not 
a  word  in  it  over  which  I  have  not  thought, 
not  an  objection  which  I  did  not  foresee  and 
maturely  consider.  Well,  in  my  second  copy 
I  made  many  changes,  as  I  thought  for  the 
better,  and  then  put  it  away  in  my  desk  to 
cool  for  three  weeks  or  so.  When  I  came  to 
print  it,  I  put  back,  I  believe,  every  one  of  the 
original  readings  which  I  had  changed.  Those 
which  had  come  to  me  were  far  better  than 
those  I  had  come  at.  Only  one  change  I  made 
(for  the  worse),  in  order  to  escape  a  rhyme 
that  had  crept  in  without  my  catching  it." 
Ruskin  made  some  verbal  criticism,  which 
Lowell  proceeded  to  examine,  and  the  reader 
will  find  the  discussion  in  the  notes  at  the  end 
of  this  volume. 


Ere    life   grow  noisy,    and    slower-footed 

thought 

Can  overtake  the  rapture  of  the  sense, 
To  thrust  between  ourselves  and  what  we 

feel, 

Have  something  in  them  secretly  divine. 
Vainly  the  eye,  once  schooled  to  serve  the 

brain, 

With  pains  deliberate  studies  to  renew 
The    ideal    vision  :     second-thoughts     are 

prose; 

For  beauty's  acme  hath  a  term  as  brief 
As  the   wave's    poise    before   it  break   in 

pearl. 
Our  own  breath  dims   the   mirror  of   the 

sense, 

Looking  too  long  and  closely  :  at  a  flash 
We  snatch  the  essential  grace  of  meaning 

out, 

And  that  first  passion  beggars  all  behind, 
Heirs  of  a  tamer  transport  prepossessed. 
Who,  seeing  once,  has  truly  seen  again 
The  gray  vague  of  unsympathizing  sea 
That  dragged  his   Fancy  from  her   moor 
ings  back 

To  shores  inhospitable  of  eldest  time, 
Till   blank   foreboding  of   earth-gendered 

powers, 

Pitiless  seiguories  in  the  elements, 
Omnipotences  blind  that  darkling  smite, 
Misgave  him,  and  repaganized  the  world? 
Yet,  by  some  subtler  touch  of  sympathy, 
These  primal  apprehensions,  dimly  stirred, 
Perplex  the  eye  with  pictures  from  within. 
This  hath  made  poets  dream  of  lives  fore 
gone 
In  worlds  fantastical,  more  fair  than  ours; 


THE   CATHEDRAL 


351 


So   Memory   cheats    us,    glimpsing    half- 
revealed. 

Even  as  I  write  she  tries  her  wonted  spell 
In  that  continuous  redbreast  boding  rain: 
The  bird  I  hear  sings  not  from  yonder  elm  ; 
But  the  flown  ecstasy  my  childhood  heard 
Is  vocal  in  my  mind,  renewed  by  him, 
Haply  made   sweeter    by  the    accumulate 

thrill 

That  threads  my  undivided  life  and  steals 
A  pathos  from  the  years  and  graves  be 
tween. 

I  know  not  how  it  is  with  other  men, 
Whom  I  but  guess,  deciphering  myself; 
For  me,  once  felt  is  so  felt  nevermore. 
The  fleeting  relish  at  sensation's  brim 
Had  in  it  the  best  ferment  of  the  wine. 
One  spring  I  knew  as  never  any  since: 
All  night  the  surges  of  the  warm  southwest 
Boomed  intermittent  through  the  wallowing 

elms, 
And   brought  a  morning   from   the   Gulf 

adrift, 
Omnipotent   with    sunshine,    whose   quick 

charm 

Startled  with  crocuses  the  sullen  turf 
And  wiled  the  bluebird  to  his  whiff  of  song: 
One   summer  hour   abides,   what   time   I 

perched, 
Dappled  with   noonday,  under  simmering 

leaves, 

And  pulled  the  pulpy  oxhearts,  while  aloof 
An  oriole  clattered  and  the  robins  shrilled, 
Denouncing  me  an  alien  and  a  thief: 
One  morn  of  autumn  lords  it  o'er  the  rest, 
When  in  the  lane  I  watched  the  ash-leaves 

fall, 

Balancing  softly  earthward  without  wind, 
Or  twirling  with  director  impulse  down 
On  those  fallen  yesterday,  now  barbed  with 

frost, 

While  I  grew  pensive  with  the  pensive  year: 
And  once  I  learned  how  marvellous  winter 

was, 
When  past  the  fence-rails,  downy-gray  with 

rime, 
I  creaked  adventurous   o'er   the  spangled 

crust 
That  made   familiar  fields   seem  far  and 

strange 

As  those  stark  wastes  that  whiten  endlessly 
In  ghastly  solitude  about  the  pole, 
And  gleam  relentless  to  the  unsetting  sun: 
Instant  the  candid  chambers  of  my  brain 


Were  painted  with  these  sovran  images  ; 
And  later  visions  seem  but  copies  pale 
From  those  unfading  frescos  of  the  past, 
Which  I,  young  savage,  in  my  age  of  flint, 
Gazed  at,  and  dimly  felt  a  power  in  me 
Parted  from  Nature  by  the  joy  in  her 
That  doubtfully  revealed  me  to  myself. 
Thenceforward  I  must  stand  outside  the 

gate; 

And  paradise  was  paradise  the  more, 
Known  once  and  barred  against  satiety. 

What  we  call  Nature,  all  outside  ourselves, 
Is  but  our  own  conceit  of  what  we  see, 
Our  own  reaction  upon  what  we  feel; 
The  world's  a  woman  to  our  shifting  mood, 
Feeling  with  us,  or  making  due  pretence; 
And  therefore  we  the  more  persuade  our 
selves 

To  make  all  things  our  thought's  confeder 
ates, 

Conniving  with  us  in  whate'er  we  dream. 
So  when  our  Fancy  seeks  analogies, 
Though  she   have    hidden  what  she   after 

finds, 

She  loves  to  cheat  herself  with  feigned  sur 
prise. 

I  find  my  own  complexion  everywhere: 
No  rose,  I  doubt,  was  ever,  like  the  first, 
A  marvel  to  the  bush  it  dawned  upon, 
The  rapture  of  its  life  made  visible, 
The  mystery  of  its  yearning  realized, 
As  the  first  babe  to  the  first  woman  born; 
No  falcon  ever  felt  delight  of  wings 
As  when,  an  eyas,  from  the  stolid  cliff 
Loosing  himself,  he  followed  his  high  heart 
To  swim  on  sunshine,  masterless  as  wind; 
And  I  believe  the  brown  earth  takes  delight 
In  the  new  snowdrop  looking  back  at  her, 
To  think  that  by  some  vernal  alchemy 
It  could  transmute  her  darkness  into  pearl; 
What  is  the  buxom  peony  after  that, 
With  its  coarse  constancy  of  hoyden  blush? 
What  the  full  summer  to  that  wonder  new? 

But,  if  in  nothing  else,  in  us  there  is 
A  sense  fastidious  hardly  reconciled 
To  the  poor  makeshifts  of  life's  scenery, 
Where  the  same  slide  must  double  all  its 

parts, 
Shoved  in  for  Tarsus  and  hitched  back  for 

Tyre. 

I  blame  not  in  the  soul  this  daintiness, 
Rasher  of  surfeit  than  a  humming-bird, 
In  things  indifferent  by  sense  purveyed; 


352 


THE   CATHEDRAL 


It  argues  her  an  immortality 

And  dateless  incomes  of  experience, 

This  unthrift   housekeeping  that  will  not 

brook 

A  dish  warmed-over  at  the  feast  of  life, 
And  finds  Twice  stale,  served  with  what- 
I  ever  sauce. 

Nor  matters  much  how  it  may  go  with  me 
Who  dwell  in  Grub  Street  and  am  proud  to 

drudge 
Where  men,  my  betters,  wet  their  crust 

with  tears : 

Use  can  make  sweet  the  peach's  shady  side, 
That  only  by  reflection  tastes  of  sun. 

But  she,  my  Princess,  who  will  sometimes 

deign 

My  garret  to  illumine  till  the  walls, 
Narrow  and   dingy,   scrawled   with  hack 
neyed  thought 

(Poor  Richard  slowly  elbowing  Plato  out), 
Dilate  and  drape  themselves  with  tapestries 
Nausikaa  might  have  stooped  o'er,  while, 

between, 

Mirrors,  effaced  in  their  own  clearness,  send 
Her  only  image  on  through  deepening 

deeps 

With  endless  repercussion  of  delight,  — 
Bringer  of  life,  witching  each  sense  to  soul, 
That  sometimes  almost  gives  me  to  believe 
I  might  have  been  a  poet,  gives  at  least 
A  brain  desaxonized,  an  ear  that  makes 
Music  where  none  is,  and  a  keener  pang 
Of  exquisite  surmise  outleaping  thought,  — 
Her  will  I  pamper  in  her  luxury: 
No  crumpled  rose-leaf  of  too  careless  choice 
Shall  bring  a  northern  nightmare  to  her 

dreams, 

Vexing  with  sense  of  exile;  hers  shall  be 
The  in  vitiate  firstlings  of  experience, 
Vibrations  felt  but  once  and  felt  life  long: 
Oh,  more  than  half-way  turn  that  Grecian 

front 

Upon  me,  while  with  self-rebuke  I  spell, 
On  the  plain  fillet  that  confines  thy  hair 
In  conscious  bounds  of  seeming  uncon- 

straint, 
The  Naught  in  overplus,  thy  race's  badge! 

One  feast  for  her  I  secretly  designed 
In  that  Old  World  so  strangely  beautiful 
To  us  the  disinherited  of  eld,  — 
A  day  at  Chartres,  with  no  soul  beside 
To  roil  with  pedant  prate  my  joy  serene 
And  make  the  minster  shy  of  confidence. 


I  went,  and,  with  the  Saxon's  pious  care, 
First  ordered  dinner  at  the  pea-green  inn, 
The  flies  and  I  its  only  customers. 
Eluding  these,  I  loitered  through  the  town, 
With  hope  to  take  my  minster  unawares 
In  its  grave  solitude  of  memory. 
A  pretty  burgh,  and  such  as  Fancy  loves 
For  bygone    grandeurs,   faintly  rumorous 

now 

Upon  the  mind's  horizon,  as  of  storm 
Brooding  its  dreamy  thunders  far  aloof, 
That  mingle  with  our  mood,  but  not  dis 
turb. 
Its  once  grim  bulwarks,  tamed  to  lovers' 

walks, 

Look  down  unwatchf ul  on  the  sliding  Eure, 
Whose  listless  leisure  suits  the  quiet  place, 
Lisping  among  his  shallows  homelike  sounds 
At  Concord  and  by  Bankside  heard  before. 
Chance  led  me  to  a  public  pleasure-ground, 
Where  I  grew  kindly  with  the  merry  groups, 
And  blessed  the  Frenchman  for  his  simple 

art 

Of  being  domestic  in  the  light  of  day. 
His  language  has  no  word,  we  growl,  for 

Home ; 

But  he  can  find  a  fireside  in  the  sun, 
Play  with  his  child,  make  love,  and  shriek 

his  mind, 

By  throngs  of  strangers  undisprivacied. 
He  makes  his  life  a  public  gallery, 
Nor  feels  himself  till  what  he  feels  comes 

back 

In  manifold  reflection  from  without; 
While  we,  each  pore  alert  with  conscious 
ness, 

Hide  our  best  selves  as  we  had  stolen  them, 
And  each  bystander  a  detective  were, 
Keen-eyed  for  every  chink  of  undisguise. 

So,  musing  o'er   the  problem  which   was 

best,  — 

A  life  wide-windowed,  shining  all  abroad, 
Or  curtains   drawn   to   shield   from   sight 

profane 

The  rites  we  pay  to  the  mysterious  I,  — 
With  outward  senses  furloughed  and  head 

bowed 

I  followed  some  fine  instinct  in  my  feet, 
Till,    to    unbend    me   from   the   loom   of 

thought, 

Looking  up  suddenly,  I  found  mine  eyes 
Confronted  with  the  minster's  vast  repose. 
Silent  and  gray  as  forest-leaguered  cliff 
Left  inland  by  the  ocean's  slow  retreat, 


THE   CATHEDRAL 


353 


That  hears  afar  the  breeze-borne  rote  and 

longs, 
Remembering  shocks  of  surf  that  clomb 

and  fell, 

Spume-sliding  down  the  baffled  decuman, 
It  rose  before  me,  patiently  remote 
From  the  great  tides  of  life  it  breasted  once, 
Hearing  the  noise  of  men  as  in  a  dream. 
I  stood  before  the  triple  northern  port, 
Where  dedicated  shapes  of  saints  and  kings, 
Stern  faces  bleared  with  immemorial  watch, 
Looked  down  benignly  grave  and  seemed 

to  say, 

Ye  come  and  go  incessant;   we  remain 
Safe  in  the  hallowed  quiets  of  the  past; 
Be  reverent,  ye  who  flit  and  are  forgot, 
Of  faith  so  nobly  realized  as  this. 
I  seem  to  have  heard  it  said  by  learned 

folk 

Who  drench  you  with  sesthetics  till  you  feel 
As  if  all  beauty  were  a  ghastly  bore, 
The  faucet  to  let  loose  a  wash  of  words, 
That  Gothic  is  not  Grecian,  therefore  worse ; 
But,  being  convinced  by  much  experiment 
How  little  inventiveness  there  is  in  man, 
Grave  copier  of  copies,  I  give  thanks 
For  a  new  relish,  careless  to  inquire 
My  pleasure's  pedigree,  if  so  it  please, 
Nobly,  I  mean,  nor  renegade  to  art. 
The   Grecian   gluts   me   with  its  perfect- 
ness, 

Unanswerable  as  Euclid,  self-contained, 
The  one  thing  finished  in  this  hasty  world, 
Forever  finished,  though  the  barbarous  pit, 
Fanatical  on  hearsay,  stamp  and  shout 
As  if  a  miracle  could  be  encored. 
But  ah!  this  other,  this  that  never  ends, 
Still  climbing,  luring  fancy  still  to  climb, 
As  full  of  morals  half-divined  as  life, 
Graceful,  grotesque,  with  ever  new  surprise 
Of  hazardous  caprices  sure  to  please, 
Heavy  as  nightmare,  airy-light  as  fern, 
Imagination's  very  self  in  stone! 
With  one  long  sigh  of  infinite  release 
From  pedantries  past,  present,  or  to  come, 
I  looked,  and  owned  myself  a  happy  Goth. 
Your  blood  is  mine,  ye  architects  of  dream, 
Builders  of  aspiration  incomplete, 
So  more  consummate,  souls  self-confident, 
Who  felt  your  own  thought  worthy  of  re 
cord 

In  monumental  pomp!     No  Grecian  drop 
Rebukes  these  veins  that  leap  with  kindred 

thrill, 
After  long  exile,  to  the  mother-tongue. 


Ovid  in  Pontus,  puling  for  his  Rome 
Of  men  invirile  and  disnatured  dames 
That  poison  sucked  from  the  Attic  bloom 

decayed, 
Shrank  with  a  shudder  from  the  blue-eyed 

race 
Whose  force  rough-handed  should  renew 

the  world, 

And  from  the  dregs  of  Romulus  express 
Such  wine  as  Dante  poured,  or  he  who  blew 
Roland's  vain  blast,  or  sang  the  Campeador 
In   verse   that   clanks   like   armor  in  the 

charge, 
Homeric  juice,  though  brimmed  in  Odin's 

horn. 
And  they  could  build,  if  not  the  columned 

fane 
That    from   the  height   gleamed  seaward 

many-hued, 
Something  more  friendly  with  their  ruder 

skies: 

The  gray  spire,  molten  now  in  driving  mist, 
Now  lulled  with  the  incommunicable  blue ; 
The  carvings  touched  to  meaning  new  with 

snow, 

Or  commented  with  fleeting  grace  of  shade ; 
The  statues,  motley  as  man's  memory, 
Partial  as  that,  so  mixed  of  true  and  false, 
History  and  legend  meeting  with  a  kiss 
Across  this  bound-mark  where  their  realms 

confine ; 
The  painted  windows,  freaking  gloom  with 

glow, 
Dusking  the  sunshine  which  they  seem  to 

cheer, 

Meet  symbol  of  the  senses  and  the  soul, 
And  the  whole  pile,  grim  with  the  North 
man's  thought 
Of  life  and  death,  and  doom,  life's  equal 

fee,  — 
These    were    before    me  :    and    I 

abashed, 

Child  of  an  age  that  lectures,  not  creates, 
Plastering  our  swallow-nests  on  the  awful 

Past, 
And  twittering  round  the  work  of  larger 

men, 

As  we  had  builded  what  we  but  deface. 
Far  up  the  great  bells  wallowed  in  delight, 
Tossing   their  clangors   o'er   the   heedless 

town, 

To  call  the  worshippers  who  never  came, 
Or  women  mostly,  in  loath  twos  and  threes. 
I  entered,  reverent  of  whatever  shrine 
Guards  piety  and  solace  for  my  kind 


354 


THE    CATHEDRAL 


Or  gives  the  soul  a  moment's  truce  of  God, 
And  shared  decorous  in  the  ancient  rite 
My  sterner  fathers  held  idolatrous. 
The  service  over,  I  was  tranced  in  thought : 
Solemn  the  deepening  vaults,  and  most  to 

me, 
Fresh  from  the  fragile  realm  of  deal  and 

paint, 

Or  brick  mock-pious  with  a  marble  front ; 
Solemn  the  lift  of  high-embowered  roof, 
The  clustered  steins  that  spread  in  boughs 

disleaved, 
Through  which  the  organ  blew  a  dream  of 

storm, 
Though  not  more  potent  to  sublime  with 

awe 

And  shut  the  heart  up  in  tranquillity, 
Than  aisles  to  me  familiar  that  o'erarch 
The  conscious  silences  of  brooding  woods, 
Centurial  shadows,  cloisters  of  the  elk  : 
Yet  here  was  sense  of  undefined  regret, 
Irreparable  loss,  uncertain  what  : 
Was  all  this  grandeur  but  anachronism, 
A  shell  divorced  of  its  informing  life, 
Where  the  priest  housed  him  like  a  hermit- 
crab, 

An  alien  to  that  faith  of  elder  days 
That  gathered  round  it  this  fair  shape  of 

stone  ? 

Is  old  Religion  but  a  spectre  now, 
Haunting  the  solitude  of  darkened  minds, 
Mocked  out  of  memory  by  the  sceptic  day  ? 
Is    there   no   corner   safe    from    peeping 

Doubt, 

Since  Gutenberg  made  thought  cosmopolite 
And  stretched  electric  threads  from  mind 

to  mind  ? 
Nay,  did  Faith  build  this  wonder  ?  or  did 

Fear, 

That  makes  a  fetish  and  misnames  it  God 
(Blockish  or  metaphysic,  matters  not), 
Contrive  this  coop  to  shut  its  tyrant  in, 
Appeased  with  playthings,  that  he  might 

not  harm  ? 

I  turned  and  saw  a  beldame  on  her  knees  ; 
With  eyes  astray,  she  told  mechanic  beads 
Before  some  shrine  of  saintly  womanhood, 
Bribed  intercessor  with  the  far-off  Judge  : 
Such  my  first  thought,  by  kindlier  soon  re 
buked, 

Pleading  for  whatsoever  touches  life 
With   upward   impulse  :    be   He   nowhere 

else, 
God  is  in  all  that  liberates  and  lifts, 


In   all   that  humbles,  sweetens,  and   con 
soles  : 

Blessed  the  natures  shored  on  every  side 
With  landmarks  of  hereditary  thought ! 
Thrice   happy   they  that  wander  not   life 

long 

Beyond  near  succor  of  the  household  faith, 
The  guarded  fold  that  shelters,  not  con 
fines  ! 

Their  steps  find  patience  in  familiar  paths, 
Printed  with  hope  by  loved  feet  gone  be 
fore 

Of  parent,  child,  or  lover,  glorified 
By  simple  magic  of  dividing  Time. 
My  lids  were  moistened  as  the  woman 

knelt, 

And  —  was  it  will,  or  some  vibration  faint 
Of  sacred  Nature,  deeper  than  the  will  ?  — 
My  heart  occultly  felt  itself  in  hers, 
Through       mutual      intercession      gently 
leagued. 

Or  was  it  not  mere  sympathy  of  brain  ? 
A  sweetness  intellectually  conceived 
In  simpler  creeds  to  me  impossible  ? 
A  juggle  of  that  pity  for  ourselves 
In  others,  which  puts  on  such  pretty  masks 
And  snares  self-love  with  bait  of  charity  ? 
Something  of  all  it  might  be,  or  of  none  : 
Yet  for  a  moment  I  was  snatched  away 
And  had  the  evidence  of  things  not  seen  ; 
For  one  rapt  moment  ;  then  it  all  came 

back, 

This  age  that  blots  out  life  with  question- 
marks, 
This  nineteenth  century  with  its  knife  and 


That  make  thought  physical,  and  thrust  far 

off 
The  Heaven,  so  neighborly  with  man  of 

old, 
To  voids  sparse-sown  with  alienated  stars. 

'T  is  irrecoverable,  that  ancient  faith, 
Homely    and    wholesome,   suited    to    the 

time, 

With  rod  or  candy  for  child-minded  men  : 
No  theologic  tube,  with  lens  on  lens 
Of  syllogism  transparent,  brings  it  near,  — 
At  best  resolving  some  new  nebula, 
Or   blurring   some   fixed-star   of   hope   to 

mist. 
Science  was  Faith  once  ;  Faith  were  Science 

now, 
Would  she  but  lay  her  bow  and  arrows  by 


THE   CATHEDRAL 


355 


And  arm   her   with   the   weapons   of  the 

time. 
Nothing  that  keeps  thought  out  is  safe  from 

thought. 

For  there 's  no  virgin -fort  but  self-respect, 
And  Truth   defensive   hath   lost   hold   on 

God. 

Shall  we  treat  Him  as  if  He  were  a  child 
That  knew  not  His  own  purpose  ?  nor  dare 

trust 

The  Rock  of  Ages  to  their  chemic  tests, 
Lest  some  day  the  all-sustaining  base  divine 
Should   fail   from   under  us,  dissolved   in 

gas? 

The  armed  eye  that  with  a  glance  discerns 
In  a  dry  blood-speck  between  ox  and  man 
Stares  helpless  at  this  miracle  called  life, 
This  shaping  potency  behind  the  egg, 
This  circulation  swift  of  deity, 
Where   suns    and    systems    inconspicuous 

float 
As   the  poor  blood -disks   in   our  mortal 

veins. 
Each  age  must  worship  its  own  thought  of 

God, 

More  or  less  earthy,  clarifying  still 
With  subsidence  continuous  of  the  dregs  ; 
Nor  saint  nor  sage  could  fix  immutably 
The  fluent  image  of  the  unstable  Best, 
Still   changing   in   their    very  hands   that 

wrought  : 

To-day's  eternal  truth  To-morrow  proved 
Frail  as  frost-landscapes  on  a  window-pane. 
Meanwhile  Thou  smiledst,  inaccessible, 
At  Thought's  own  substance  made  a  cage 

for  Thought, 

And  Truth  locked  fast  with  her  own  mas 
ter-key  ; 
Nor  didst   Thou   reck   what    image   man 

might  make 

Of  his  own  shadow  on  the  flowing  world; 
The  climbing  instinct  was  enough  for  Thee. 
Or  wast  Thou,  then,  an  ebbing  tide  that 

left 
Strewn   with   dead    miracle    those    eldest 

shores, 

For  men  to  dry,  and  dryly  lecture  on, 
Thyself  thenceforth  incapable  of  flood  ? 
Idle    who    hopes    with    prophets    to    be 

snatched 

By  virtue  in  their  mantles  left  below; 
Shall  the  soul  live  on  other  men's  report, 
Herself  a  pleasing  fable  of  herself  ? 
Man  cannot  be  God's  outlaw  if  he  would, 
Nor  so  abscond  him  in  the  caves  of  sense 


But  Nature  still  shall  search  some  crevice 

out 
With    messages    of    splendor    from  that 

Source 
Which,  dive  he,  soar  he,  baffles  still  and 

lures. 

This   life  were  brutish  did  we  not  some 
times 

Have  intimation  clear  of  wider  scope, 
Hints  of  occasion  infinite,  to  keep 
The  soul  alert  with  noble  discontent 
And  onward  yearnings  of  unstilled  desire; 
Fruitless,  except  we  now  and  then  divined 
A  mystery  of  Purpose,  gleaming  through 
The  secular  confusions  of  the  world, 
Whose  will  we   darkly  accomplish,  doing 

ours. 

No  man  can  think  nor  in  himself  perceive, 
Sometimes  at  waking,  in  the  street  some 
times, 

Or  on  the  hillside,  always  unforewarned, 
A  grace  of  being,  finer  than  himself, 
That  beckons  and  is  gone,  —  a  larger  life 
Upon     his    own     impinging,    with     swift 

glimpse 

Of  spacious  circles  luminous  with  mind, 
To   which   the   ethereal   substance  of   his 

own 

Seems  but  gross  cloud  to  make  that  visible, 
Touched  to  a  sudden  glory  round  the  edge. 
Who  that  hath  known  these  visitations  fleet 
Would  strive  to  make  them  trite  and 

ritual  ? 

I,  that  still  pray  at  morning  and  at  eve, 
Loving  those  roots  that  feed  us  from  the 

past, 
And   prizing   more    than    Plato   things   I 

learned 

At  that  best  academe,  a  mother's  knee, 
Thrice    in    my    life   perhaps    have   truly 

prayed, 
Thrice,  stirred  below  my   conscious   self, 

have  felt 

That  perfect  disenth raiment  which  is  God ; 
Nor  know  I  which  to  hold  worst  enemy, 
Him  who  on  speculation's  windy  waste 
Would  turn  me  loose,  stript  of  the  raiment 

warm 

By  Faith  contrived  against  our  nakedness, 
Or  him  who,  cruel-kind,  would  fain  obscure, 
With  painted  saints  and  paraphrase  of  God, 
The  soul's  east-window  of  divine  surprise. 
Where  others  worship  I  but  look  and  long; 
For,  though  not  recreant  to  my  fathers' 

faith, 


356 


THE   CATHEDRAL 


Its  forms  to  me  are  weariness,  and  most 
That  drony  vacuum  of  compulsory  prayer, 
Still  pumping  phrases  for  the  Ineffable, 
Though  all  the  valves  of  memory  gasp  and 

wheeze. 

Words  that  have  drawn  transcendent  mean 
ings  up 

From  the  best  passion  of  all  bygone  time, 
Steeped  through  with  tears  of  triumph  and 

remorse, 

Sweet  with  all  sainthood,  cleansed  in  mar 
tyr-fires, 

Can  they,  so  consecrate  and  so  inspired, 
By  repetition  wane  to  vexing  wind  ? 
Alas  !  we  cannot  draw  habitual  breath 
In  the  thin  air  of  life's  supremer  heights, 
We  cannot  make  each  meal  a  sacrament, 
Nor  with  our  tailors  be  disbodied  souls,  — 
We  men,  too  conscious  of  earth's  comedy, 
Who  see  two  sides,  with  our  posed  selves 

debate, 

And  only  for  great  stakes  can  be  sublime  ! 
Let  us  be  thankful  when,  as  I  do  here, 
We  can  read  Bethel  on  a  pile  of  stones, 
And,  seeing  where  God  has  been,  trust  in 
Him. 

Brave  Peter  Fischer  there  in  Nuremberg, 
Moulding  Saint  Sebald's  miracles  in  bronze, 
Put   saint   and  stander-by   in  that  quaint 

garb 

Familiar  to  him  in  his  daily  walk, 
Not  doubting  God  could  grant  a  miracle 
Then  and  in  Nuremberg,  if  so  He  would; 
But  never  artist  for  three  hundred  years 
Hath  dared  the  contradiction  ludicrous 
Of  supernatural  in  modern  clothes. 
Perhaps  the  deeper  faith  that  is  to  come 
Will  see  God  rather  in  the  strenuous  doubt, 
Than  in  the  creed  held  as  an  infant's  hand 
Holds  purposeless  whatso  is  placed  therein. 

Say  it  is  drift,  not  progress,  none  the  less, 
With  the  old  sextant  of  the  fathers'  creed, 
We  shape  our  courses  by  new-risen  stars, 
And,  still  lip-loyal  to  what  once  was  truth, 
Smuggle    new    meanings    under    ancient 

names, 

Unconscious  perverts  of  the  Jesuit,  Time. 
Change  is  the   mask  that  all  Continuance 

wears 

To  keep  us  youngsters  harmlessly  amused; 
Meanwhile  some  ailing  or  more  watchful 

child, 
Sitting  apart,  sees  the  old  eyes  gleam  out, 


Stern,  and  yet  soft  with  humorous  pity  too. 
Whilere,  men  burnt  men  for  a  doubtful 

point, 

As  if  the  mind  were  quenchable  with  fire, 
And  Faith  danced   round  them    with  her 

war-paint  on, 

Devoutly  savage  as  an  Iroquois  ; 
Now  Calvin  and  Servetus  at  one  board 
Snuff  in  grave  sympathy  a  milder  roast, 
And  o'er  their  claret  settle  Comte  unread. 
Fagot  and  stake  were  desperately  sincere: 
Our  cooler  martyrdoms  are  done  in  types; 
And  flames  that  shine  in  controversial  eyes 
Burn  out  no   brains   but  his   who  kindles 

them. 

This  is  no  age  to  get  cathedrals  built: 
Did  God,  then,  wait  for  one  in  Bethlehem  ? 
Worst  is  not  yet:   lo,  where   his   coming 

looms, 

Of  earth's  anarchic  children  latest  born, 
Democracy,  a  Titan  who  hath  learned 
To  laugh  at  Jove's  old-fashioned  thunder 
bolts,  — 

Could  he  not  also  forge  them,  if  he  would  ? 
He,  better  skilled,  with  solvents  merciless, 
Loosened  in  air  and  borne  on  every  wind, 
Saps    unperceived:    the    calm    Olympian 

height 

Of  ancient  order  feels  its  bases  yield, 
And  pale  gods  glance  for  help  to  gods  as 

pale. 

What  will  be  left  of  good  or  worshipful, 
Of  spiritual  secrets,  mysteries, 
Of  fair  religion's  guarded  heritage, 
Heirlooms  of  soul,  passed  downward  un- 

profaned 
From   eldest   Ind?     This   Western   giant 

coarse, 

Scorning  refinements  which  he  lacks  him 
self, 

Loves  not  nor  heeds  the  ancestral  hierar 
chies, 

Each  rank  dependent  on  the  next  above 
In  orderly  gradation  fixed  as  fate. 
Bang    by    mere    manhood,    nor    allowing 

aught 

Of  holier  unction  than  the  sweat  of  toil; 
In  his  own  strength   sufficient;   called  to 

solve, 

On  the  rough  edges  of  society, 
Problems  long  sacred  to  the  choicer  few, 
And   improvise  what   elsewhere   men   re 
ceive 

As  gifts  of  deity;  tough  foundling  reared 
Where  every  man  's  his  own  Melchisedek, 


THE   CATHEDRAL 


357 


How   make  him   reverent   of  a   King   of 

kings  ? 

Or  Judge  self-made,  executor  of  laws 
By  him  not  first  discussed  and  voted  on  ? 
For  him  no  tree  of  knowledge  is  forbid, 
Or  sweeter  if  forbid.     How  save  the  ark, 
Or  holy  of  holies,  unprofaned  a  day 
From  his  unscrupulous  curiosity 
That  handles  everything  as  if  to  buy, 
Tossing  aside  what  fabrics  delicate 
Suit    not   the   rough  -  and  -  tumble   of   his 

ways  ? 

What  hope  for  those  fine-nerved  humani 
ties 
That  made  earth  gracious  once  with  gentler 

arts, 
Now  the  rude  hands  have  caught  the  trick 

of  thought 

And  claim    an    equal    suffrage   with   the 
brain  ? 

The  born  disciple  of  an  elder  time, 

(To  me  sufficient,  friendlier  than  the  new,) 

Who   in    my   blood   feel   motions   of   the 

Past, 

I  thank  benignant  nature  most  for  this,  — 
A  force  of  sympathy,  or  call  it  lack 
Of  character  firm-planted,  loosing  me 
From  the  pent  chamber  of  habitual  self 
To    dwell    enlarged    in    alien    modes    of 

thought, 

Haply  distasteful,  wholesomer  for  that, 
And  through  imagination  to  possess, 
As   they   were   mine,   the   lives   of   other 

men. 

This  growth  original  of  virgin  soil, 
By  fascination  felt  in  opposites, 
Pleases  and  shocks,  entices  and  perturbs. 
In  this  brown-fisted  rough,  this  shirt-sleeved 

Cid, 
This  backwoods  Charlemagne  of  empires 

new, 
Whose  blundering  heel  instinctively  finds 

out 

The  goutier  foot  of  speechless  dignities, 
Who,   meeting   Caesar's    self,    would    slap 

his  back, 
Call  him  "  Old  Horse,"  and  challenge  to  a 

drink, 
My    lungs    draw   braver    air,   my  breast 

dilates 
With  ampler  manhood,  and   I  front  both 

worlds, 

Of  sense  and  spirit,  as  my  natural  fiefs, 
To  shape  and  then  reshape  them  as  I  will. 


It  was  the   first   man's  charter;  why  not 

mine  ? 
How  forfeit  ?  when  deposed  in  other  hands  ? 

Thou  shudder'st,  Ovid  ?   Dost  in  him  fore 
bode 

A  new  avatar  of  the  large-limbed  Goth, 
To   break,   or   seem  to   break,  tradition's 

clue, 
And   chase   to  dreamland   back  thy  gods 

dethroned  ? 
I  think   man's  soul   dwells  nearer  to  the 

east, 
Nearer   to   morning's   fountains   than  the 

sun; 
Herself  the   source   whence    all   tradition 

sprang, 

Herself  at  once  both  labyrinth  and  clue. 
The  miracle  fades  out  of  history, 
But  faith  and  wonder  and  the  primal  earth 
Are  born  into  the  world  with  every  child. 
Shall  this  self-maker  with  the  prying  eyes, 
This  creature  disenchanted  of  respect 
By  the  New  World's  new  fiend,  Publicity, 
Whose  testing  thumb  leaves  everywhere  its 

smutch, 

Not  one  day  feel  within  himself  the  need 
Of  loyalty  to  better  than  himself, 
That  shall  ennoble  him  with  the  upward 

look? 
Shall  he  not  catch  the  Voice  that  wanders 

earth, 

With  spiritual  summons,  dreamed  or  heard, 
As  sometimes,  just  ere  sleep  seals  up  the 

sense, 
We   hear  our  mother  call  from  deeps  of 

Time, 

And,  waking,  find  it  vision,  —  none  the  less 
The  benediction  bides,  old  skies  return, 
And  that  unreal  thing,  preeminent, 
Makes  air  and  dream  of  all  we  see  and 

feel? 
Shall   he   divine   no   strength   unmade   of 

votes, 

Inward,  impregnable,  found  soon  as  sought, 
Not   cognizable   of   sense,   o'er   sense   su 
preme  ? 

Else  were  he  desolate  as  none  before. 
His  holy  places  may  not  be  of  stone, 
Nor  made  with  hands,  yet  fairer  far  than 

aught 

By  artist  feigned  or  pious  ardor  reared, 
Fit  altars  for  who  guards  inviolate 
God's  chosen  seat,  the  sacred  form  of  man. 
Doubtless  his  church  will  be  no  hospital 


THE   CATHEDRAL 


For    superannuate    forms    and    mumping 

shams, 

No  parlor  where  men  issue  policies 
Of  life-assurance  on  the  Eternal  Mind, 
Nor  his  religion  but  an  ambulance 
To  fetch  life's  wounded  and  malingerers  in, 
Scorned  by  the  strong;  yet  he,  unconscious 

heir 
To  the  influence  sweet  of  Athens  and  of 

Rome, 

And  old  Judaea's  gift  of  secret  fire, 
Spite  of  himself  shall  surely  learn  to  know 
And  worship  some  ideal  of  himself, 
Some    divine    thing,    large-hearted,    bro 
therly, 

Not  nice  in  trifles,  a  soft  creditor, 
Pleased  with  his  world,   and  hating   only 

cant. 

And,  if  his  Church  be  doubtful,  it  is  sure 
That,  in  a  world,  made  for  whatever  else, 
Not  made  for  mere  enjoyment,  in  a  world 
Of  toil  but  half-requited,  or,  at  best, 
Paid  in  some  futile  currency  of  breath, 
A  world  of  incompleteness,  sorrow  swift 
And  consolation  laggard,  whatsoe'er 
The  form  of   building    or  the  creed  pro 
fessed, 
The  Cross,  bold  type  of  shame  to  homage 

turned, 

Of  an  unfinished  life  that  sways  the  world, 
Shall  tower  as  sovereign  emblem  over  all. 

The  kobold  Thought  moves  with  us  when 

we  shift 

Our  dwelling  to  escape  him ;  perched  aloft 
On   the    first   load   of   household-stuff    he 

went;1 

For,  where  the  mind  goes,  goes  old  furni 
ture. 

I,  who  to  Chartres  came  to  feed  my  eye 
And  give  to  Fancy  one  clear  holiday, 
Scarce  saw  the  minster  for  the  thoughts  it 

stirred 
Buzzing   o'er  past   and   future  with  vain 

quest. 
Here  once  there  stood  a  homely  wooden 

church, 
Which  slow  devotion   nobly  changed   for 

this 

That  echoes  vaguely  to  my  modern  steps. 
By  suffrage  universal  it  was  built, 
As  practised  then,  for  all  the  country  came 
From  far  as  Rouen,  to  give  votes  for  God, 
Each  vote  a  block  of  stone  securely  laid 
Obedient  to  the  master's  deep-mused  plan. 


Will  what  our  ballots  rear,  responsible 
To  no  grave  forethought,  stand  so  long  as 

this? 

Delight  like  this  the  eye  of  after  days 
Brightening  with  pride  that  here,  at  least, 

were  men 
Who  meant  and  did  the  noblest  thing  they 

knew? 

Can  our  religion  cope  with  deeds  like  this  ? 
We,  too,  build  Gothic  contract-shams,  be 
cause 

Our  deacons  have  discovered  that  it  pays, 
And  pews  sell  better  under  vaulted  roofs 
Of  plaster  painted  like  an  Indian  squaw. 
Shall  not  that  Western  Goth,  of  whom  we 

spoke, 

So  fiercely  practical,  so  keen  of  eye, 
Find  out,  some  day,  that  nothing  pays  but 

God, 

Served  whether  on  the  smoke-shut  battle 
field, 

In  work  obscure  done  honestly,  or  vote 
For  truth  unpopular,  or  faith  maintained 
To  ruinous  convictions,  or  good  deeds 
Wrought    for    good's    sake,   mindless    of 

heaven  or  hell  ? 

Shall  he  not  learn  that  all  prosperity, 
Whose  bases  stretch  not  deeper  than  the 

sense, 

Is  but  a  trick  of  this  world's  atmosphere, 
A  desert-born  mirage  of  spire  and  dome, 
Or  find  too  late,  the  Past's  long  lesson 

missed, 
That  dust   the    prophets    shake  from  off 

their  feet 
Grows  heavy  to  drag  down  both  tower  and 

wall  ? 

I  know  not;  but,  sustained  by  sure  belief 
That  man  still  rises  level  with  the  height 
Of  noblest  opportunities,  or  makes 
Such,  if  the  time  supply  not,  I  can  wait. 
I  gaze    round   on  the   windows,   pride    of 

France, 
Each    the   bright   gift   of  some  mechanic 

guild 
Who  loved  their  city  and  thought  gold  well 

spent 

To  make  her  beautiful  with  piety; 
I  pause,  transfigured   by   some   stripe   of 

bloom, 

And  my  mind  throngs  with  shining  augur 
ies, 

Circle  on  circle,  bright  as  seraphim, 
With  golden  trumpets,  silent,  that  await 
The  signal  to  blow  news  of  good  to  men. 


THE   CATHEDRAL 


359 


Then  the  revulsion  came  that  always  comes 
After  these  dizzy  elations  of  the  mind: 
And  with  a   passionate  pang   of  doubt  I 

cried, 

"  O   mountain  -  born,    sweet    with    snow- 
filtered  air 

From  uncontaminate  wells  of  ether  drawn 
And  never-broken  secrecies  of  sky, 
Freedom,  with  anguish  won,  misprized  till 

lost, 
They  keep  thee  not  who  from  thy  sacred 

eyes 

Catch  the  consuming  lust  of  sensual  good 
And  the  brute's  license  of  unfettered  will. 
Far  from  the  popular  shout  and  venal 

breath 

Of  Cleon  blowing  the  mob's  baser  mind 
To  bubbles  of  wind-piloted  conceit, 
Thou  shrinkest,  gathering  up  thy  skirts,  to 

hide 

In  fortresses  of  solitary  thought 
And  private  virtue  strong  in  self-restraint. 
Must  we  too  forfeit  thee  misunderstood, 
Content  with  names,  nor  inly  wise  to  know 
That  best  things  perish  of  their   own   ex 
cess, 

And  quality  o'er-driven  becomes  defect  ? 
Nay,    is    it    thou    indeed    that    we    have 

glimpsed, 

Or  rather  such  illusion  as  of  old 
Through    Athens    glided    menadlike    and 

Rome, 

A  shape  of  vapor,  mother  of  vain  dreams 
And  mutinous  traditions,  specious  plea 
Of  the  glaived  tyrant  and  long-memoried 
priest  ?  " 

I  walked  forth  saddened;  for  all  thought 

is  sad, 

And  leaves  a  bitterish  savor  in  the  brain, 
Tonic,  it  may  be,  not  delectable, 
And  turned,  reluctant,  for  a  parting  look 
At  those  old  weather-pitted  images 
Of  bygone  struggle,  now  so  sternly  calm. 
About  their  shoulders  sparrows   had  built 

nests, 
And  fluttered,  chirping,  from  gray  perch 

to  perch, 

Now  on  a  mitre  poising,  now  a  crown, 
Irreverently  happy.  While  I  thought 
How  confident  they  were,  what  careless 

hearts 
Flew  on  those  lightsome  wings  and  shared 

the  sun, 
A  larger  shadow  crossed;  and  looking  up, 


I  saw  where,  nesting  in  the  hoary  towers, 
The  sparrow-hawk  slid  forth   on  noiseless 

air, 
With  sidelong  head  that  watched  the  joy 

below, 

Grim  Norman  baron  o'er  this  clan  of  Kelts. 
Enduring  Nature,  force  conservative, 
Indifferent    to    our    noisy    whims !     Men 

prate 

Of  all  heads  to  an  equal  grade  cashiered 
On  level  with  the  dullest,  and  expect 
(Sick  of  no  worse  distemper   than   them 
selves) 

A  wondrous  cure-all  in  equality; 
They  reason  that  To-morrow  must  be  wise 
Because  To-day  was  not,  nor  Yesterday, 
As  if  good  days  were  shapen  of  themselves, 
Not  of  the  very  life  blood  of  men's  souls; 
Meanwhile,  long-suffering,  imperturbable, 
Thou  quietly  complet'st  thy  syllogism, 
And  from  the  premise  sparrow  here  below 
Draw'st  sure  conclusion  of  the  hawk  above, 
Pleased    with    the    soft  -  billed    songster, 

pleased  no  less 
With  the  fierce  beak  of  natures  aquiline. 

Thou  beautiful  Old  Time,  now  hid  away 

In  the  Past's  valley  of  Avilion, 

Haply,    like   Arthur,   till    thy   wound    be 

healed, 
Then   to   reclaim    the   sword   and    crown 

again  ! 

Thrice  beautiful  to  us;  perchance  less  fair 
To   who   possessed    thee,    as   a   mountain 

seems 

To  dwellers  round  its  bases  but  a  heap 
Of  barren  obstacle  that  lairs  the  storm 
And  the  avalanche's  silent  bolt  holds  back 
Leashed   with   a  hair,  —  meanwhile   some 

far-off  clown, 

Hereditary  delver  of  the  plain, 
Sees  it  an  unmoved  vision  of  repose, 
Nest  of  the  morning,  and  conjectures  there 
The  dance  of  streams   to  idle   shepherds' 

pipes, 

And  fairer  habitations  softly  hung 
On  breezy  slopes,  or  hid  in  valleys  cool, 
For  happier  men.     No  mortal  ever  dreams 
That  the  scant  isthmus  he  encamps  upon 
Between    two    oceans,    one,   the    Stormy, 


And  one,  the  Peaceful,  yet  to  venture  on, 
Has    been   that   future   whereto   prophets 

yearned 
For  the  fulfilment  of  Earth's  cheated  hope, 


36° 


THREE   MEMORIAL   POEMS 


Shall  be  that  past  which   nerveless  poets 

moan 
As  the  lost  opportunity  of  song. 

O  Power,  more  near  my  life  than  life  itself 
(Or   what  seems  life  to   us   in   sense   im 
mured), 
Even  as  the  roots,  shut   in   the   darksome 

earth, 

Share  in  the   tree-top's  joyance,  and  con 
ceive 
Of  sunshine    and    wide    air    and   winged 

things 

By  sympathy  of  nature,  so  do  I 
Have  evidence  of  Thee  so  far  above, 
Yet  in  and  of  me  !     Rather  Thou  the  root 
Invisibly  sustaining,  hid  in  light, 
Not  darkness,  or  in  darkness  made  by  us. 
If  sometimes  I  must  hear  good  men  debate 
Of  other  witness  of  Thyself  than  Thou, 


As  if  there  needed  any  help  of  ours 

To    nurse    Thy   flickering   life,   that   else 

must  cease, 
Blown  out,  as  't  were  a  candle,  by   men's 

breath, 

My  soul  shall  not  be  taken  in  their  snare, 
To    change   her  inward   surety   for  their 

doubt 
Muffled    from   sight    in   formal  robes   of 

proof: 
While  she  can  only   feel   herself  through 

Thee, 

I  fear  not  Thy  withdrawal;  more  I  fear, 
Seeing,  to  know  Thee  not,  hoodwinked  with 

dreams 
Of  signs   and   wonders,   while,   unnoticed, 

Thou, 
Walking  Thy  garden  still,  commun'st  with 

men, 
Missed  in  the  commonplace  of  miracle. 


THREE   MEMORIAL   POEMS 

"  Coscienza  fusca 

O  della  propria  o  dell'  altrui  vergogna 
Pur  sentira  latua  parola  brusca." 

If  I  let  fall  a  word  of  bitter  mirth 

When  public  shames  more  shameful  pardon  won, 

Some  have  misjudged  me,  and  my  service  done, 

If  small,  yet  faithful,  deemed  of  little  worth: 

Through  veins  that  drew  their  life  from  Western  earth 

Two  hundred  years  and  more  my  blood  hath  run 

In  no  polluted  course  from  sire  to  son ; 

And  thus  was  I  predestined  ere  my  birth 

To  love  the  soil  wherewith  my  fibres  own 

Instinctive  sympathies ;  yet  love  it  so 

As  honor  would,  nor  lightly  to  dethrone 

Judgment,  the  stamp  of  manhood,  nor  forego 

The  son's  right  to  a  mother  dearer  grown 

With  growing  knowledge  and  more  chaste  than  snow. 


To 
E.   L.   GODKIN, 

IN  CORDIAL  ACKNOWLEDGMENT   OF   HIS   EMINENT   SERVICE 

IN   HEIGHTENING   AND   PURIFYING    THE    TONE 

OF    OUR   POLITICAL    THOUGHT, 


ARE    DEDICATED. 


V*  Readers,  it  is  hoped,  will  remember  that,  by  his  Ode  at  the  Harvard  Commemo 
ration,  the  author  had  precluded  himself  from  many  of  the  natural  outlets  of  thought 
and  feeling  common  to  such  occasions  as  are  celebrated  in  these  poems. 


ODE   READ   AT   CONCORD 


361 


ODE 

READ  AT  THE  ONE  HUNDREDTH  ANNI 
VERSARY  OF  THE  FIGHT  AT  CONCORD 
BRIDGE 

IQTH  APRIL,  1875 

In  the  letter  to  Mr.  Thayer  quoted  in  the 
note  introducing  the  Commemoration  Ode, 
Lowell  wrote  at  some  length  regarding-  the 
structure  of  his  odes  in  general.  He  added  : 
"  The  sentiment  of  the  Concord  Ode  demanded 
a  larger  proportion  of  lyrical  movements,  of 
course,  than  the  others.  Harmony,  without 
sacrifice  of  melody,  was  what  I  had  mainly  in 
view."  He  wrote  to  another  friend  that  the 
ode  was  "  an  improvisation  written  in  the  two 
days  before  the  celebration." 


WHO  cometh  over  the  hills, 
Her  garments  with  morning  sweet, 
The  dance  of  a  thousand  rills 
Making  music  before  her  feet? 
Her  presence  freshens  the  air; 
Sunshine  steals  light  from  her  face; 
The  leaden  footstep  of  Care 
Leaps  to  the  tune  of  her  pace, 
Fairness  of  all  that  is  fair, 
Grace  at  the  heart  of  all  grace, 
Sweetener  of  hut  and  of  hall, 
Bringer  of  life  out  of  naught, 
Freedom,  oh,  fairest  of  all 
The  daughters  of  Time  and  Thought! 

II 

She  cometh,  cometh  to-day: 
Hark  !  hear  ye  not  her  tread, 
Sending  a  thrill  through  your  clay, 
Under  the  sod  there,  ye  dead, 
Her  nurslings  and  champions  ? 
Do  ye  not  hear,  as  she  comes, 
The  bay  of  the  deep-mouthed  guns, 
The  gathering  rote  of  the  drums  ? 
The  bells  that  called  ye  to  prayer, 
How  wildly  they  clamor  on  her, 
Crying,  "  She  cometh  !  prepare 
Her  to  praise  and  her  to  honor, 
That  a  hundred  years  ago 
Scattered  here  in  blood  and  tears 
Potent  seeds  wherefrom  should  grow 
Gladness  for  a  hundred  years  ! " 


III 

Tell  me,  young  men,  have  ye  seen 

Creature  of  diviner  mien 

For  true  hearts  to  long  and  cry  for, 

Manly  hearts  to  live  and  die  for  ? 

What  hath  she  that  others  want  ? 

Brows  that  all  endearments  haunt, 

Eyes  that  make  it  sweet  to  dare, 

Smiles  that  cheer  untimely  death, 

Looks  that  fortify  despair, 

Tones  more  brave  than  trumpet's  breath; 

Tell  me,  maidens,  have  ye  known 

Household  charm  more  sweetly  rare, 

Grace  of  woman  ampler  blown, 

Modesty  more  debonair, 

Younger  heart  with  wit  full  grown  ? 

Oh  for  an  hour  of  my  prime, 

The  pulse  of  my  hotter  years, 

That  I  might  praise  her  in  rhyme 

Would  tingle  your  eyelids  to  tears, 

Our  sweetness,  our  strength,  and  our  star, 

Our  hope,  our  joy,  and  our  trust, 

Who  lifted  us  out  of  the  dust, 

And  made  us  whatever  we  are  ! 

IV 

Whiter  than  moonshine  upon  snow 
Her  raiment  is,  but  round  the  hem 
Crimson  stained;  and,  as  to  and  fro 
Her  sandals  flash,  we  see  on  them, 
And  on  her  instep  veined  with  blue, 
Flecks  of  crimson,  on  those  fair  feet, 
High-arched,  Diana-like,  and  fleet, 
Fit  for  no  grosser  stain  than  dew: 
Oh,  call  them  rather  chrisms  than  stains, 
Sacred  and  from  heroic  veins  ! 
For,  in  the  glory-guarded  pass, 
Her  haughty  and  far-shining  head 
She  bowed  to  shrive  Leonidas 
With  his  imperishable  dead; 
Her,  too,  Morgarten  saw, 
Where  the  Swiss  lion  fleshed  his  icy  paw; 
She  followed  Cromwell's  quenchless  star 
Where  the  grim  Puritan  tread 
Shook  Marston,  Naseby,  and  Dunbar: 
Yea,  on  her  feet  are  dearer  dyes 
Yet  fresh,  nor  looked  on  with  untearful 
eyes. 


Our  fathers  found  her  in  the  woods 
Where  Nature  meditates  and  broods, 
The  seeds  of  unexampled  things 


362 


THREE   MEMORIAL   POEMS 


Which  Time  to  consummation  brings 
Through  life  and  death  and  man's  unstable 

moods; 

They  met  her  here,  not  recognized, 
A  sylvan  huntress  clothed  in  furs, 
To  whose  chaste  wants  her  bow  sufficed, 
Nor  dreamed  what  destinies  were  hers: 
She  taught  them  bee-like  to  create 
Their  simpler  forms  of  Church  and  State; 
She  taught  them  to  endue 
The  past  with  other  functions  than  it  knew, 
And  turn  in  channels  strange  the  uncertain 

stream  of  Fate; 
Better  than  all,  she  fenced  them  in  their 

need 

With  iron-handed  Duty's  sternest  creed, 
'Gainst  Self's  lean  wolf  that  ravens  word 

and  deed. 

VI 

Why  cometh  she  hither  to-day 
To  this  low  village  of  the  plain 
Far  from  the  Present's  loud  highway, 
From  Trade's  cool  heart  and  seething  brain? 
Why  cometh  she  ?    She  was  not  far  away. 
Since  the  soul  touched  it,  not  in  vain, 
With  pathos  of  immortal  gain, 
'Tis  here  her  fondest  memories  stay. 
She  loves  yon  pine-bemurmured  ridge 
Where  now  our  broad-browed  poet  sleeps, 
Dear  to  both  Englands ;  near  him  he 
Who  wore  the  ring  of  Canace; 
But  most  her  heart  to  rapture  leaps 
Where  stood  that  era-parting  bridge, 
O'er  which,  with  footfall  still  as  dew, 
The  Old  Time  passed  into  the  New; 
Where,  as  your  stealthy  river  creeps, 
He  whispers  to  his  listening  weeds 
Tales  of  sublimest  homespun  deeds. 
Here  English  law  and  English  thought 
'Gainst  the  self-will  of  England  fought; 
And  here  were  men   (coequal  with  their 

fate), 
Who   did   great  things,  unconscious   they 

were  great. 

They  dreamed  not  what  a  die  was  cast 
With  that  first  answering  shot;  what  then  ? 
There  was  their  duty ;  they  were  men 
Schooled  the  soul's  inward  gospel  to  obey, 
Though  leading  to  the  lion's  den. 
They  felt  the  habit-hallowed  world  give  way 
Beneath  their  lives,  and  on  went  they, 
Unhappy  who  was  last. 
When  Buttrick  gave  the  word, 
That  awful  idol  of  the  unchallenged  Past, 


Strong  in  their  love,  and  in  their  lineage 
strong, 

Fell  crashing:  if  they  heard  it  not, 

Yet  the  earth  heard, 

Nor  ever  hath  forgot, 

As  on  from  startled  throne  to  throne, 

Where  Superstition  sate  or  conscious 
Wrong, 

A  shudder  ran  of  some  dread  birth  un 
known. 

Thrice  venerable  spot ! 

River  more  fateful  than  the  Rubicon  ! 

O'er  those  red  planks,  to  snatch  her  diadem, 

Man's  Hope,  star-girdled,  sprang  with  them, 

And  over  ways  untried  the  feet  of  Doom 
strode  on. 

VII 

Think  you  these  felt  no  charms 

In  their  gray  homesteads  and  embowered 

farms  ? 

In  household  faces  waiting  at  the  door 
Their  evening  step  should  lighten  up  no 

more  ? 

In  fields  their  boyish  feet  had  known  ? 
In  trees  their  fathers'  hands  had  set, 
And  which  with  them  had  grown, 
Widening  each  year  their  leafy  coronet  ? 
Felt  they  no  pang  of  passionate  regret 
For  those  unsolid  goods  that  seem  so  much 

our  own  ? 
These  things  are  dear  to  every  man  that 

lives, 
And  life  prized  more  for  what  it  lends  than 

gives. 

Yea,  many  a  tie,  through  iteration  sweet, 
Strove  to  detain  their  fatal  feet; 
And  yet  the  enduring  half  they  chose, 
Whose  choice  decides  a  man  life's  slave  or 

king, 
The  invisible  things  of  God  before  the  seen 

and  known: 

Therefore  their  memory  inspiration  blows 
With  echoes  gathering  on  from   zone   to 

zone; 

For  manhood  is  the  one  immortal  thing 
Beneath  Time's  changeful  sky, 
And,  where  it  lightened  once,  from  age  to 

age, 

Men  come  to  learn,  in  grateful  pilgrimage, 
That  length  of  days  is  knowing  when  to  die. 

VIII 

What  marvellous  change  of  things  and  men  ! 
She,  a  world- wandering  orphan  then, 


ODE   READ   AT   CONCORD 


363 


So  mighty  now  !    Those  are  her  streams 
That  whirl  the  myriad,  myriad  wheels 
Of  all  that  does,  and  all  that  dreams, 
Of  all  that  thinks,  and  all  that  feels, 
Through  spaces  stretched  from  sea  to  sea; 
By  idle  tongues  and  busy  brains, 
By  who  doth  right,  and  who  refrains, 
Hers  are  our  losses  and  our  gains; 
Our  maker  and  our  victim  she. 

IX 

Maiden  half  mortal,  half  divine, 
We  triumphed  in  thy  coming;  to  the  brinks 
Our  hearts  were  filled  with  pride's  tumul 
tuous  wine; 

Better  to-day  who  rather  feels  than  thinks. 
Yet  will  some  graver  thoughts  intrude, 
And  cares  of  sterner  mood; 
They  won  thee :  who  shall  keep  thee  ?  From 

the  deeps 
Where  discrowned  empires  o'er  their  ruins 

brood, 
And  many  a  thwarted  hope  wrings  its  weak 

hands  and  weeps, 

I  hear  the  voice  as  of  a  mighty  wind 
From  all  heaven's  caverns  rushing  uncon- 

fined, 
"I,  Freedom,  dwell   with   Knowledge:    I 

abide 

With  men  whom  dust  of  faction  cannot  blind 
To  the  slow  tracings  of  the  Eternal  Mind; 
With  men  by  culture  trained  and  fortified, 
Who  bitter  duty  to  sweet  lusts  prefer, 
Fearless  to  counsel  and  obey. 
Conscience    my   sceptre   is,   and   law   my 

sword, 

Not  to  be  drawn  in  passion  or  in  play, 
But  terrible  to  punish  and  deter; 
Implacable  as  God's  word, 
Like  it,  a  shepherd's  crook  to  them  that 

blindly  err. 
Your  firm-pulsed  sires,  my  martyrs  and  my 

saints, 
Offshoots  of  that  one  stock  whose  patient 

sense 

Hath  known  to  mingle  flux  with  perma 
nence, 

Rated  my  chaste  denials  and  restraints 
Above  the  moment's  dear-paid  paradise : 
Beware  lest,  shifting  with  Time's  gradual 

creep, 

The  light  that  guided  shine  into  your  eyes. 
The  envious  Powers  of  ill  nor  wink  nor 

sleep: 
Be  therefore  timely  wise, 


Nor  laugh  when  this  one  steals,  and  that 

one  lies, 
As  if  your  luck  could  cheat  those  sleepless 

spies, 
Till  the  deaf  Fury  comes   your  house  to 

sweep  ! " 

I  hear  the  voice,  and  unaff righted  bow; 
Ye  shall  not  be  prophetic  now, 
Heralds  of  ill,  that  darkening  fly 
Between  my  vision  and  the  rainbowed  sky, 
Or  on  the   left  your   hoarse   forebodings 

croak 

From  many  a  blasted  bough 
On  Yggdrasil's  storm-sinewed  oak, 
That  once  was  green,  Hope  of  the  West,  as 

thou: 

Yet  pardon  if  I  tremble  while  I  boast; 
For  I  have  loved  as  those  who  pardon  most. 


Away,  ungrateful  doubt,  away  ! 
At  least  she  is  our  own  to-day. 
Break  into  rapture,  my  song, 
Verses,  leap  forth  in  the  sun, 
Bearing  the  joyance  along 
Like  a  train  of  fire  as  ye  run  ! 
Pause  not  for  choosing  of  words, 
Let  them  but  blossom  and  sing 
Blithe  as  the  orchards  and  birds 
With  the  new  coming  of  spring  ! 
Dance  in  your  jollity,  bells; 
Shout,  cannon;  cease  not,  ye  drums; 
Answer,  ye  hillside  and  dells; 
Bow,  all  ye  people  !     She  comes, 
Radiant,  calm-fronted,  as  when 
She  hallowed  that  April  day. 
Stay  with  us  !     Yes,  thou  shalt  stay, 
Softener  and  strengthener  of  men, 
Freedom,  not  won  by  the  vain, 
Not  to  be  courted  in  play, 
Not  to  be  kept  without  pain. 
Stay  with  us  !     Yes,  thou  wilt  stay, 
Handmaid  and  mistress  of  all, 
Kindler  of  deed  and  of  thought, 
Thou  that  to  hut  and  to  hall 
Equal  deliverance  brought ! 
Souls  of  her  martyrs,  draw  near, 
Touch  our  dull  lips  with  your  fire, 
That  we  may  praise  without  fear 
Her  our  delight,  our  desire, 
Our  faith's  inextinguishable  star, 
Our  hope,  our  remembrance,  our  trust, 
Our  present,  our  past,  our  to  be, 
Who  will  mingle  her  life  with  our  dust 
And  makes  us  deserve  to  be  free  ! 


364 


THREE   MEMORIAL   POEMS 


UNDER   THE   OLD   ELM 

POEM  READ  AT  CAMBRIDGE  ON  THE 
HUNDREDTH  ANNIVERSARY  OF  WASH 
INGTON'S  TAKING  COMMAND  OF  THE 
AMERICAN  ARMY,  $D  JULY,  1775 

Lowell  was  disposed  to  think  this  ode  the 
best  of  these  three  memorial  odes,  "  mainly  be 
cause,"  he  says,  "it  was  composed  after  my 
college  duties  were  over,  though  even  in  that 
I  was  distracted  by  the  intervention  of  the 
Commencement  dinner."  Two  days  after  de 
livering  it,  he  wrote  to  a  friend  in  another 
State  :  "  We,  too,  here  in  my  birthplace,  hav 
ing  found  out  that  something  happened  here 
a  hundred  years  ago,  must  have  our  centen 
nial  ;  and,  since  my  friend  and  townsman  Dr. 
Holmes  could  n't  be  had,  I  felt  bound  to  do 
the  poetry  for  the  day.  We  have  still  stand 
ing  the  elm  under  which  Washington  took 
command  of  the  American  (till  then  provin 
cial)  army,  and  under  which  also  Whitefield 
had  preached  some  thirty  years  before.  I  took 
advantage  of  the  occasion  to  hold  out  a  hand 
of  kindly  reconciliation  to  Virginia.  I  could 
do  it  with  the  profounder  feeling,  that  no 
family  lost  more  than  mine  by  the  civil  war. 
Three  nephews  (the  hope  of  our  race)  were 
killed  in  one  or  other  of  the  Virginia  battles, 
and  three  cousins  on  other  of  those  bloody 
fields."  Lowell  afterward,  when  he  was  in 
Baltimore  giving  lectures  at  Johns  Hopkins 
University,  read  a  part  of  this  poem  in  public. 
"  I  actually  drew  tears,"  he  wrote,  "  from  the 
eyes  of  bitter  secessionists  —  comparable  with 
those  iron  ones  that  rattled  down  Pluto's  cheek. 
I  did  n't  quite  like  to  read  the  invocation  to 
Virginia  here  —  I  was  willing  enough  three  or 
four  hundred  miles  north  —  but  I  think  it  did 
good." 

I 

I. 

WORDS  pass  as  wind,  but    where  great 

deeds  were  done 
A  power  abides   transfused   from  sire  to 

son: 
The  boy  feels  deeper  meanings  thrill  his 

ear, 
That  tingling  through  his  pulse  life-long 

shall  run, 

With  sure  impulsion  to  keep  honor  clear, 
When,  pointing  down,  his  father  whispers, 

"  Here, 
Here,  where  we  stand,  stood  he,  the  purely 


Whose  soul  no  siren  passion  could  unsphere, 
Then  nameless,  now  a  power  and  mixed 

with  fate." 

Historic  town,  thou  boldest  sacred  dust, 
Once  known  to  men  as  pious,  learned,  just, 
And  one  memorial  pile  that  dares  to  last; 
But  Memory  greets  with  reverential  kiss 
No  spot  in  all  thy  circuit  sweet  as  this, 
Touched  by  that  modest  glory  as  it  past, 
O'er  which  yon  elm  hath  piously  displayed 
These  hundred  years  its  monumental  shade. 

2. 

Of  our  swift  passage  through  this  scenery 
Of  life  and  death,  more  durable  than  we, 
What  landmark  so  congenial  as  a  tree 
Repeating  its  green  legend  every  spring, 
And,  with  a  yearly  ring, 
Recording  the  fair  seasons  as  they  flee, 
Type  of  our  brief  but  still-renewed  mortal 
ity  ? 

We  fall  as  leaves :  the  immortal  trunk  re 
mains, 
Builded  with  costly  juice  of  hearts    and 

brains 
Gone  to  the  mould  now,  whither  all  that 

be 

Vanish  returnless,  yet  are  procreant  still 
In  human  lives  to  come  of  good  or  ill, 
And  feed  unseen  the  roots  of  Destiny. 


ii 


Men's  monuments,  grown  old,  forget  their 

names 

They  should  eternize,  but  the  place 
Where  shining  souls  have  passed  imbibes  a 


grace 
id   me 


Beyond   mere   earth;   some    sweetness    of 

their  fames 

Leaves  in  the  soil  its  unextinguished  trace, 
Pungent,  pathetic,  sad  with  nobler  aims, 
That  penetrates  our  lives   and  heightens 

them  or  shames. 

This  insubstantial  world  and  fleet 
Seems  solid  for  a  moment  when  we  stand 
On  dust  ennobled  by  heroic  feet 
Once  mighty  to  sustain  a  tottering  land, 
And  mighty  still  such  burthen  to  upbear, 
Nor  doomed  to  tread  the  path  of  things 

that  merely  were: 

Our  sense,  refined  with  virtue  of  the  spot, 
Across  the  mists  of  Lethe's  sleepy  stream 
Recalls  him,  the  sole  chief  without  a  blot, 


UNDER  THE   OLD   ELM 


365 


No  more  a  pallid  image  and  a  dream, 
But  as  he  dwelt  with  men  decorously  su 
preme. 

2. 

Our   grosser  minds   need   this  terrestrial 

hint 
To  raise  long-buried  days  from  tombs  of 

print: 

"  Here  stood  he,"  softly  we  repeat, 
And  lo,  the  statue  shrined  and  still 
In  that  gray  minster-front  we  call  the  Past, 
Feels  in  its  frozen  veins  our  pulses  thrill, 
Breathes  living  air  and  mocks  at  Death's 

deceit. 

It  warms,  it  stirs,  comes  down  to  us  at  last, 
Its  features  human  with  familiar  light, 
A  man,  beyond  the  historian's  art  to  kill, 
Or  sculptor's  to  efface  with  patient  chisel- 
blight. 


Sure  the  dumb  earth  hath  memory,  nor  for 

naught 
Was   Fancy   given,   on   whose    enchanted 

loom 
Present  and   Past    commingle,   fruit  and 

bloom 

Of  one  fair  bough,  inseparably  wrought 
Into  the  seamless  tapestry  of  thought. 
So  charmed,  with  undeluded  eye  we  see 
In  history's  fragmentary  tale 
Bright  clues  of  continuity, 
Learn  that  high  natures  over  Time  prevail, 
And  feel  ourselves  a  link  in  that  entail 
That  binds  all  ages  past  with  all  that  are 

to  be. 


Ill 


Beneath  our  consecrated  elm 

A  century  ago  he  stood, 

Famed  vaguely  for  that  old  fight  in  the 
wood 

Whose  red  surge  sought,  but  could  not 
overwhelm 

The  life  foredoomed  to  wield  our  rough- 
hewn  helm:  — 

From  colleges,  where  now  the  gown 

To  arms  had  yielded,  from  the  town, 

Our  rude  self-summoned  levies  flocked  to 
see 

The  new-come  chiefs  and  wonder  which 
was  he. 


No  need    to    question    long;    close-lipped 

and  tall, 
Long  trained   in   murder-brooding  forests 

lone 

To  bridle  others'  clamors  and  his  own, 
Firmly  erect,  he  towered  above  them  all, 
The  incarnate  discipline  that  was  to  free 
With  iron  curb  that  armed  democracy. 


A  motley  rout   was    that  which   came   to 

stare, 
In  raiment   tanned   by  years    of   sun  and 

storm, 

Of  every  shape  that  was  not  uniform, 
Dotted  with  regimentals  here  and  there; 
An  army  all  of  captains,  used  to  pray 
And  stiff  in  fight,  but  serious  drill's  despair, 
Skilled  to  debate  their  orders,  not  obey; 
Deacons   were    there,    selectmen,    men   of 

note 
In  half-tamed    hamlets   ambushed    round 

with  woods, 

Ready  to  settle  Freewill  by  a  vote, 
But  largely  liberal  to  its  private  moods; 
Prompt  to  assert  by  manners,  voice,  or  pen, 
Or  ruder  arms,  their  rights  as  Englishmen, 
Nor  much  fastidious  as  to  how  and  when: 
Yet  seasoned  stuff  and  fittest  to  create 
A  thought-staid  army  or  a  lasting  state: 
Haughty  they  said  he  was,  at  first;  severe; 
But  owned,  as  all   men   own,   the   steady 

hand 

Upon  the  bridle,  patient  to  command, 
Prized,  as  all  prize,  the  justice  pure  from 

fear, 
And  learned  to  honor  first,  then  love  him, 

then  revere. 

Such   power  there   is   in   clear-eyed   self- 
restraint 
And  purpose   clean  as  light   from   every 

selfish  taint. 


Musing  beneath  the  legendary  tree, 

The  years  between  furl  off:  I  seem  to  see 

The  sun-flecks,  shaken  the   stirred  foliage 

through, 

Dapple  with  gold  his  sober  buff  and  blue 
And  weave  prophetic   aureoles   round  the 

head 
That  shines  our  beacon  now  nor  darkens 

with  the  dead. 
O  man  of  silent  mood, 
A  stranger  among  strangers  then, 


366 


THREE   MEMORIAL   POEMS 


How  art  thou  since  renowned  the  Great, 

the  Good, 
Familiar  as  the  day  in  all  the  homes   of 

men  ! 
The  winged  years,  that  winnow  praise  and 

blame, 
Blow  many  names   out  :  they  but  fan  to 

flame 
The  self-renewing  splendors  of  thy  fame. 


IV 


How  many  subtlest  influences  unite, 
With  spiritual  touch  of  joy  or  pain, 
Invisible  as  air  and  soft  as  light, 
To  body  forth  that  image  of  the  brain 
We  call  our  Country,  visionary  shape, 
Loved   more   than  woman,   fuller   of  fire 

than  wine, 

Whose  charm  can  none  define, 
Nor  any,  though  he  flee  it,  can  escape  ! 
All  party-colored  threads  the  weaver  Time 
Sets  in  his  web,  now  trivial,  now  sublime, 
All  memories,  all  forebodings,  hopes  and 

fears, 

Mountain  and  river,  forest,  prairie,  sea, 
A  hill,  a  rock,  a  homestead,  field,  or  tree, 
The  casual  gleanings  of  unreckoned  years, 
Take  goddess-shape  at  last   and   there   is 

She, 
Old  at   our  birth,   new   as  the   springing 

hours, 
Shrine  of   our   weakness,  fortress   of   our 

powers, 

Consoler,  kindler,  peerless  'mid  her  peers, 
A  force   that  'ueath   our  conscious   being 

stirs, 

A  life  to  give  ours  permanence,  when  we 
Are  borne  to  mingle  our  poor  earth  with 

hers, 
And  all  this  glowing  world  goes  with  us  on 

our  biers. 

2. 

Nations  are  long  results,  by  ruder  ways 

Gathering  the  might  that  warrants  length 
of  days; 

They  may  be  pieced  of  half  -  reluctant 
shares 

Welded  by  hammer  -  strokes  of  broad- 
brained  kings, 

Or  from  a  doughty  people  grow,  the  heirs 

Of  wise  traditions  widening  cautious  rings; 

At  best  they  are  computable  things, 


A  strength  behind  us  making  us  feel  bold 
In  right,  or,  as  may  chance,  in  wrong; 
Whose  force  by  figures  may  be   summed 

and  told, 

So  many  soldiers,  ships,  and  dollars  strong, 
And  we  but  drops   that   bear  compulsory 

part 

In  the  dumb  throb  of  a  mechanic  heart; 
But    Country   is   a  shape   of  each   man's 

mind 

Sacred  from  definition,  unconfined 
By  the  cramped  walls  where  daily  drudger 
ies  grind; 

An  inward  vision,  yet  an  outward  birth 
Of  sweet  familiar  heaven  and  earth; 
A    brooding   Presence   that   stirs   motions 

blind 

Of  wings  within  our  embryo  being's  shell 
That  wait  but  her  completer  spell 
To  make  us  eagle-natured,  fit  to  dare 
Life's  nobler  spaces  and  untarnished  air. 

3- 
You,   who   hold  dear  this   self  -  conceived 

ideal, 
Whose  faith  and  works  alone  can  make  it 

real, 
Bring  all  your  fairest  gifts   to   deck   her 

shrine 
Who  lifts  our  lives  away  from   Thine  and 

Mine 

And  feeds  the  lamp  of  manhood  more  di 
vine 

With  fragrant  oils  of  quenchless  constancy. 
When  all  have  done  their  utmost,  surely  he 
Hath  given  the  best  who  gives  a  character 
Erect  and  constant,  which  nor  any  shock 
Of  loosened  elements,  nor  the  forceful  sea 
Of  flowing  or  of  ebbing  fates,  can  stir 
From  its  deep  bases  in  the  living  rock 
Of  ancient  manhood's  sweet  security  : 
And  this  he  gave,  serenely  far  from  pride 
As   baseness,  boon  with   prosperous  stars 

allied, 
Part  of  what  nobler  seed  shall  in  our  loins 

abide. 


No    bond  of  men  as   common    pride   so 

strong, 

In  names  time-filtered  for  the  lips  of  song, 
Still  operant,  with  the  primal  Forces  bound 
Whose  currents,  on  their  spiritual  round, 
Transfuse  our  mortal  will  nor  are   gain 
said  : 


UNDER  THE  OLD   ELM 


367 


These  are  their  arsenals,  these  the  exhaust- 
less  mines 

That  give  a  constant  heart  in  great  de 
signs  ; 

These  are  the  stuff  whereof  such  dreams 
are  made 

As  make  heroic  men  :  thus  surely  he 

Still  holds  in  place  the  massy  blocks  he 
laid 

'Neath  our  new  frame,  enforcing  soberly 

The  self-control  that  makes  and  keeps  a 
people  free. 


Oh,  for  a  drop  of  that  Cornelian  ink 
Which   gave  Agricola   dateless  length    of 

days, 

To  celebrate  him  fitly,  neither  swerve 
To  phrase  unkempt,  nor  pass  discretion's 

brink, 

With  him  so  statue-like  in  sad  reserve, 
So   diffident   to  claim,  so  forward  to  de 
serve  ! 

Nor  need  I  shun  due  influence  of  his  fame 
Who,  mortal  among   mortals,  seemed   as 

now 
The  equestrian  shape  with  unimpassioned 

brow, 

That  paces  silent  on  through  vistas  of  ac 
claim. 


What  figure  more  immovably  august 
Than  that  grave  strength  so  patient  and  so 

pure, 
Calm  in  good  fortune,  when  it  wavered, 

sure, 

That  mind  serene,  impenetrably  just, 
Modelled  on  classic  lines  so  simple  they 

endure  ? 

That  soul  so  softly  radiant  and  so  white 
The  track  it  left  seems  less  of  fire  than 

light, 

Cold  but  to  such  as  love  distemperature  ? 
And  if  pure  light,  as  some  deem,  be  the 

force 
That    drives    rejoicing    planets   on    their 

course, 
Why  for  his  power  benign  seek  an  impurer 

source  ? 
His  was   the  true  enthusiasm  that  burns 

long, 
Domestically  bright, 


Fed  from  itself  and  shy  of  human  sight, 
The   hidden  force  that   makes  a  lifetime 

strong, 

And  not  the  short-lived  fuel  of  a  song. 
Passionless,    say  you  ?     What  is   passion 

for 

But  to  sublime  our  natures  and  control 
To  front  heroic  toils  with  late  return, 
Or  none,  or  such  as  shames  the  conqueror  ? 
That  fire  was  fed  with  substance  of  the 

soul 
And  not  with  holiday  stubble,  that  could 

burn, 

Unpraised  of  men  who  after  bonfires  run, 
Through  seven  slow  years  of  unadvancing 

war, 
Equal  when  fields  were  lost  or  fields  were 

won, 

With  breath  of  popular  applause  or  blame, 
Nor  fanned  nor  damped,  uiiquenchably  the 

same, 
Too  inward  to  be  reached  by  flaws  of  idle 

fame. 


Soldier  and  statesman,  rarest  unison  ; 
High-poised  example  of  great  duties  done 
Simply  as  breathing,  a  world's  honors  worn 
As  life's  indifferent  gifts  to  all  men  born; 
Dumb  for  himself,  unless  it  were  to  God, 
But  for  his  barefoot  soldiers  eloquent, 
Tramping  the   snow  to   coral  where   they 

trod, 

Held  by  his  awe  in  hollow-eyed  content; 
Modest,   yet   firm    as   Nature's   self;    un- 

blamed 
Save    by    the    men    his     nobler    temper 

shamed ; 
Never   seduced  through   show  of  present 

good 

By  other  than  unsetting  lights  to  steer 
New -trimmed    in  Heaven,  nor    than    his 

steadfast  mood 
More  steadfast,  far  from  rashness  as  from 

fear; 

Rigid,  but  with  himself  first,  grasping  still 
In  swerveless  poise  the  wave-beat  helm  of 

will; 

Not  honored  then  or  now  because  he  wooed 
The  popular  voice,  but  that  he   still  with 
stood  ; 
Broad-minded,  higher-souled,  there  is  but 

one 
Who  was  all  this  and  ours,  and  all  men's, 

—  WASHINGTON. 


368 


THREE   MEMORIAL   POEMS 


Minds  strong  by  fits,  irregularly  great, 
That  flash  and  darken  like  revolving  lights, 
Catch  more  the  vulgar  eye  unschooled  to 

wait 
On  the   long  curve   of  patient   days   and 

nights 

Rounding  a  whole  life  to  the  circle  fair 
Of    orbed   fulfilment;    and   this   balanced 

soul, 

So  simple  in  its  grandeur,  coldly  bare 
Of  draperies  theatric,  standing  there 
In  perfect  symmetry  of  self-control, 
Seems  not  so  great  at  first,  but   greater 

grows 

Still  as  we  look,  and  by  experience  learn 
How  grand  this  quiet  is,  how  nobly  stern 
The  discipline  that  wrought  through  life 
long  throes 
That  energetic  passion  of  repose. 


A  nature  too  decorous  and  severe, 

Too  self-respectful  in  its  griefs  and  joys, 

For  ardent  girls  and  boys 

Who  find  no  genius  in  a  mind  so  clear 

That  its  grave   depths   seem  obvious   and 

near, 

Nor  a  soul  great  that  made  so  little  noise. 
They  feel  no  force  in  that  calm-cadenced 

phrase, 
The    habitual   full-dress   of  his  well-bred 

mind, 
That  seems  to  pace   the   minuet's  courtly 

maze 
And  tell  of  ampler  leisures,  roomier  length 

of  days. 

His  firm-based  brain,  to  self  so  little  kind 
That  no  tumultuary  blood  could  blind, 
Formed  to  control  men,  not  amaze, 
Looms  not  like  those  that  borrow  height  of 

haze: 

It  was  a  world  of  statelier  movement  then 
Than  this  we  fret  in,  he  a  denizen 
Of  that  ideal  Rome  that  made  a  man  for 


men. 


VI 

I. 


The  longer  on  this  earth  we  live 

And  weigh  the  various  qualities  of  men, 

Seeing  how  most  are  fugitive, 

Or  fitful  gifts,  at  best,  of  now  and  then, 


Wind-wavered  corpse-lights,  daughters  of 

the  fen, 
The  more  we  feel  the  high  stern-featured 

beauty 

Of  plain  devotedness  to  duty, 
Steadfast  and  still,  nor   paid  with  mortal 

praise, 

But  finding  amplest  recompense 
For  life's  ungarlanded  expense 
In  work  done  squarely  and  unwasted  days. 
For  this  we  honor  him,  that  he  could  know 
How  sweet  the  service  and  how  free 
Of  her,  God's  eldest  daughter  here  below, 
And  choose  in  meanest  raiment  which  was 

she. 

2. 

Placid  completeness,  life  without  a  fall 
From  faith  or  highest  aims,  truth's  breach- 
less  wall, 

Surely  if  any  fame  can  bear  the  touch, 
His  will  say  "  Here  !  "  at  the  last  trumpet's 

call, 

The  unexpressive  man  whose  life  expressed 
so  much. 


VII 


Never  to  see  a  nation  born 
Hath  been  given  to  mortal  man, 
Unless  to  those  who,  on  that  summer  morn, 
Gazed  silent  when  the  great  Virginian 
Unsheathed  the  sword  whose  fatal  flash 
Shot  union  through  the  incoherent  clash 
Of  our  loose  atoms,  crystallizing  them 
Around  a  single  will's  unpliant  stem, 
And  making  purpose  of  emotion  rash. 
Out  of  that  scabbard  sprang,  as  from  its 

womb, 

Nebulous  at  first  but  hardening  to  a  star, 
Through  mutual  share  of  sunburst  and  of 

gloom, 
The  common  faith  that  made  us  what  we 


are. 


2. 


That  lifted  blade  transformed  our  jangling 

clans, 

Till  then  provincial,  to  Americans, 
And  made  a  unity  of  wildering  plans; 
Here  was  the  doom  fixed:  here  is  marked 

the  date 
When  this  New  World  awoke  to  man's 

estate, 


UNDER   THE   OLD   ELM 


369 


Burnt  its  last  ship  and  ceased  to  look  be 
hind  : 
Nor  thoughtless  was  the  choice;  no  love  or 

hate 
Could  from  its  poise  move  that  deliberate 

mind, 

Weighing  between  too  early  and  too  late 
Those  pitfalls  of  the  man  refused  by  Fate: 
His  was  the  impartial  vision  of  the  great 
Who  see  not  as  they  wish,  but  as  they  find. 
He  saw  the  dangers  of  defeat,  nor  less 
The  incomputable  perils  of  success; 
The  sacred  past  thrown  by, an  empty  rind; 
The  future,  cloud-land,  snare  of  prophets 

blind; 

The  waste  of  war,  the  ignominy  of  peace; 
On  either  hand  a  sullen  rear  of  woes, 
Whose    garnered    lightnings    none   could 

guess, 
Piling  its   thunder  -  heads   and  muttering 

"Cease!" 
Yet  drew  not  back  his  hand,  but  gravely 

chose 
The   seeming-desperate   task   whence   our 

new  nation  rose. 

3- 

A  noble  choice  and  of  immortal  seed ! 
Nor  deem  that  acts  heroic  wait  on  chance 
Or  easy  were  as  in  a  boy's  romance ; 
The  man's  whole  life  preludes  the  single 

deed 

That  shall  decide  if  his  inheritance 
Be  with  the  sifted  few  of  matchless  breed, 
Our  race's  sap  and  sustenance, 
Or  with  the  unmotived  herd  that  only  sleep 

and  feed. 

Choice  seems  a  thing  indifferent;  thus  or  so, 
What  matters  it  ?     The  Fates  with  mock 
ing  face 

Look  on  inexorable,  nor  seem  to  know 
Where  the  lot  lurks  that  gives  life's  fore 
most  place. 

Yet  Duty's  leaden  casket  holds  it  still, 
And  but  two  ways  are  offered  to  our  will, 
Toil  with  rare  triumph,  ease  with  safe  dis 
grace, 
The  problem  still  for  us  and  all  of  human 

race. 

He  chose,  as  men  choose,  where  most  dan 
ger  showed, 

Nor  ever  faltered  'neath  the  load 
Of  petty  cares,  that  gall  great  hearts  the 

most, 
But  kept  right  on  the  strenuous  up-hill  road, 


Strong  to  the  end,  above  complaint  or  boast: 
The  popular  tempest  on  his   rock-mailed 

coast 

Wasted  its  wind-borne  spray, 
The  noisy  marvel  of  a  day; 
His  soul  sate  still  in  its  uustormed  abode. 

VIII 

Virginia  gave  us  this  imperial  man 

Cast  in  the  massive  mould 

Of  those  high-statured  ages  old 

Which  into  grander  forms  our  mortal  metal 

ran; 

She  gave  us  this  unblemished  gentleman: 
What  shall  we  give  her  back  but  love  and 

praise 

As  in  the  dear  old  unestranged  days 
Before  the  inevitable  wrong  began  ? 
Mother  of  States  and  undiminished  men, 
Thou  gavest  us  a  country,  giving  him, 
And  we  owe  alway  what  we  owed  thee  then: 
The  boon  thou  wouldst  have  snatched  from 

us  agen 

Shines  as  before  with  no  abatement  dim. 
A  great  man's  memory  is  the  only  thing 
With  influence  to  outlast  the  present  whim 
And    bind  us   as  when  here  he    knit   our 

golden  ring. 

All  of  him  that  was  subject  to  the  hours 
Lies  in  thy  soil  and  makes  it  part  of  ours: 
Across  more  recent  graves, 
Where  unresentful  Nature  waves 
Her  pennons  o'er  the  shot-ploughed  sod, 
Proclaiming  the  sweet  Truce  of  God, 
We  from  this  consecrated  plain  stretch  out 
Our   hands   as  free  from  afterthought   or 

doubt 

As  here  the  united  North 
Poured  her  embrowned  manhood  forth 
In  welcome  of  our  savior  and  thy  son. 
Through  battle  we  have  better  learned  thy 

worth, 
The   long-breathed   valor    and   undaunted 

will, 
Which,   like   his   own,   the  day's   disaster 

done, 

Could,  safe  in  manhood,  suffer  and  be  still. 
Both  thine   and   ours   the   victory  hardly 

won; 

If  ever  with  distempered  voice  or  pen 
We  have  misdeemed  thee,  here  we  take  it 

back, 
And   for   the   dead  of  both  don  common 

black. 
Be  to  us  evermore  as  thou  wast  then, 


37° 


THREE   MEMORIAL   POEMS 


As  we  forget  thou  hast  not  always  been, 
Mother  of  States  and  unpolluted  men, 
Virginia,  fitly  named  from  England's  manly 
queen! 

AN  ODE 
FOR  THE  FOURTH   OF  JULY,  1876 

I 


ENTRANCED  I  saw  a  vision  in  the  cloud 
That  loitered  dreaming  in  yon  sunset  sky, 
Full  of  fair  shapes,  half  creatures  of  the 

eye, 

Half  chance-evoked  by  the  wind's  fantasy 
In  golden  mist,  an  ever-shifting  crowd: 
There,  'mid  unreal  forms  that  came  and 

went 

In  air-spun  robes,  of  evanescent  dye, 
A  woman's  semblance  shone  preeminent; 
Not  armed  like  Pallas,  not  like  Hera  proud, 
But,  as  on  household  diligence  intent, 
Beside  her  visionary  wheel  she  bent 
Like  Arete  or  Bertha,  nor  than  they 
Less  queenly  in  her  port :  about  her  knee 
Glad  children  clustered  confident  in  play: 
Placid  her  pose,  the  calm  of  energy; 
And  over  her  broad  brow  in  many  a  round 
(That  loosened  would  have  gilt  her  gar 
ment's  hem), 
Succinct,  as  toil  prescribes,  the  hair  was 

wound 

In  lustrous  coils,  a  natural  diadem. 
The  cloud  changed  shape,  obsequious  to  the 

whim 

Of  some  transmuting  influence  felt  in  me, 
And,  looking  now,  a  wolf  I  seemed  to  see 
Limned  in  that  vapor,  gaunt  and  hunger- 
bold, 
Threatening  her  charge:  resolve  in  every 

limb, 

Erect  she  flamed  in  mail  of  sun-wove  gold, 
Penthesilea's  self  for  battle  dight; 
One  arm  uplifted  braced  a  flickering  spear, 
And  one  her  adamantine  shield  made  light; 
Her  face,  helm-shadowed,  grew  a  thing  to 

fear, 
And  her  fierce  eyes,  by  danger  challenged, 

took 
Her  trident  -  sceptred  mother's   dauntless 

look. 

"  I  know  thee  now,  O  goddess-born ! "  I 
cried, 


And  turned  with  loftier  brow  and  firmer 

stride; 

For  in  that  spectral  cloud-work  I  had  seen 
Her  image,  bodied  forth  by  love  and  pride, 
The  fearless,  the  benign,  the  mother-eyed, 
The  fairer  world's  toil-consecrated  queen. 


What  shape  by  exile  dreamed  elates  the 

mind 
Like  hers  whose  hand,  a  fortress  of  the 

poor, 
No  blood  in  vengeance  spilt,  though  lawful, 

stains  ? 
Who  never  turned  a  suppliant  from  her 

door? 

Whose  conquests  are  the  gains  of  all  man 
kind? 

To-day  her  thanks  shall  fly  on  every  wind, 
Unstinted,  unrebuked,  from  shore  to  shore, 
One  love,  one  hope,  and  not  a  doubt  behind  ! 
Cannon  to  cannon  shall  repeat  her  praise, 
Banner  to  banner  flap  it  forth  in  flame; 
Her   children   shall   rise   up  to  bless  her 

name, 

And  wish  her  harmless  length  of  days, 
The  mighty  mother  of  a  mighty  brood, 
Blessed  in  all  tongues  and  dear  to  every 

blood, 
The  beautiful,  the  strong,  and,  best  of  all, 

the  good. 


Seven  years  long  was  the  bow 

Of  battle  bent,  and  the  heightening 

Storm-heaps  convulsed  with  the  throe 

Of  their  uncontainable  lightning; 

Seven  years  long  heard  the  sea 

Crash  of  navies  and  wave-borne  thunder; 

Then  drifted  the  cloud-rack  a-lee, 

And  new  stars  were  seen,  a  world's  won- 

der; 

Each  by  her  sisters  made  bright, 
All  binding  all  to  their  stations, 
Cluster  of  manifold  light 
Startling  the  old  constellations: 
Men  looked  up  and  grew  pale: 
Was  it  a  comet  or  star, 
Omen  of  blessing  or  bale, 
Hung  o'er  the  ocean  afar  ? 


Stormy  the  day  of  her  birth: 
Was  she  not  born  of  the  strong, 
She,  the  last  ripeness  of  earth, 


ODE   FOR  THE   FOURTH   OF  JULY,   1876 


371 


Beautiful,  prophesied  long  ? 
Stormy  the  days  of  her  prime: 
Hers  are  the  pulses  that  beat 
Higher  for  perils  sublime, 
Making  them  fawn  at  her  feet. 
Was  she  not  born  of  the  strong  ? 
Was  she  not  born  of  the  wise  ? 
Daring  and  counsel  belong 
Of  right  to  her  confident  eyes: 
Human  and  motherly  they, 
Careless  of  station  or  race: 
Hearken  !  her  children  to-day 
Shout  for  the  joy  of  her  face. 


No  praises  of  the  past  are  hers, 

No  fanes  by  hallowing  time  caressed, 

No  broken  arch  that  ministers 

To  Time's  sad  instinct  in  the  breast: 

She  has  not  gathered  from  the  years 

Grandeur  of  tragedies  and  tears, 

Nor  from  long  leisure  the  unrest 

That  finds  repose  in  forms  of  classic  grace: 

These  may  delight  the  coming  race 

Who  haply  shall  not  count  it  to  our  crime 

That  we   who  fain   would  sing   are   here 

before  our  time. 
She  also  hath  her  monuments ; 
Not  such  as  stand  decrepitly  resigned 
To  ruin-mark  the  path  of  dead  events 
That  left  no  seed  of  better  days  behind, 
The   tourist's   pensioners  that   show   their 

scars 

And  maunder  of  forgotten  wars  ; 
She  builds  not  on  the  ground,  but  in  the 

mind, 

Her  open-hearted  palaces 
For  larger-thoughted  men  with  heaven  and 

earth  at  ease  : 
Her  march   the   plump    mow   marks,  the 

sleepless  wheel, 

The   golden   sheaf,  the    self-swayed   com 
monweal  ; 
The    happy   homesteads    hid    in    orchard 

trees 
Whose  sacrificial  smokes  through  peaceful 

air 
Rise  lost  in  heaven,  the  household's  silent 

prayer; 

What  architect  hath  bettered  these  ? 
With  softened  eye  the  westward  traveller 

sees 
A  thousand  miles  of  neighbors  side  by  side, 


Holding  by  toil-won  titles  fresh  from  God 
The  lands  no  serf  or  seigneur  ever  trod, 
With  manhood  latent  in  the  very  sod, 
Where  the  long  billow  of  the  wheatfield's 

tide 

Flows  to  the  sky  across  the  prairie  wide, 
A  sweeter  vision  than  the  castled  Rhine, 
Kindly  with  thoughts  of  Ruth  and  Bible- 
days  benign. 

2. 

O  ancient  commonwealths,  that  we  revere 
Haply  because   we   could   not   know   you 

near, 
Your  deeds  like  statues  down  the  aisles  of 

Time 

Shine  peerless  in  memorial  calm  sublime, 
And  Athens  is  a  trumpet  still,  and  Rome; 
Yet  which  of  your  achievements  is  not  foam 
Weighed  with  this  one  of  hers  (below  you 

far 

In  fame,  and  born  beneath  a  milder  star), 
That  to  Earth's  orphans,  far  as  curves  the 

dome 
Of  death-deaf   sky,  the   bounteous   West 

means  home, 

With  dear  precedency  of  natural  ties 
That  stretch  from  roof  to  roof  and  make 

men  gently  wise  ? 
And  if  the  nobler  passions  wane, 
Distorted  to  base  use,  if  the  near  goal 
Of  insubstantial  gain 
Tempt  from  the  proper  race-course  of  the 

soul 

That  crowns  their  patient  breath 
Whose  feet,  song-sandalled,  are   too  fleet 

for  Death, 

Yet  may  she  claim  one  privilege  urbane 
And  haply  first  upon  the  civic  roll, 
That  none  can   breathe  her  air  nor  grow 

humane. 


Oh,  better  far  the  briefest  hour 

Of   Athens   self-consumed,   whose    plastic 

power 
Hid  Beauty  safe  from  Death  in  words  or 

stone ; 
Of  Rome,  fair  quarry  where  those  eagles 

crowd 
Whose  fulgurous  vans  about  the  world  had 

blown 

Triumphant  storm  and  seeds  of  polity; 
Of  Venice,  fading  o'er  her  shipless  sea, 
Last  iridescence  of  a  sunset  cloud; 


372 


THREE   MEMORIAL   POEMS 


Than  this  inert  prosperity, 
This  bovine  comfort  in  the  sense  alone  ! 
Yet  art  came  slowly  even  to  such  as  those, 
Whom  no  past  genius  cheated  of  their  own 
With  prudence  of  o'ermastering  precedent; 
Petal  by  petal  spreads  the  perfect  rose, 
Secure  of  the  divine  event; 
And  only  children  rend  the  bud  half-blown 
To  forestall  Nature  in  her  calm  intent: 
Time  hath  a  quiver  full  of  purposes 
Which  miss  not  of  their  aim,  to  us   un 
known, 

And  brings  about  the  impossible  with  ease: 
Haply  for  us  the  ideal  dawn  shall  break 
From  where  in  legend-tinted  line 
The  peaks  of  Hellas  drink  the  morning's 

wine, 

To  tremble  on  our  lids  with  mystic  sign 
Till  the  drowsed  ichor  in  our  veins  awake 
And  set   our   pulse   in  tune    with  moods 

divine : 
Long  the  day  lingered  in  its  sea-fringed 

nest, 
Then  touched  the  Tuscan  hills  with  golden 

lance 

And  paused;  then  on  to  Spain  and  France 
The    splendor    flew,   and    Albion's   misty 

crest: 
Shall  Ocean   bar   him   from   his   destined 

West? 

Or  are  we,  then,  arrived  too  late, 
Doomed  with  the  rest  to  grope  disconsolate, 
Foreclosed  of  Beauty  by  our  modern  date  ? 


ill 


Poets,  as  their  heads  grow  gray, 
Look  from  too  far  behind  the  eyes, 
Too  long-experienced  to  be  wise 
In  guileless  youth's  diviner  way; 
Life  sings  not  now,  but  prophesies; 
Time's  shadows  they  no  more  behold, 
But,  under  them,  the  riddle  old 
That  mocks,  bewilders,  and  defies: 
In  childhood's  face  the  seed  of  shame, 
In  the  green  tree  an  ambushed  flame, 
In  Phosphor  a  vaunt-guard  of  Night, 
They,  though  against  their  will,  divine, 
And  dread  the  care-dispelling  wine 
Stored  from  the  Muse's  vintage  bright, 
By  age  imbued  with  second-sight. 
From  Faith's  own  eyelids  there  peeps  out, 
Even  as  they  look,  the  leer  of  doubt; 
The  festal  wreath  their  fancy  loads 


With  care  that  whispers  and  forebodes: 
Nor  this  our  triumph-day  can  blunt  Me- 
gsera's  goads. 

2. 

Murmur  of  many  voices  in  the  air 
Denounces  us  degenerate, 
Unfaithful  guardians  of  a  noble  fate, 
And  prompts  indifference  or  despair: 
Is  this  the  country  that  we   dreamed  in 

youth, 
Where  wisdom    and   not  numbers  should 

have  weight, 

Seed-field  of  simpler  manners,  braver  truth, 
Where  shams  should  cease  to  dominate 
In  household,  church,  and  state  ? 
Is  this  Atlantis  ?     This  the  unpoisoned  soil, 
Sea-whelmed  for  ages  and  recovered  late, 
Where  parasitic  greed  no  more  should  coil 
Round  Freedom's  stem  to  bend  awry  and 

blight 
What  grew  so  fair,  sole  plant  of  love  and 

light? 

Who  sit  where  once  in  crowned  seclusion  sate 
The  long-proved  athletes  of  debate 
Trained  from  their  youth,  as  none  thinks 

needful  now  ? 

Is  this  debating  club  where  boys  dispute, 
And  wrangle  o'er  their  stolen  fruit, 
The  Senate,  erewhile  cloister  of  the  few, 
Where  Clay  once   flashed  and  Webster's 

cloudy  brow 
Brooded  those  bolts  of  thought  that  all  the 

horizon  knew  ? 


Oh,  as   this  pensive  moonlight  blurs  my 

pines, 

Here  while  I  sit  and  meditate  these  lines, 
To  gray-green  dreams  of  what  they  are  by 

day, 

So  would  some  light,   not  reason's   sharp- 
edged  ray, 
Trance   me    in   moonshine   as   before    the 

flight 

Of  years  had  won  me  this  unwelcome  right 
To  see  things  as  they  are,  or  shall  be  soon, 
In  the  frank  prose  of  unassembling  noon  ! 


Back  to  my  breast,  ungrateful  sigh  ! 
Whoever  fails,  whoever  errs, 
The  penalty  be  ours,  not  hers  ! 
The  present  still   seems   vulgar,  seen   too 
nigh; 


ODE   FOR  THE   FOURTH   OF  JULY,    1876 


373 


The  goldeu  age  is  still  the  age  that  's  past: 
I  ask  no  drowsy  opiate 
To  dull  my  vision  of  that  only  state 
Founded  on  faith  in  man,   and  therefore 

sure  to  last. 

For,  O  my  country,  touched  by  thee, 
The  gray  hairs  gather  back  their  gold; 
Thy  thought  sets  all  my  pulses  free ; 
The  heart  refuses  to  be  old; 
The  love  is  all  that  I  can  see. 
Not  to  thy  natal-day  belong 
Time's  prudent  doubt  or  age's  wrong, 
But  gifts  of  gratitude  and  song: 
Unsummoned  crowd  the  thankful  words, 
As  sap  in  spring-time  floods  the  tree, 
Foreboding  the  return  of  birds, 
For  all  that  thou  hast  been  to  me  ! 


IV 


Flawless   his   heart   and   tempered  to  the 

core 
Who,    beckoned    by   the   forward-leaning 

wave, 

First  left  behind  him  the  firm-footed  shore, 
And,  urged  by  every  nerve  of  sail  and 

oar, 
Steered  for  the   Unknown  which   gods  to 

mortals  gave, 

Of  thought  and  action  the  mysterious  door, 
Bugbear  of  fools,  a  summons  to  the  brave : 
Strength  found  he  in  the  unsympathizing 

sun, 
And  strange  stars  from  beneath  the  horizon 

won, 

And  the  dumb  ocean  pitilessly  grave: 
High-hearted  surely  he; 
But  bolder  they  who  first  off-cast 
Their  moorings  from  the  habitable  Past 
And  ventured  chartless  on  the  sea 
Of  storm-engendering  Liberty: 
For  all  earth's  width  of  waters  is  a  span, 
And  their  convulsed  existence  mere  repose, 
Matched  with  the  unstable  heart  of  man, 
Shoreless    in   wants,   mist  -  girt   in   all    it 

knows, 

Open  to  every  wind  of  sect  or  clan, 
And  sudden-passionate  in  ebbs  and  flows. 

2. 

They  steered  by  stars  the  elder   shipmen 

knew, 
And  laid  their  courses  where  the  currents 

draw 


Of  ancient  wisdom  channelled  deep  in  law, 

The  undaunted  few 

Who  changed  the  Old  World  for  the  New, 

And  more  devoutly  prized 

Than  all  perfection  theorized 

The  more  imperfect   that  had  roots   and 

grew. 

They  founded  deep  and  well, 
Those  danger-chosen  chiefs  of  men 
Who  still  believed  in  Heaven  and  Hell, 
Nor  hoped  to  find  a  spell, 
In  some  fine  flourish  of  a  pen, 
To  make  a  better  man 
Than  long-considering  Nature  will  or  can, 
Secure  against  his  own  mistakes, 
Content  with  what  life  gives  or  takes, 
And  acting  still  on  some  fore-ordered  plan, 
A  cog  of  iron  in  an  iron  wheel, 
Too  nicely  poised  to  think  or  feel, 
Dumb  motor  in  a  clock-like  commonweal. 
They  wasted  not  their  brain  in  schemes 
Of  what  man  might   be   in  some   bubble- 
sphere, 

As  if  he  must  be  other  than  he  seems 
Because  he   was   not   what   he   should  be 

here, 
Postponing  Time's  slow  proof  to  petulant 

dreams : 

Yet  herein  they  were  great 
Beyond  the  incredulous  lawgivers  of  yore, 
And  wiser  than  the  wisdom  of  the  shelf, 
That  they  conceived  a  deeper-rooted  state, 
Of  hardier  growth,  alive  from  rind  to  core, 
By  making  man  sole  sponsor  of  himself. 


God  of  our  fathers,  Thou  who  wast, 

Art,  and  shalt  be  when  those  eye-wise  who 

flout 

Thy  secret  presence  shall  be  lost 
In  the  great   light   that   dazzles   them   to 

doubt, 

We,  sprung  from  loins  of  stalwart  men 
Whose  strength  was  in  their  trust 
That  Thou  wouldst  make  thy  dwelling  in 

their  dust 

And  walk  with  those  a  fellow-citizen 
Who  build  a  city  of  the  just, 
We,  who  believe  Life's  bases  rest 
Beyond  the  probe  of  chemic  test, 
Still,  like  our  fathers,  feel  Thee  near, 
Sure  that,  while   lasts  the  immutable  de 
cree, 

The  land  to  Human  Nature  dear 
Shall  not  be  unbeloved  of  Thee. 


374 


HEARTSEASE   AND   RUE 


HEARTSEASE  AND    RUE 


THIS  title  was  given  to  the  volume  of  poems 
collected  and  published  in  1888  after  Lowell's 
return  to  private  life.  He  took  occasion  to 


glean  after  his  earlier  harvest  and  preserved 
in  it  several  poems  written  before  the  publi 
cation  of  Under  the  Willows. 


I.  FRIENDSHIP 


AGASSIZ 

Come 

Dicesti  egli  ebbe  f  non  viv'  egli  aiicora  ? 
Non  Here  gli  occhi  suoi  lo  dolce  lome  ? 

Lowell  was  in  Florence  when  Agassiz  died, 
and  sent  this  poem  home  to  Mr.  Norton  for 
publication.  "His  death,"  he  says,  "came 
home  to  me  in  a  singular  way,  growing  into 
my  consciousness  from  day  to  day  as  if  it 
were  a  graft  new-set,  that  by  degrees  became 
part  of  my  own  wood  and  drew  a  greater 
share  of  my  sap  than  belonged  to  it,  as  grafts 
sometimes  will.  I  suppose  that,  unconsciouslv 
to  myself,  a  great  part  of  the  ferment  it  pro 
duced  in  me  was  owing  to  the  deaths  of  my 
sister  Anna  [Mrs.  Charles  R.  Lowell],  of 

Mrs. ,  whom  I  knew  as  a  child  in  my  early 

manhood,  and  of  my  cousin  Amory,  who  was 
inextricably  bound  up  with  the  primal  associa 
tions  of  my  life,  associations  which  always  have 
a  singular  sweetness  for  me.  A  very  deep 
chord  had  been  touched  also  at  Florence  by 
the  sight  of  our  old  lodgings  in  the  Casa  Guidi, 
of  the  balcony  Mabel  used  to  run  on,  and  the 
windows  we  used  to  look  out  at  so  long  ago. 
I  got  sometimes  into  the  mood  I  used  to  be 
in  when  I  was  always  repeating  to  myself, 

'  King  Panclion  he  is  dead  ; 
All  thy  friends  are  lapt  in  lead,'  — 

verses  which  seem  to  me  desolately  pathetic. 
At  last  I  began  to  hum  over  bits  of  my  poem 
in  my  head  till  it  took  complete  possession  of 
me  and  worked  me  up  to  a  delicious  state  of 
excitement,  all  the  more  delicious  as  my  brain 
(or  at  any  rate  the  musical  part  of  it)  had 
been  lying  dormant  so  long.  My  old  trick  of 
seeing  things  with  my  eyes  shut  after  I  had 
gone  to  bed  (I  mean  whimsical  things  utterly 
alien  to  the  train  of  my  thoughts  —  for  ex 
ample,  a  hospital  ward  with  a  long  row  of 
white,  untenanted  beds,  and  on  the  farthest 
a  pile  of  those  little  wooden  dolls  with  red- 
painted  slippers)  revived  in  full  force.  Ner 
vous,  horribly  nervous,  but  happy  for  the 
first  time  (I  mean  consciously  happy)  since  I 


came  over  here.  And  so  by  degrees  my  poem 
worked  itself  out.  The  parts  came  to  me  as  I 
came  awake,  and  I  wrote  them  down  in  the 
morning.  I  had  all  my  bricks  —  but  the  mor 
tar  would  n't  set,  as  the  masons  say.  However, 
I  got  it  into  order  at  last.  You  will  see  there 
is  a  logical  sequence  if  you  look  sharp.  It 
was  curious  to  me  after  it  was  done  to  see  how 
fleshly  it  was.  This  impression  of  Ag'assiz  had 
wormed  itself  into  my  consciousness,  and  with 
out  my  knowing  it  had  colored  my  whole  poem. 
I  could  not  help  feeling  how,  if  I  had  been 
writing  of  Emerson,  for  example,  I  should 
have  been  quite  otherwise  ideal.  But  there  it 
is,  and  you  can  judge  for  yourself.  I  think 
there  is  some  go  in  it  somehow,  but  it  is  too 
near  me  yet  to  be  judged  fairly  by  me.  It  is 
old-fashioned,  you  see,  but  none  the  worse  for 
that."  The  poem  was  dated  February,  1874. 


I. 

THE   electric   nerve,  whose   instantaneous 

thrill 

Makes  next-door  gossips  of  the  antipodes, 
Confutes  poor  Hope's  last  fallacy  of  ease,  — 
The  distance  that  divided  her  from  ill: 
Earth  sentient  seems  again  as  when  of  old 

The  horny  foot  of  Pan 
Stamped,  and  the  conscious  horror  ran 
Beneath  men's  feet  through  all  her  fibres- 
cold: 
Space's  blue  walls  are  mined;  we  feel  the 

throe 

From  underground    of  our  night-mantled 
foe: 

The  flame-winged  feet 

Of  Trade's  new  Mercury,  that  dry-shod  run 
Through    briny  abysses   dreamless  of   the 
sun, 

Are  mercilessly  fleet, 
And  at  a  bound  annihilate 
Ocean's  prerogative  of  short  reprieve; 

Surely  ill  news  might  wait, 
And  man  be  patient  of  delay  to  grieve: 

Letters  have  sympathies 
And  tell-tale  faces  that  reveal, 


AGASSIZ 


375 


To  senses  finer  than  the  eyes, 
Their  errand's  purport  ere  we  break  the 

seal; 

They  wind  a  sorrow  round  with  circum 
stance 

To  stay  its  feet,  nor  all  unwarned  displace 
The  veil  that  darkened  from  our  sidelong 
glance 

The  inexorable  face : 
But  now  Fate  stuns  as  with  a  mace; 
The  savage   of   the  skies,  that  men  have 

caught 

And    some    scant    use    of     language 
taught, 

Tells  only  what  he  must,  — 
The  steel-cold  fact  in  one  laconic  thrust. 

2. 

So  thought   I,  as,  with   vague,   mechanic 

eyes, 

I  scanned  the  festering  news  we  half  de 
spise 

Yet  scramble  for  no  less, 
And  read  of  public  scandal,  private  fraud, 
Crime   flaunting   scot-free  while  the  mob 

applaud, 
Office  made  vile  to  bribe  unworthiness, 

And  all  the  unwholesome  mess 
The  Land  of  Honest  Abraham  serves  of 

late 
To  teach  the  Old  World  how  to  wait, 

When  suddenly, 
As  happens  if  the  brain,  from  overweight 

Of  blood,  infect  the  eye, 
Three  tiny  words  grew  lurid  as  I  read, 
And  reeled  commingling:  Agassiz  is  dead. 
As  when,  beneath  the  street's  familiar  jar, 
An  earthquake's  alien  omen  rumbles  far, 
Men  listen  and  forebode,  I  hung  my  head, 

And  strove  the  present  to  recall, 
As  if  the  blow  that  stunned  were  yet  to 
fall. 

3- 

Uprooted  is  our  mountain  oak, 
That  promised  long  security  of  shade 
And   brooding-place    for   many   a  winged 

thought ; 

Not  by  Time's  softly-cadenced  stroke 
With  pauses  of  relenting  pity  stayed, 
But  ere  a  root  seemed  sapt,  a  bough  de 
cayed, 
From    sudden   ambush   by   the    whirlwind 

caught 
And  in  his  broad  maturity  betrayed  ! 


4- 


Well  might  I,  as  of  old,  appeal  to  you, 

O  mountains  woods  and  streams, 
To  help  us  mourn  him,  for  ye  loved  him 

too; 
But  simpler  moods  befit  our  modern 

themes, 

And  no  less  perfect  birth  of  nature  can, 
Though  they  yearn  tow'rd  him,  sympathize 

with  man, 
Save  as  dumb  fellow-prisoners   through  a 

wall; 

Answer  ye  rather  to  my  call, 
Strong  poets  of  a  more  unconscious  day, 
When  Nature  spake  nor  sought  nice  "rea 
sons  why, 

Too  much  for  softer  arts  forgotten  since 
That  teach   our  forthright  tongue  to  lisp 

and  mince, 

And  drown  in  music  the  heart's  bitter  cry  ! 
Lead  me  some  steps  in  your  director  way, 
Teach  me  those  words  that  strike  a  solid 

root 

Within  the  ears  of  men; 
Ye  chiefly,  virile  both  to  think  and  feel, 
Deep-chested    Chapman    and    firm-footed 

Ben, 

For  he  was  masculine  from  head  to  heel. 
Nay,  let  himself  stand  undiminished  by 
With  those  clear  parts  of  him  that  will  not 

die. 

Himself  from  out  the  recent  dark  I  claim 
To  hear,  and,  if  I  flatter  him,  to  blame; 
To  show  himself,  as  still  I  seem  to  see, 
A  mortal,  built  upon  the  antique  plan, 
Brimful  of  lusty  blood  as  ever  ran, 
And  taking  life  as  simply  as  a  tree  ! 
To  claim   my  foiled   good-by  let  him  ap 
pear, 
Large-limbed   and   human   as    I  saw  him 

near, 
Loosed   from    the    stiffening    uniform   of 

fame : 
And  let  me  treat  him  largely:    I  should 

fear, 

(If  with  too  prying  lens  I  chanced  to  err, 
Mistaking  catalogue  for  character,) 
His  wise  forefinger  raised  in  smiling  blame. 
Nor    would    I    scant    him    with    judicial 

breath 

And  turn  mere  critic  in  an  epitaph; 
I  choose  the  wheat,  incurious  of  the  chaff 
That  swells  fame   living,  chokes  it  after 

death, 


376 


HEARTSEASE   AND   RUE 


And  would  but  memorize  the  shining  half 
Of  his  large  nature  that  was  turned  to  me: 
Fain  had  I  joined  with  those  that  honored 

him 
With  eyes  that  darkened  because  his  were 

dim, 
And  now  been  silent:  but  it  might  not  be. 


II 


In  some  the  genius  is  a  thing  apart, 

A  pillared  hermit  of  the  brain, 

Hoarding  with  incommunicable  art 

Its  intellectual  gain; 
Man's  web  of  circumstance  and  fate 
They  from  their  perch  of  self  observe, 
Indifferent  as  the  figures  on  a  slate 

Are  to  the  planet's  sun-swung  curve 
Whose  bright  returns  they  calculate; 
Their  nice  adjustment,  part  to  part, 
Were  shaken  from  its  serviceable  mood 
By  unpremeditated  stirs  of  heart 

Or  jar  of  human  neighborhood: 
Some  find  their   natural  selves,  and  only 

then, 

In  furloughs  of  divine  escape  from  men, 
And  when,  by  that  brief  ecstasy  left  bare, 

Driven  by  some  instinct  of  desire, 
They  wander  world  ward,  't  is  to  blink  and 

stare, 

Like  wild  things  of  the  wood  about  a  fire, 
Dazed   by   the    social    glow   they   cannot 

share; 

His  nature  brooked  no  lonely  lair, 
But  basked  and  bourgeoned  in  copartnery, 
Companionship,  and  open-windowed  glee: 

He  knew,  for  he  had  tried, 
Those  speculative  heights  that  lure 
The  unpractised  foot,  impatient  of  a  guide, 

Tow'rd  ether  too  attenuately  pure 
For  sweet  unconscious  breath,  though  dear 

to  pride, 

But  better  loved  the  foothold  sure 
Of  paths  that  wind  by  old  abodes  of  men 
Who  hope  at  last  the  churchyard's  peace 

secure, 
And    follow   time-worn   rules,   that   them 

suffice, 

Learned  from  their  sires,  traditionally  wise, 
Careful  of  honest  custom's  how  and  when; 
His  mind,  too  brave  to  look  on  Truth 

askance, 

No   more  those   habitudes  of  faith  could 
share, 


But,  tinged  with  sweetness  of  the  old  Swiss 

manse, 
Lingered  around  them  still  and  fain  would 

spare. 

Patient  to  spy  a  sullen  egg  for  weeks, 
The  enigma  of  creation  to  surprise, 
His    truer    instinct   sought  the   life   that 

speaks 

Without  a  mystery  from  kindly  eyes; 
In  no  self-spun  cocoon  of  prudence  wound, 
He  by  the  touch  of  men  was  best  inspired, 
And  caught   his   native   greatness   at   re 
bound 

From  generosities  itself  had  fired; 
Then  how  the  heat  through  every  fibre  ran, 
Felt  in  the  gathering  presence  of  the  man, 
While  the  apt  word  and  gesture  came  un- 

bid! 
Virtues  and  faults  it  to  one  metal  wrought, 

Fined  all  his  blood  to  thought, 
And  ran  the  molten  man  in  all  he  said  or 

did. 

All  Tully's  rules  and  all  Quintilian's  too 
He  by  the  light  of  listening  faces  knew, 
And  his  rapt  audience  all  unconscious  lent 
Their  own  roused  force  to  make  him  elo 
quent; 

Persuasion  fondled  in  his  look  and  tone; 
Our  speech  (with    strangers   prudish)  he 

could  bring 

To  find  new  charm  in  accents  not  her  own ; 
Her  coy  constraints  and  icy  hindrances 
Melted  upon  his  lips  to  natural  ease, 
As  a   brook's  fetters   swell  the  dance  of 

spring. 

Nor  yet  all  sweetness:  not  in  vain  he  wore, 
Nor  in  the  sheath  of  ceremony,  controlled 
By  velvet  courtesy  or  caution  cold, 
That  sword  of  honest  anger  prized  of  old, 

But,  with  two-handed  wrath, 
If  baseness  or  pretension  crossed  his  path, 
Struck  once  nor  needed  to  strike  more. 

2. 

His  magic  was  not  far  to  seek,  — 
He   was  so   human  !     Whether   strong  or 

weak, 
Far  from    his   kind    he   neither   sank  nor 

soared, 

But  sate  an  equal  guest  at  every  board: 
No  beggar  ever  felt  him  condescend, 
No   prince  presume;  for  still   himself  he 

bare 

At  manhood's  simple  level,  and  where'er 
He  met  a  stranger,  there  he  left  a  friend. 


AGASSIZ 


377 


How  large  an  aspect !  nobly  unsevere, 
With  freshness   round   him  of   Olympian 

cheer, 

Like  visits  of  those  earthly  gods  he  came ; 
His  look,  wherever  its  good-fortune  fell, 
Doubled  the  feast  without  a  miracle, 
And  on  the  hearthstone  danced  a  happier 

flame; 

Philemon's  crabbed  vintage  grew  benign; 
Amphitryon's  gold-juice  humanized  to  wine. 


ill 


The  garrulous  memories 
Gather    again    from   all    their    far-flown 

nooks, 

Singly  at  first,  and  then  by  twos  and  threes, 
Then  in  a  throng  innumerable,  as  the  rooks 

Thicken  their  twilight  files 
Tow'rd  Tintern's  gray  repose   of  roofless 

aisles : 

Once  more  I  see  him  at  the  table's  head 
When     Saturday    her    monthly     banquet 

spread 

To  scholars,  poets,  wits, 
All  choice,  some  famous,  loving  things,  not 

names, 

And  so  without  a  twinge  at  others'  fames; 
Such  company  as  wisest  moods  befits, 
Yet  with  no  pedant  blindness  to  the  worth 

Of  undeliberate  mirth, 
Natures  benignly  mixed  of  air  and  earth, 
Now  with  the  stars  and  now  with  equal  zest 
Tracing  the  eccentric  orbit  of  a  jest. 

2. 

I  see  in  vision  the  warm-lighted  hall, 

The  living  and  the  dead  I  see  again, 

And   but  my  chair  is  empty;  'mid    them 

all 

'T  is  I  that  seem  the  dead:  they  all  remain 
Immortal,  changeless  creatures  of  the  brain: 
Wellnigh  I  doubt  which  world  is  real  most, 
Of  sense  or  spirit,  to  the  truly  sane ; 
In  this  abstraction  it  were  light  to  deem 
Myself    the    figment    of    some     stronger 

dream ; 

They  are  the  real  things,  and  I  the  ghost 
That  glide  unhindered  through  the  solid 

door, 
Vainly  for  recognition  seek  from  chair  to 

chair, 

And  strive  to  speak  and  am  but  futile  air, 
As  truly  most  of  us  are  little  more. 


Him  most  I  see  whom  we  most  dearly  miss, 

The  latest  parted  thence, 
His  features  poised  in  genial  armistice 
And  armed  neutrality  of  self-defence 
Beneath  the  forehead's  walled  preeminence, 
While  Tyro,  plucking  facts  with  careless 

reach, 

Settles  off-hand  our  human  how  and  whence ; 
The  long-trained  veteran  scarcely  wincing 

hears 

The  infallible  strategy  of  volunteers 
Making  through  Nature's   walls  its   easy 

breach, 
And  seems  to  learn  where  he  alone  could 

teach. 

Ample  and  ruddy,  the  board's  end  he  fills 
As  he  our  fireside  were,  our  light  and  heat, 
Centre  where  minds  diverse   and   various 

skills 

Find  their  warm  nook  and  stretch  unham 
pered  feet; 

I  see  the  firm  benignity  of  face, 
Wide-smiling  champaign,  without  tameness 

sweet, 

The  mass  Teutonic  toned  to  Gallic  grace, 
The  eyes  whose  sunshine  runs  before  the 

lips 
While  Holmes 's  rockets  curve  their  long 

ellipse, 
And  burst  in  seeds  of  fire  that  hurst 

again 

To  drop  in  scintillating  rain. 


There  too  the  face  half-rustic,  half-divine, 

Self-poised,  sagacious,  freaked  with  hu 
mor  fine, 

Of  him  who  taught  us  not  to  mow  and 
mope 

About  our  fancied  selves,  but  seek  our 

scope 

In  Nature's  world  and  Man's,  nor  fade  to 
hollow  trope, 

Content  with  our  New  World  and  timely 
bold 

To  challenge  the  o'ermastery  of  the  Old; 

Listening  with  eyes  averse  I  see  him  sit 

Pricked  with  the  cider  of  the  Judge's  wit 

(Ripe-hearted  homebrew,  fresh  and  fresh 
again), 

While  the  wise  nose's  firm-built  aquiline 
Curves  sharper  to  restrain 

The  merriment  whose  most  unruly  moods 


373 


HEARTSEASE   AND    RUE 


Pass  not  the  dumb  laugh  learned  in  listen 
ing  woods 

Of  silence-shedding  pine: 
Hard  by  is  he  whose  art's  consoling  spell 
Hath    given    both    worlds    a    whiif    of 

asphodel, 

His  look  still  vernal  'mid  the  wintry  ring 
Of  petals  that  remember,  not  foretell, 
The  paler  primrose  of  a  second  spring. 


And  more  there  are:    but  other  forms 

arise 
And  seen  as  clear,  albeit  with  dimmer 

eyes: 

First  he  from  sympathy  still  held  apart 
By  shrinking  over-eagerness  of  heart, 
Cloud  charged  with  searching  fire,  whose 

shadow's  sweep 
Heightened  mean  things  with  sense  of 

brooding  ill, 
And  steeped  in  doom  familiar  field  and 

hill,  — 
New  England's  poet,  soul  reserved  and 

deep, 

November  nature  with  a  name  of  May, 
Whom  high  o'er  Concord  plains  we  laid 

to  sleep, 
While  the  orchards  mocked  us  in  their 

white  array 
And  building  robins   wondered    at    our 

tears, 

Snatched  in  his  prime,  the  shape  august 
That   should   have  stood  unbent    'neath 

fourscore  years, 

The  noble  head,  the  eyes  of  furtive  trust, 

All  gone  to  speechless  dust. 

And  he  our  passing  guest, 

Shy  nature,   too,    and  stung  with  life's 

unrest, 
Whom  we  too  briefly  had  but  could  not 

hold, 
Who  brought  ripe  Oxford's  culture  to  our 

board, 

The  Past's  incalculable  hoard, 
Mellowed  by  scutcheoned  panes  in  clois 
ters  old, 
Seclusions    ivy-hushed,    and    pavements 

sweet 

With  immemorial  lisp  of  musing  feet; 
Young  head  time-tonsured  smoother  than 

a  friar's, 
Boy    face,    but    grave    with    answerless 

desires, 
Poet  in  all  that  poets  have  of  best, 


But  foiled  with  riddles  dark  and  cloudy 

aims, 

Who  now  hath  found  sure  rest, 
Not  by  still  Isis  or  historic  Thames, 
Nor  by  the  Charles  he  tried  to  love  with 

me, 
But,  not  misplaced,  by  Arno's  hallowed 

brim, 
Nor  scorned  by  Santa  Croce's  neighboring 

fames, 

Haply  not  mindless,  wheresoe'er  he  be, 
Of  violets  that  to-day  I  scattered  over 

him. 

He,  too,  is  there, 

After  the  good  centurion  fitly  named, 
Whom  learning  dulled  not,  nor  convention 

tamed, 
Shaking  with  burly  mirth  his  hyacinthine 

hair, 

Our  hearty  Grecian  of  Homeric  ways, 
Still  found  the  surer  friend  where  least  he 

hoped  the  praise. 

6. 

Yea  truly,  as  the  sallowing  years 
Fall  from  us  faster,  like  frost-loosened 

leaves 
Pushed  by  the  misty  touch  of  shortening 

days, 

And  that  tmwakened  winter  nears, 
'T   is  the   void  chair  our    surest    guest 

receives, 
'T  is  lips  long  cold  that  give  the  warmest 

kiss, 
'T  is  the  lost  voice  comes  oftenest  to  our 

ears; 
We  count  our  rosary  by  the  beads  we  miss : 

To  me,  at  least,  it  seemeth  so, 
An  exile  in  the  land  once  found  divine, 

While  my  starved  fire  burns  low, 
And  homeless  winds  at  the  loose  casement 

whine 

Shrill  ditties  of  the  snow-roofed  Apen- 
nine. 

IV 


Now  forth  into  the  darkness  all  are  gone, 
But  memory,  still  unsated,  follows  on, 
Retracing   step   by   step   our  homeward 

walk, 
With   many  a  laugh  among  our  serious 

talk, 
Across  the  bridge  where,  on  the  dimpling 

tide, 


AGASSIZ 


379 


The  long  red  streamers  from  the  windows 

glide, 

Or  the  dim  western  moon 
Rocks  her  skiff' s  image  on  the  broad  lagoon, 
And  Boston  shows  a  soft  Venetian  side 
In  that  Arcadian  light  when  roof  and  tree, 
Hard  prose  by  daylight,  dream  in  Italy; 
Or  haply  in  the  sky's  cold  chambers  wide 
Shivered  the  winter  stars,  while  all  below, 
As  if  an  end  were  come  of  human  ill, 
The  world  was  wrapt  in  innocence  of  snow 
And  the  cast-iron  bay  was  blind  and  still; 
These  were  our  poetry;  in  him  perhaps 
Science  had  barred  the  gate   that  lets  in 

dream, 
And  he  would  rather  count  the  perch  and 

bream 

Than  with  the  current's  idle  fancy  lapse; 
And  yet  he  had  the  poet's  open  eye 
That  takes  a  frank  delight  in  all  it  sees, 
Nor  was  earth  voiceless,  nor  the  mystic  sky, 
To  him  the  life-long  friend  of  fields  and 

trees: 

Then  came  the  prose  of  the  suburban  street, 
Its  silence  deepened  by  our  echoing  feet, 
And  converse  such  as  rambling  hazard  finds ; 
Then  he  who  many  cities  knew  and  many 

minds, 
And  men  once   world  -  noised,   now   mere 

Ossian  forms 

Of  misty  memory,  bade  them  live  anew 
As  when  they  shared  earth's  manifold  de 
light, 

In  shape,  in  gait,  in  voice,  in  gesture  true, 
And,    with    an   accent  heightening   as   he 

warms, 
Would   stop    forgetful   of  the   shortening 

night, 

Drop  my  confining  arm,  and  pour  profuse 
Much  worldly  wisdom  kept  for  others'  use, 
Not  for  his  own,  for  he  was  rash  and  free, 
His  purse  or  knowledge  all  men's,  like  the 

sea. 

Still  can  I  hear  his  voice's  shrilling  might 
(With  pauses  broken,  while  the  fitful  spark 
He  blew  more  hotly  rounded  on  the  dark 
To  hint   his   features   with   a  Rembrandt 

light) 

Call  Oken  back,  or  Humboldt,  or  Lamarck, 
Or  Cuvier's  taller  shade,  and  many  more 
Whom  he  had  seen,  or  knew  from  others' 

sight, 

And  mnke  them  men  to  me  as  ne'er  before : 
Not  seldom,  as  the  undeadened  fibre  stirred 
Of  noble  friendships  knit  beyond  the  sea, 


German  or  French  thrust  by  the  lagging 

word, 

For  a  good  leash  of  mother-tongues  had  he. 
At  last,  arrived  at  where  our  paths  divide, 
"  Good  night !  "  and,  ere  the  distance  grew 

too  wide, 
"Good    night!"    again;    and    now    with 

cheated  ear 
I  half  hear  his  who  mine  shall  never  hear. 

2. 

Sometimes  it  seemed  as  if  New  England 

air 
For   his    large   lungs   too    parsimonious 

were, 

As  if  those  empty  rooms  of  dogma  drear 
Where  the  ghost  shivers  of  a  faith  austere 

Counting  the  horns  o'er  of  the  Beast, 
Still  scaring  those  whose  faith  in  it  is 

least, 

As  if  those  snaps  o'  th'  moral  atmosphere 
That  sharpen  all  the  needles  of  the  East, 

Had  been  to  him  like  death, 
Accustomed    to    draw    Europe's    freer 

breath 

In  a  more  stable  element; 
Nay,  even  our  landscape,  half  the  year 

morose, 

Our  practical  horizon  grimly  pent, 
Our  air,  sincere  of  ceremonious  haze, 
Forcing  hard  outlines  mercilessly  close, 
Our  social  monotone  of  level  days, 

Might   make   our   best   seem   banish 
ment; 

But  it  was  nothing  so; 

Haply  his  instinct  might  divine, 

Beneath  our  drift  of  puritanic  snow, 

The  marvel  sensitive  and  fine 
Of  sanguinaria  over-rash  to  blow 
And  trust  its  shyness  to  an  air  malign; 
Well  might  he   prize   truth's  warranty 

and  pledge 

In  the  grim  outcrop  of  our  granite  edge, 
Or  Hebrew  fervor  flashing  forth  at  need 
In  the  gaunt  sons  of  Calvin's  iron  breed, 
As  prompt  to  give  as  skilled  to  win  and 

keep; 
But,  though   such    intuitions  might  not 

cheer, 
Yet  life  was  good  to  him,  and,  there  or 

here, 
With  that  sufficing  joy,  the  day  was  never 

cheap; 
Thereto    his   mind  was   its   own   ample 

sphere, 


38o 


HEARTSEASE   AND   RUE 


And,    like    those    buildings    great   that 

through  the  year 

Carry  one  temperature,  his  nature  large 
Made   its   own   climate,  nor  could  any 

marge 
Traced  by  convention  stay  him  from  his 

bent: 

He  had  a  habitude  of  mountain  air; 
He  brought  wide  outlook  where  he  went, 

And  could  on  sunny  uplands  dwell 
Of  prospect  sweeter  than  the  pastures  fair 
High-hung  of  viny  Neufchatel; 
Nor,  surely,  did  he  miss 
Some  pale,  imaginary  bliss 
Of  earlier  sights  whose  inner  landscape  still 
was  Swiss. 


I  cannot  think  he  wished  so  soon  to  die 
With  all  his  senses  full  of  eager  heat, 
And  rosy  years  that  stood  expectant  by 
To  buckle  the  winged  sandals  on  their 

feet, 
He  that  was  friends  with  Earth,  and  all 

her  sweet 

Took  with  both  hands  unsparingly : 
Truly  this  life  is  precious  to  the  root, 
And  good  the  feel  of  grass  beneath  the 

foot; 
To  lie  in  buttercups  and  clover-bloom, 

Tenants  in  common  with  the  bees, 
And  watch  the  white  clouds  drift  through 

gulfs  of  trees, 

Is  better  than  long  waiting  in  the  tomb; 
Only  once  more  to  feel  the  coming  spring 
As  the  birds  feel  it,  when  it  bids  them 

sing, 

Only  once  more  to  see  the  moon 
Through  leaf-fringed  abbey-arches  of  the 

elms 

Curve  her  mild  sickle  in  the  West 
Sweet  with  the  breath  of  hay-cocks,  were 

a  boon 

Worth  any  promise  of  soothsayer  realms 
Or  casual  hope  of  being  elsewhere  blest; 

To  take  December  by  the  beard 
And  crush  the  creaking  snow  with  springy 

foot, 
While     overhead     the     North's    dumb 

streamers  shoot, 

Till   Winter  fawn  upon  the  cheek   en 
deared, 
Then  the  long  evening-ends 


Lingered  by  cosy  chimney-nooks, 
With  high  companionship  of  books 
Or  slippered  talk  of  friends 
And  sweet  habitual  looks, 
Is  better  than  to  stop  the  ears  with  dust: 
Too  soon  the  spectre  comes  to  say,  "  Thou 
must ! " 

2. 

When  toil-crooked  hands  are  crost  upon 

the  breast, 

They  comfort  us  with  sense  of  rest; 
They  must  be  glad  to  lie  forever  still; 
Their  work  is  ended  with  their  day; 
Another  fills  their  room;  't  is  the  World's 

ancient  way, 
Whether  for  good  or  ill; 
But  the  deft  spinners  of  the  brain, 
Who  love  each  added   day  and  find  it 

gain, 

Them  overtakes  the  doom 
To  snap  the  half-grown  flower  upon  the 

loom 

(Trophy  that  was  to  be  of  life-long  pain), 
The  thread  no  other  skill  can  ever  knit 

again. 
'T  was  so  with  him,  for  he  was  glad 

to  live, 

'T  was  doubly  so,  for  he  left  work  begun ; 
Could  not  this  eagerness  of  Fate  forgive 

Till  all  the  allotted  flax  were  spun  ? 
It  matters  not  ;  for,  go  at  night  or  noon, 
A  friend,  whene'er  he  dies,  has  died  too 

soon, 
And,  once  we  hear  the   hopeless  He  is 

dead, 

So  far  as  flesh  hath   knowledge,  all  is 
said. 

VI 


I  seem  to  see  the  black  procession  go: 
That  crawling  prose  of  death  too  well  I 

know, 

The  vulgar  paraphrase  of  glorious  woe; 
I   see   it    wind    through    that   unsightly 

grove, 

Once  beautiful,  but  long  defaced 
With   granite    permanence   of    cockney 

taste 
And  all  those  grim   disfigurements  we 

love  : 
There,  then,  we  leave  him  :  Him  ?  such 

costly  waste 
Nature  rebels  at :  and  it  is  not  true 


TO   HOLMES 


Of  those  most  precious  parts  of  him  we 

knew: 

Could  we  be  conscious  but  as  dreamers  be, 
'T  were  sweet  to  leave  this  shifting  life 

of  tents 

Sunk  in  the  changeless  calm  of  Deity; 
Nay,  to  be  mingled  with  the  elements, 
The  fellow-servant  of  creative  powers, 
Partaker  in  the  solemn  year's  events, 
To   share    the   work   of    busy -fingered 

hours, 

To  be  night's  silent  almoner  of  dew, 
To  rise  again  in  plants  and  breathe  and 

grow, 
To  stream  as  tides   the   ocean   caverns 

through, 
Or  with  the  rapture  of  great  winds  to 

blow 
About  earth's  shaken  coignes,  were  not  a 

fate 

To  leave  us  all-disconsolate; 
Even  endless  slumber  in   the    sweetening 

sod 

Of  charitable  earth 
That  takes  out  all  our  mortal  stains, 
And  makes  us  cleanlier  neighbors  of  the 

clod, 

Methinks  were  better  worth 
Than  the  poor  fruit  of  most  men's  wake 
ful  pains, 

The  heart's  insatiable  ache: 
But  such  was  not  his  faith, 
Nor  mine  :  it  may  be  he  had  trod 
Outside  the   plain   old   path   of   God  thus 

spake, 

But  God  to  him  was  very  God, 
And  not  a  visionary  wraith 
Skulking  in  murky  corners  of  the  mind, 

And  he  was  sure  to  be 

Somehow,  somewhere,  imperishable  as  He, 
Not  with  His  essence  mystically  combined, 
As  some  high  spirits  long,  but  whole  and 

free, 

A  perfected  and  conscious  Agassiz. 
And  such  I  figure  him  :  the  wise  of  old 
Welcome  and  own  him  of  their  peaceful 

fold, 

Not  truly  with  the  guild  enrolled 
Of  him  who  seeking  inward  guessed 
Diviner  riddles  than  the  rest, 
And  groping  in  the  darks  of  thought 
Touched  the  Great  Hand  and  knew  it 

not; 

Rather  he  shares  the  daily  light, 
From  reason's  charier  fountains  won, 


Of  his  great  chief,  the  slow-paced  Stagy- 
rite, 

And  Cuvier  clasps  once  more  his  long-lost 
son. 

2. 

The  shape  erect  is  prone:  forever  stilled 
The  winning  tongue  ;  the  forehead's  high- 
piled  heap, 
A   cairn   which   every   science   helped    to 

build, 

Unvalued  will  its  golden  secrets  keep: 
He  knows  at  last  if  Life  or  Death  be  best: 
Wherever  he  be  flown,  whatever  vest 
The  being  hath  put  on  which  lately  here 
So  many-friended  was,  so  full  of  cheer 
To  make  men  feel  the  Seeker's  noble  zest, 
We  have  not  lost  him  all  ;  he  is  not  gone 
To  the  dumb  herd  of   them  that  wholly 

die; 

The  beauty  of  his  better  self  lives  on 
In  minds  he  touched  with  fire,  in  many  an 

eye 

He  trained  to  Truth's  exact  severity; 
He  was  a  Teacher  :   why  be  grieved  for 

him 

Whose  living  word  still  stimulates  the  air  ? 
In  endless  file  shall  loving  scholars  come 
The  glow  of  his  transmitted  touch  to  share, 
And  trace  his    features  with  an  eye   less 

dim 
Than    ours    whose    sense    familiar    wont 

makes  numb. 


TO    HOLMES 

ON   HIS    SEVENTY-FIFTH   BIRTHDAY 

DEAR  Wendell,  why  need  count  the  years 
Since  first  your  genius  made  me  thrill, 

If  what  moved  then  to  smiles  or  tears, 
Or  both  contending,  move  me  still  ? 

What  has  the  Calendar  to  do 

With    poets?     What    Time's    fruitless 

tooth 
With  gay  immortals  such  as  you 

Whose  years  but  emphasize  your  youth  1 

One  air  gave  both  their  lease  of  breath ; 

The  same  paths  lured  our  boyish  feet; 
One  earth  will  hold  us  safe  in  death 

With  dust  of  saints  and  scholars  sweet. 


382 


HEARTSEASE   AND   RUE 


Our  legends  from  one  source  were  drawn, 
I  scarce  distinguish  yours  from  mine, 

And  don't  we  make  the  Gentiles  yawn 
With    "  You     remembers  ? "    o'er     our 
wine  ! 

If  I,  with  too  senescent  air, 

Invade  your  elder  memory's  pale, 

You  snub  me  with  a  pitying  "  Where 
Were  you  iu  the  September  Gale  ?  " 

Both  stared  entranced  at  Lafayette, 
Saw  Jackson  dubbed  with  LL.  D. 

What  Cambridge  saw  not  strikes  us  yet 
As  scarcely  worth  one's  while  to  see. 

Ten  years  my  senior,  when  my  name 
In  Harvard's  entrance-book  was  writ, 

Her  halls  still  echoed  with  the  fame 
Of  you,  her  poet  and  her  wit. 

'T  is  fifty  years  from  then  to  now: 
But  your  Last  Leaf  renews  its  green, 

Though,  for  the  laurels  on  your  brow 
(So  thick  they  crowd),  't  is  hardly  seen. 

The  oriole's  fledglings  fifty  times 
Have  flown  from  our  familiar  elms; 

As  many  poets  with  their  rhymes 
Oblivion's  darkling  dust  o'er  whelms. 

The  birds  are  hushed,  the  poets  gone 
Where  no  harsh  critic's  lash  can  reach, 

And  still  your  winged  brood  sing  on 
To  all  who  love  our  English  speech. 

Nay,  let  the  foolish  records  be 

That  make  believe  you  're  seventy-five: 
You  're  the  old  Wendell  still  to  me,  — 

And  that  's  the  youngest  man  alive. 

The  gray-blue  eyes,  I  see  them  still, 
The  gallant  front  with  brown  o'erhung, 

The  shape  alert,  the  wit  at  will, 

The  phrase  that  stuck,  but  never  stung. 

You  keep  your  youth  as  yon  Scotch  firs, 
Whose  gaunt  line  my  horizon  hems, 

Though  twilight  all  the  lowland  blurs, 
Hold  sunset  in  their  ruddy  stems. 

You  with  the  elders  ?    Yes,  't  is  true, 

But  in  no  sadly  literal  sense, 
With  elders  and  coevals  too, 

Whose  verb  admits  no  preterite  tense. 


Master  alike  in  speech  and  song 
Of  fame's  great  antiseptic  —  Style, 

You  with  the  classic  few  belong 

Who  tempered  wisdom  with  a  smile. 

Outlive  us  all  !  Who  else  like  you 
Could  sift  the  seedcorn  from  our  chaff, 

And  make  us  with  the  pen  we  knew 
Deathless  at  least  in  epitaph  ? 


IN  A  COPY  OF  OMAR  KHAYYAM 

THESE  pearls  of  thought  in  Persian  gulfs 

were  bred, 

Each  softly  lucent  as  a  rounded  moon; 
The  diver  Omar  plucked  them  from  their 

bed, 
Fitzgerald    strung    them    on    an   English 

thread. 

Fit  rosary  for  a  queen,  in  shape  and  hue, 
When  Contemplation  tells  her  pensive  beads 
Of  mortal  thoughts,  forever  old  and  new. 
Fit  for  a  queen  ?     Why,   surely  then  for 
you! 

The  moral  ?     Where  Doubt's  eddies  toss 

and  twirl 

Faith's  slender  shallop  till  her  footing  reel, 
Plunge  :  if  you  find  not  peace  beneath  the 

whirl, 
Groping,  you  may  like  Omar  grasp  a  pearl. 


ON  RECEIVING  A  COPY  OF 
MR.  AUSTIN  DOBSON'S  "OLD 
WORLD  IDYLLS" 


AT  length  arrived,  your  book  I  take 
To  read  in  for  the  author's  sake; 
Too  gray  for  new  sensations  grown, 
Can  charm  to  Art  or  Nature  known 
This  torpor  from  my  senses  shake  ? 

Hush !    my    parched    ears    what    runnels 

slake? 

Is  a  thrush  gurgling  from  the  brake  ? 
Has  Spring,  on  all  the  breezes  blown, 
At  length  arrived  ? 

Long  may  you  live  such  songs  to  make, 
And  I  to  listen  while  you  wake. 


BANKSIDE 


383 


With  skill  of  late  disused,  each  tone 
Of  the  Lesboum  barbiton, 
At  mastery,  through  long  finger-ache, 
At  length  arrived. 

II 

As  I  read  on,  what  changes  steal 
O'er  me  and  through,  from  head  to  heel  ? 
A  rapier  thrusts  coat-skirt  aside, 
My  rough  Tweeds  bloom  to  silken  pride,  — 
Who  was  it   laughed  ?     Your  hand,  Dick 
Steele  ! 

Down  vistas  long  of  dipt  charmille 
Watteau  as  Pierrot  leads  the  reel; 
Tabor  and  pipe  the  dancers  guide 
As  I  read  on. 

While  in  and  out  the  verses  wheel 
The  wind-caught  robes  trim  feet  reveal, 
Lithe  ankles  that  to  music  glide, 
But  chastely  and  by  chance  descried; 
Art  ?     Nature  ?     Which  do  I  most  feel 
As  I  read  on  ? 


TO    C.    F.    BRADFORD 

ON   THE   GIFT   OF   A   MEERSCHAUM   PIPE 

THE  pipe  came  safe,  and  welcome  too, 

As  anything  must  be  from  you; 

A  meerschaum  pure,  't  would  float  as  light 

As  she  the  girls  call  Amphitrite. 

Mixture  divine  of  foam  and  clay, 

From  both  it  stole  the  best  away: 

Its  foam  is  such  as  crowns  the  glow 

Of  beakers  brimmed  by  Veuve  Clicquot; 

Its  clay  is  but  congested  lymph 

Jove  chose  to  make  some  choicer  nymph; 

And  here  combined,  —  why,  this  must  be 

The  birth  of  some  enchanted  sea, 

Shaped  to  immortal  form,  the  type 

And  very  Venus  of  a  pipe. 

When  high  I  heap  it  with  the  weed 
From  Lethe  wharf,  whose  potent  seed 
Nicotia,  big  from  Bacchus,  bore 
And  cast  upon  Virginia's  shore, 
I  '11  think,  —  So  fill  the  fairer  bowl 
And  wise  alembic  of  thy  soul, 
With  herbs  far-sought  that  shall  distil, 
Not  fumes  to  slacken  thought  and  will, 
But  bracing  essences  that  nerve 
To  wait,  to  dare,  to  strive,  to  serve. 


When  curls  the  smoke  in  eddies  soft, 
And  hangs  a  shifting  dream  aloft, 
That  gives  and  takes,  though  chance-de 
signed, 

The  impress  of  the  dreamer's  mind, 
I  '11  think,  —  So  let  the  vapors  bred 
By  Passion,  in  the  heart  or  head, 
Pass  off  and  upward  into  space, 
Waving  farewells  of  tenderest  grace, 
Remembered  in  some  happier  time, 
To  blend  their  beauty  with  my  rhyme. 

While  slowly  o'er  its  candid  bowl 
The  color  deepens  (as  the  soul 
That  burns  in  mortals  leaves  its  trace 
Of  bale  or  beauty  on  the  face), 
I  '11  think,  —  So  let  the  essence  rare 
Of  years  consuming  make  me  fair; 
So,  'gainst  the  ills  of  life  profuse, 
Steep  me  in  some  narcotic  juice; 
And  if  my  soul  must  part  with  all 
That  whiteness  which  we  greenness  call, 
Smooth  back,  O  Fortune,  half  thy  frown, 
And  make  me  beautifully  brown  ! 

Dream-forger,  I  refill  thy  cup 
With  reverie's  wasteful  pittance  up, 
And  while  the  fire  burns  slow  away, 
Hiding  itself  in  ashes  gray, 
I  '11  think,  —  As  inward  Youth  retreats, 
Compelled  to  spare  his  wasting  heats, 
When  Life's  Ash- Wednesday  comes  about, 
And  my  head  's  gray  with  fires  burnt  out, 
While  stays  one  spark  to  light  the  eye, 
With  the  last  flash  of  memory, 
'T  will  leap  to  welcome  C.  F.  B., 
Who  sent  my  favorite  pipe  to  me. 


BANKSIDE 
(HOME  OF  EDMUND  QUINCY) 

DEDHAM,  MAY  21,  1877 

Edmund  Quincy  was  eleven  years  the  senior 
of  Lowell,  but  their  common  labors  in  the 
early  days  of  the  anti-slavery  movement,  and 
their  congeniality  of  temper  and  wit,  made 
them  very  intimate  friends. 


I  CHRISTENED  you  in  happier  days,  before 
These  gray  forebodings  on  my  brow  were 
seen; 


384 


HEARTSEASE   AND   RUE 


You  are   still   lovely   in  your  new-leaved 

green ; 
The   brimming    river    soothes   his   grassy 

shore ; 
The  bridge  is  there;  the  rock  with  lichens 

hoar; 

And  the  same  shadows  on  the  water  lean, 
Outlasting  us.     How  many  graves  between 
That  day  and  this  !     How  many  shadows 

more 
Darken  my   heart,   their   substance   from 

these  eyes 

Hidden  forever  !     So  our  world  is  made 
Of  life   and    death   commingled;  and  the 

sighs 

Outweigh  the  smiles, in  equal  balance  laid: 
What  compensation  ?    None,  save  that  the 

A 11  wise 
So  schools  us   to  love  things  that   cannot 

fade. 

II 

Thank  God,  he  saw  you  last  in  pomp  of 
May, 

Ere  any  leaf  had  felt  the  year's  regret; 

Your  latest  image  in  his  memory  set 

Was  fair  as  when  your  landscape's  peaceful 
sway 

Charmed  dearer  eyes  with  his  to  make 
delay 

On  Hope's  long  prospect,  —  as  if  They  for 
get 

The  happy,  They,  the  unspeakable  Three, 
whose  debt, 

Like  the  hawk's  shadow,  blots  our  brightest 
day: 

Better  it  is  that  ye  should  look  so  fair, 

Slopes  that  he  loved,  and  ever-murmuring 
pines 

That  make  a  music  out  of  silent  air, 

And  bloom-heaped  orchard-trees  in  pros 
perous  lines; 

In  you  the  heart  some  sweeter  hints  divines, 

And  wiser,  than  in  winter's  dull  despair. 

Ill 

Old  Friend,  farewell !     Your  kindly  door 

again 

I  enter,  but  the  master's  hand  in  mine 
No  more  clasps  welcome,  and  the  temperate 

wine, 
That  cheered    our  long  nights,  other  lips 

must  stain: 

All  is  unchanged,  but  I  expect  in  vain 
The  face  alert,  the  manners  free  and  fine, 


The  seventy  years  borne  lightly  as  the  pine 
Wears  its  first  down  of  snow  in  green  dis 
dain  : 
Much  did  he,  and  much  well;  yet  most  of 

all 

I  prized  his  skill  in  leisure  and  the  ease 
Of  a  life  flowing  full  without  a  plan; 
For  most  are  idly  busy ;  him  I  call 
Thrice   fortunate    who    knew   himself    to 

please, 
Learned  in  those  arts  that  make  a  gentle- 


IV 

Nor  deem  he  lived  unto  himself  alone; 
His  was  the  public  spirit  of  his  sire, 
And  in  those  eyes,  soft  with  domestic  fire, 
A  quenchless  light  of  fiercer  temper  shone 
What  time  about  the  world  our  shame  was 

blown 

On  every  wind;   his   soul  would  not  con 
spire 

With  selfish  men  to  soothe  the  mob's  de 
sire, 
Veiling    with    garlands    Moloch's    bloody 

stone ; 

The  high-bred  instincts  of  a  better  day 
Ruled  in  his  blood,  when  to  be  citizen 
Rang  Roman  yet,  and  a  Free  People's  sway 
Was  not   the   exchequer  of   impoverished 

men, 
Nor   statesmanship   with   loaded  votes   to 


Nor  public  office  a  tramps'  boosing-ken. 


JOSEPH    WINLOCK 

DIED   JUNE    II,  1875 

Mr.  Winlock  was  at  the  head  of  the  Harvard 
Astronomical  Observatory  at  the  time  of  his 
death. 

SHY  soul  and  stalwart,  man  of  patient  will 
Through  years  one  hair's-breadth  on  our 

Dark  to  gain, 

Who,  from  the  stars  he  studied  not  in  vain, 
Had  learned  their  secret  to  be  strong  and 

still, 

Careless  of  fames  that  earth's   tin  trum 
pets  fill; 

Born  under  Leo,  broad  of  build  and  brain, 
While   others   slept,   he   watched   in  that 

hushed  fane 
Of  Science,  only  witness  of  his  skill: 


WITH   AN   ARMCHAIR 


Sudden  as  falls  a  shooting-star  he  fell, 
But  inextinguishable  his  luminous  trace 
In  mind  and  heart  of  all  that  knew  him 

well. 
Happy  man's   doom  !     To  him   the  Fates 

were  known 
Of  orbs  dim   hovering   on   the   skirts   of 

space, 
Unprescient,  through  God's  mercy,  of  his 

own  ! 


SONNET 

TO   FANNY   ALEXANDER 

The  daughter  of  an  American  portrait 
painter  who  spent  his  life  in  Italy,  and  herself 
known  through  her  sympathetic  and  delicate 
portraiture  of  Italian  peasant  life,  especially 
in  her  Roadside  Songs  of  Tuscany.  The  poem 
is  dated  at  Florence  in  1873. 

UNCONSCIOUS  as  the  sunshine,  simply  sweet 
And  generous  as  that,  thou  dost  not  close 
Thyself  in  art,  as  life  were  but  a  rose 
To  rumple  bee-like  with  luxurious  feet; 
Thy  higher  mind  therein  finds  sure  retreat, 
But  not  from  care  of  common  hopes  and 

woes; 
Thee  the  dark  chamber,  thee  the  unfriended, 

knows, 
Although  no  babbling   crowds  thy  praise 

repeat: 
Consummate   artist,   who   life's   landscape 

bleak 
Hast  brimmed  with  sun  to  many  a  clouded 

eye, 
Touched  to  a  brighter  hue   the    beggar's 

cheek, 

Hung  over  orphaned  lives  a  gracious  sky, 
And  traced  for  eyes,  that  else  would  vainly 

seek, 
Fair  pictures  of  an  angel  drawing  nigh  ! 


JEFFRIES  WYMAN 

DIED   SEPTEMBER   4,  1874 

An  associate  of  Lowell  in  Cambridge,  and 
eminent  as  a  man  of  science  in  the  field  of 
comparative  anatomy. 

THE  wisest  man  could  ask  no  more  of  Fate 
Than  to  be  simple,  modest,  manly,  true, 


Safe  from  the  Many,  honored  by  the  Few; 
To  count  as  naught  in  World,  or  Church, 

or  State, 

But  inwardly  in  secret  to  be  great; 
To  feel  mysterious  Nature  ever  new; 
To  touch,  if  not  to  grasp,  her  endless  clue, 
And  learn  by  each  discovery  how  to  wait. 
He  widened   knowledge   and  escaped  the 

praise ; 
He  wisely  taught,  because  more  wise  to 

learn ; 
He  toiled  for  Science,  not  to  draw  men's 

gaze, 

But  for  her  lore  of  self-denial  stern. 
That  such  a  man  could  spring  from  our 

decays 
Fans  the  soul's  nobler  faith  until  it  burn. 


TO  A   FRIEND 

WHO   GAVE   ME   A  GROUP  OF   WEEDS  AND 
GRASSES,  AFTER  A  DRAWING  OF  DURER 

TRUE  as  the   sun's   own  work,  but  more 

refined, 

It  tells  of  love  behind  the  artist's  eye, 
Of  sweet  companionships   with  earth  and 

sky, 
And  summers  stored,  the  sunshine  of  the 

mind. 
What  peace  !     Sure,  ere  you  breathe,  the 

fickle  wind 

Will  break  its  truce  and  bend  that  grass- 
plume  high, 

Scarcely  yet  quiet  from  the  gilded  fly 
That  flits  a  more  luxurious  perch  to  find. 
Thanks  for  a  pleasure  that  can  never  pall, 
A  serene  moment,  deftly  caught  and  kept 
To  make  immortal  summer  on  my  wall. 
Had    he   who    drew   such    gladness    ever 

wept? 

Ask  rather  could  he  else  have  seen  at  all, 
Or  grown  in  Nature's  mysteries  an  adept  ? 

WITH    AN    ARMCHAIR 


ABOUT  the  oak  that  framed  this  chair,  of 
old 

The  seasons  danced  their  round;  delighted 
wings 

Brought  music  to  its  boughs;  shy  wood 
land  things 


386 


HEARTSEASE   AND   RUE 


Shared  its  broad  roof,  'neath  whose  green 

glooms  grown  bold, 
Lovers,  more  shy  than  they,  their  secret 

told; 

The  resurrection  of  a  thousand  springs 
Swelled  in  its  veins,  and  dim  imaginings 
Teased  them,  perchance,  of  life  more  mani 
fold. 
Such  shall  it  know  when  its   proud  arms 

enclose 

My  Lady  Goshawk,  musing  here  at  rest, 
Careless  of  him  who  into  exile  goes, 
Yet,  while  his  gift  by  those  fair  limbs  is 

prest, 
Through   some   fine   sympathy   of    nature 

knows 
That,  seas  between  us,  she  is  still  his  guest. 

2. 

Yet   sometimes,  let   me   dream,  the   con 
scious  wood 

A  momentary  vision  may  renew 
Of  him   who   counts   it   treasure   that   he 

knew, 
Though    but  in   passing,  such   a   priceless 

good, 

And,  like  an  elder  brother,  felt  his  mood 
Uplifted  by  the  spell  that  kept  her  true, 
Amid  her  lightsome  compeers,  to  the  few 
That  wear  the  crown  of   serious  woman 
hood: 

Were  he  so  happy,  think  of  him  as  one 
Who  in  the  Louvre  or  Pifcti  feels  his  soul 
Rapt  by  some  dead  face  which,   till  then 

unseen. 

Moves  like  a  memory,  and,  till  life  outrun, 
Is  vexed  with  vague  misgiving    past  con 
trol, 

Of  nameless  loss  and  thwarted  might-have- 
been. 


E.    G.   DE    R. 

WHY  should  I  seek  her  spell  to  decompose 
Or  to  its  source  each  rill  of  influence  trace 
That  feeds  the  brimming  river  of  her 

grace  ? 

The  petals  numbered  but  degrade  to  prose 
Summer's  triumphant  poem  of  the  rose: 
Enough   for   me    to   watch   the   wavering 

chase, 
Like  wind  o'er  grass,  of  moods  across  her 

face, 
Fairest  in  motion,  fairer  in  repose. 


Steeped  in  her  sunshine,  let  me,    while  I 

may, 

Partake  the  bounty:  ample  't  is  for  me 
That  her  mirth  cheats  my  temples  of  their 

gray, 
Her  charm  makes  years  long  spent  seem 

yet  to  be. 
Wit,   goodness,    grace,    swift    flash   from 

grave  to  gay,  — 
All  these  are  good,  but  better  far  is  she. 


BON   VOYAGE 

SHIP,  blest  to  bear  such  freight  across  the 

blue, 

May  stormless  stars  control  thy  horoscope; 
In  keel  and  hull,  in  every  spar  and  rope, 
Be  night  and  day  to  thy  dear  office  true  ! 
Ocean,  men's  path  and  their  divider  too, 
No  fairer  shrine  of  memory  and  hope 
To  the  underworld   adown   thy  westering 

slope 

E'er  vanished,  or  whom  such  regrets  pur 
sue: 
Smooth  all  thy  surges   as   when   Jove  to 

Crete 

Swam  with  less  costly  burthen,  and  pre 
pare 
A   pathway   meet   for   her   home-coming 

soon 

With  golden  undulations  such  as  greet 
The  printless  summer-sandals  of  the  moon 
And  tempt  the  Nautilus  his  cruise  to  dare  I 


TO   WHITTIER 

ON   HIS   SEVENTY-FIFTH    BIRTHDAY 

NEW    ENGLAND'S   poet,   rich    in    love   as 

^  years, 
Her  hills  and  valleys  praise  thee,  her  swift 

brooks 
Dance  in  thy  verse;  to   her   grave    sylvan 

nooks 
Thy  steps  allure  us,  which  the  wood-thrush 

hears 
As    maids    their   lovers',    and   no   treason 

fears ; 
Through  thee   her   Merrimacs   and   Agio- 

chooks 
And  many  a  name  uncouth   win   gracious 

looks, 
Sweetly  familiar  to  both  Englands'  ears: 


ON  PLANTING  A  TREE  AT  INVERARAY 


3S7 


Peaceful  by  birthright  as  a  virgin  lake, 
The  lily's  anchorage,  which  no  eyes  behold 
Save  those  of  stars,  yet  for  thy  brother's 


That  lay  in  bonds,  thou  blewst  a  blast  as 

bold 
As  that  wherewith    the    heart    of   Roland 

brake, 
Far  heard  across  the  New  World  and  the 

Old. 


ON    AN     AUTUMN     SKETCH    OF 
H.   G.   WILD 

THANKS  to  the  artist,  ever  on  my  wall 
The  sunset  stays:  that  hill  in  glory  rolled, 
Those  trees  and  clouds  in  crimson  and  in 

gold, 
Burn  on,  nor  cool  when  evening's  shadows 

fall. 
Kot  round  these  splendors  Midnight  wraps 

her  pall; 
These  leaves  the  flush  of  Autumn's  vintage 

hold 
In  Winter's  spite,  nor  can  the   Northwind 

bold 

Deface  my  chapel's  western  window  small: 
On  one,  ah  me  !  October  struck  his  frost, 
But    not   repaid   him   with   those    Tyrian 

hues; 

His  naked  boughs  but  tell  him  what  is  lost, 
And  parting  comforts  of  the  sun  refuse: 
His  heaven  is  bare,  —  ah,  were  its  hollow 

crost 
Even  with  a  cloud  whose  light  were  yet  to 

lose  ! 


TO    MISS    D.   T. 

ON   HER  GIVING   ME   A   DRAWING    OF 
LITTLE   STREET   ARABS 

Miss   Dorothy   Tennant   afterward   married 
Henry  M.  Stanley,  the  African  explorer. 

As,    cleansed    of    Tiber's   and    Oblivion's 

slime, 

Glow  Fames ina's  vaults  with  shapes  again 
That  dreamed  some  exiled  artist  from  his 

pain 

Back  to  his  Athens  and  the  Muse's  clime, 
So  these  world  -  orphaned  waifs  of  Want 

and  Crime, 


Purged  by  Art's  absolution  from  the  stain 
Of  the  polluting  city-flood,  regain 
Ideal  grace  secure  from  taint  of  time. 
An  Attic  frieze  you  give,  a  pictured  song; 
For   as    with   words   the   poet   paints,  for 

you 

The  happy  pencil  at  its  labor  sings, 
Stealing  his  privilege,  nor  does  him  wrong, 
Beneath  the  false  discovering  the  true, 
And  Beauty's  best  in  unregarded  things. 


WITH    A     COPY     OF     AUCASSIN 
AND    NICOLETE 

LEAVES    fit  to  have    been    poor  Juliet's 

cradle-rhyme, 
With  gladness  of  a  heart  long  quenched  in 

mould 
They  vibrate  still,  a  nest   not  yet   grown 

cold 
From    its    fledged    burthen.      The    numb 

hand  of  Time 
Vainly   his    glass   turns;    here   is   endless 

prime; 
Here  lips  their  roses  keep  and  locks  their 

gold; 

Here  Love  in  pristine  innocency  bold 
Speaks  what  our  grosser  conscience  makes 

a  crime. 
Because  it  tells  the  dream   that  all   have 

known 
Once  in  their  lives,  and  to  life's  end  the 

few; 
Because    its   seeds   o'er    Memory's   desert 

blown 
Spring    up    in    heartsease    such   as    Eden 

knew; 

Because  it  hath  a  beauty  all  its  own, 
Dear  Friend,  I  plucked  this  herb  of  grace 

for  you. 


ON    PLANTING   A  TREE    AT   IN 
VERARAY 

WHO  does  his  duty  is  a  question 
Too  complex  to  be  solved  by  me, 

But  he,  I  venture  the  suggestion, 
Does  part  of  his  that  plants  a  tree. 

For  after  he  is  dead  and  buried, 
And  epitaphed,  and  well  forgot, 

Nay,  even  his  shade  by  Charon  ferried 
To  —  let  us  not  inquire  to  what, 


388 


HEARTSEASE   AND   RUE 


His  deed,  its  author  long  outliving, 
By  Nature's  mother-care  increased, 

Shall  stand,  his  verdant  almoner,  giving 
A  kindly  dole  to  man  and  beast. 

The  wayfarer,  at  noon  reposing, 
Shall  bless  its  shadow  on  the  grass, 

Or  sheep  beneath  it  huddle,  dozing 
Until  the  thundergust  o'erpass. 

The  owl,  belated  in  his  plundering, 
Shall  here  await  the  friendly  night, 

Blinking  whene'er  he  wakes,  and  wondering 
What  fool  it  was  invented  light. 

Hither  the  busy  birds  shall  flutter, 
With  the  light  timber  for  their  nests, 

And,  pausing  from  their  labor,  utter 
The  morning  sunshine  in  their  breasts. 

What  though  his  memory  shall  have  van 
ished, 

Since  the  good  deed  he  did  survives  ? 
It  is  not  wholly  to  be  banished 

Thus  to  be  part  of  many  lives. 

Grow,  then,  my  foster-child,  and  strengthen, 
Bough  over  bough,  a  murmurous  pile, 

And,  as  your  stately  stem  shall  lengthen, 
So  may  the  statelier  of  Argyll ! 


AN    EPISTLE   TO    GEORGE 
WILLIAM  CURTIS 

"  De  prodome, 

Des  qu'il  s'atorne  a  grant  bonte 
Ja  n'iert  tot  dit  ne  tot  conte, 
Que  leingue  ne  puet  pas  retraire 
Tant  d'enor  com  prodom  set  faire." 

CRESTIEN  DE  TROIES, 
Li  Romans  dou  Chevalier  au  Lyon,  784-788. 

1874 

CURTIS,  whose  Wit,  with  Fancy  arm  in  arm, 
Masks  half  its  muscle  in  its  skill  to  charm, 
And  who  so  gently  can  the  Wrong  expose 
As  sometimes  to  make  converts,  never  foes, 
Or  only  such  as  good  men  must  expect, 
Knaves  sore  with  conscience  of  their  own 

defect, 
I   come   with  mild  remonstrance.     Ere    I 

start, 

A  kindlier  errand  interrupts  my  heart, 
And  I  must  utter,  though  it  vex  your  ears, 


The  love,  the  honor,  felt  so  many  years. 
Curtis,  skilled  equally  with  voice  and  pen 
To  stir  the  hearts  or  mould  the  minds  of 

men,  — 
That  voice  whose  music,  for  I  've  heard  you 

sing 

Sweet  as  Casella,  can  with  passion  ring, 
That  pen  whose  rapid  ease  ne'er  trips  with 

haste, 
Nor  scrapes  nor  sputters,  pointed  with  good 

taste, 
First   Steele's,  then   Goldsmith's,   next  it 

came  to  you, 
Whom   Thackeray  rated   best  of  all  our 

crew,  — 
Had  letters  kept  you,  every  wreath  were 

yours; 
Had  the  World  tempted,  all  its   chariest 

doors 

Had  swung  on  flattered  hinges  to  admit 
Such  high-bred  manners,  such  good-natured 

wit; 

At  courts,  in  senates,  who  so  fit  to  serve  ? 
And  both  invited,  but  you  would  not  swerve, 
All  meaner  prizes  waiving  that  you  might 
In  civic  duty  spend  your  heat  and  light, 
Unpaid,  untrammelled,  with  a  sweet  disdain 
Refusing  posts  men  grovel  to  attain. 
Good  Man  all  own  you;  what  is  left  me, 

then, 
To  heighten  praise  with  but  Good  Citizen  ? 

But  why  this  praise  to  make  you  blush  and 

stare, 

And  give  a  backache  to  your  Easy-Chair? 
Old  Crestien  rightly  says  no  language  can 
Express  the  worth  of  a  true  Gentleman, 
And  I  agree;  but  other  thoughts  deride 
My  first  intent,  and  lure  my  pen  aside. 
Thinking  of  you,  I  see  my  firelight  glow 
On  other  faces,  loved  from  long  ago, 
Dear  to  us  both,  and  all  these  loves  com 
bine 

With  this  I  send  and  crowd  in  every  line; 
Fortune  with  me  was  in  such  generous  mood 
That  all  my  friends  were    yours,  and  all 

were  good; 

Three  generations  come  when  one  I  call, 
And  the  fair  grandame,  youngest  of  them 

all, 

In  her  own  Florida  who  found  and  sips 
The  fount  that  fled  from  Ponce's  longing 

lips. 

How  bright  they   rise    and   wreathe    my 
hearthstone  round, 


AN   EPISTLE  TO   GEORGE   WILLIAM   CURTIS 


389 


Divine  my  thoughts,  reply  without  a  sound, 
And  with  them  many  a  shape  that  memory 

sees, 
As  dear  as  they,  but  crowned  with  aureoles 

these  ! 

What  wonder  if,  with  protest  in  my  thought, 
Arrived,  I  find  't  was  only  love  I  brought  ? 
I  came  with  protest;  Memory  barred  the 

road 
Till  I  repaid  you  half  the  debt  I  owed. 

No,  't  was  not  to  bring  laurels  that  I  came, 
Nor  would  you  wish  it,  daily  seeing  fame, 
(Or  our  cheap  substitute,  unknown  of  yore,) 
Dumped  like  a  load  of  coal  at  every  door, 
Mime  and  hetsera  getting  equal  weight 
With  him  whose  toils  heroic  saved  the  State. 
But  praise  can  harm   not  who  so  calmly 

met 
Slander's  worst  word,  nor  treasured  up  the 

debt, 
Knowing,    what  all   experience   serves   to 

show, 

No  mud  can  soil  us  but  the  mud  we  throw. 
You  have  heard  harsher  voices  and  more 

loud, 
As  all  must,   not   sworn  liegemen  of  the 

crowd, 

And  far  aloof  your  silent  mind  could  keep 
As  when,  in  heavens  with  winter-midnight 

deep, 
The  perfect  moon   hangs  thoughtful,  nor 

can  know 
What  hounds  her  lucent  calm  drives  mad 

below. 

But  to  my  business,  while  you  rub  your 
eyes 

And  wonder  how  you  ever  thought  me  wise. 

Dear  friend  and  old,  they  say  you  shake 
your  head 

And  wish  some  bitter  words  of  mine  un 
said: 

I  wish  they  might  be,  —  there  we  are 
agreed; 

I  hate  to  speak,  still  more  what  makes  the 
need; 

But  I  must  utter  what  the  voice  within 

Dictates,  for  acquiescence  dumb  were  sin; 

I  blurt  ungrateful  truths,  if  so  they  be, 

That  none  may  need  to  say  them  after  me. 

'T  were  my  felicity  could  I  attain 

The  temperate  zeal  that  balances  your 
brain ; 

But  nature  still  o'erleaps  reflection's  plan, 


And  one  must  do  his  service  as  he  can. 
Think  you  it  were  not  pleasanter  to  speak 
Smooth    words   that  leave   unflushed  the 

brow  and  cheek  ? 

To  sit,  well-dined,  with  cynic  smile,  unseen 
In  private  box,  spectator  of  the  scene 
Where  men  the  comedy  of  life  rehearse, 
Idly   to   judge   which   better    and    which 

worse 
Each  hireling  actor  spoiled  his  worthless 

part? 

Were  it  not  sweeter  with  a  careless  heart, 
In   happy   commune    with    the   untainted 

brooks, 
To  dream  all  day,  or,  walled  with  silent 

books, 
To  hear  nor  heed  the  World's  unmeaning 

noise, 
Safe  in  my  fortress  stored  with  lifelong 

joys? 

I  love  too  well  the  pleasures  of  retreat 
Safe  from  the  crowd  and  cloistered  from 

the  street; 

The  fire  that  whispers  its  domestic  joy. 
Flickering  on  walls  that  knew  me  still  a 

boy, 

And  knew  my  saintly  father;  the  full  days, 
Not  careworn  from  the  world's  soul-squan 
dering  ways, 
Calm    days    that  loiter  with  snow -silent 

tread, 
Nor  break  my  commune  with  the  undying 

dead; 

Truants  of  Time,  to-morrow  like  to-day, 
That  come  unbid,  and  claimless  glide  away 
By  shelves  that  sun  them  in  the  indulgent 

Past, 
Where  Spanish  castles,  even,  were  built  to 

last, 

Where  saint  and  sage  their  silent  vigil  keep, 
And  wrong  hath  ceased  or  sung  itself  to 

sleep. 

Dear  were  my  walks,  too,  gathering  fra 
grant  store 

Of  Mother  Nature's  simple-minded  lore: 
I  learned  all  weather-signs  of  day  or  night; 
No  bird  but  I  could  name  him  by  his  flight, 
No  distant   tree    but   by    his    shape    was 

known, 

Or,  near  at  hand,  by  leaf  or  bark  alone. 
This  learning  won  by  loving  looks  I  hived 
As  sweeter  lore  than  all  from  books  derived. 
I  know  the  charm  of  hillside,  field,   and 
wood, 


39° 


HEARTSEASE   AND   RUE 


Of  lake  and  stream,  and  the  sky's  downy 

brood, 
Of  roads  sequestered  rimmed  with  sallow 

sod, 

But  friends  with  hardhack,  aster,  golden- 
rod, 

Or  succory  keeping  summer  long  its  trust 
Of  heaven-blue  fleckless  from  the  eddying 

dust: 
These  were  my  earliest  friends,  and  latest 

too, 

Still  unestranged,  whatever  fate  may  do. 
For  years  I  had  these  treasures,  knew  their 

worth, 

Estate  most  real  man  can  have  on  earth. 
I  sank  too  deep  in  this  soft-stuffed  repose 
That  hears  but  rumors  of  earth's  wrongs 

and  woes; 
Too  well  these  Capuas  could  my  muscles 

waste, 
Not  void  of  toils,  but  toils  of  choice  and 

taste ; 
These  still  had  kept  me  could  I  but  have 

quelled 

The  Puritan  drop  that  in  my  veins  rebelled. 
But  there  were  times  when  silent  were  my 

books 

As  jailers  are,  and  gave  me  sullen  looks, 
When  verses  palled,  and  even  the  woodland 

path, 
By  innocent  contrast,  fed  my  heart  with 

wrath, 

And  I  must  twist  my  little  gift  of  words 
Into  a  scourge  of  rough  and  knotted  cords 
Unmusical,  that  whistle  as  they  swing 
To  leave  on  shameless  backs  their  purple 

sting. 

How  slow  Time  comes  !  Gone,  who  so  swift 

as  he? 

Add  but  a  year,  't  is  half  a  century 
Since  the  slave's  stifled  moaning  broke  my 

sleep, 
Heard  'gainst  my  will   in   that    seclusion 

deep, 

Haply  heard  louder  for  the  silence  there, 
And  so  my  fancied  safeguard  made    my 

snare. 

After  that  moan  had  sharpened  to  a  cry, 
And  a  cloud,  hand-broad  then,  heaped  all 

our  sky 

With  its  stored  vengeance,  and  such  thun 
ders  stirred 
As  heaven's  and  earth's  remotest  chambers 

heard, 


I  looked  to  see  an  ampler  atmosphere 
By  that  electric  passion-gust  blown  clear. 
I  looked  for  this ;  consider  what  I  see  — 
But  I  forbear,  't  would  please  nor  you  nor 

me 

To  check  the  items  in  the  bitter  list 
Of  all  I  counted  on  and  all  I  mist. 
Only  three  instances  I  choose  from  all, 
And  each  enough  to  stir  a  pigeon's  gall: 
Office  a  fund  for  ballot-brokers  made 
To  pay  the  drudges  of  their  gainful  trade; 
Our    cities    taught  what  conquered  cities 

feel 
By  aediles  chosen  that  they  might  safely 

steal ; 

And  gold,  however  got,  a  title  fair 
To  such  respect  as  only  gold  can  bear. 
I  seem  to  see  this;  how  shall  I  gainsay 
What  all  our  journals  tell  me  every  day  ? 
Poured    our    young    martyrs    their    high 
hearted  blood 

That  we  might  trample  to  congenial  mud 
The  soil  with  such  a  legacy  sublimed  ? 
Methinks   an   angry    scorn   is   here   well- 
timed: 
Where  find  retreat  ?    How  keep  reproach 

at  bay  ? 

Where'er  I  turn  some   scandal  fouls  the 
way. 

Dear  friend,  if  any  man  I  wished  to  please, 
'T  were  surely  you  whose  humor's  honied 

ease 
Flows  flecked  with  gold  of  thought,  whose 

generous  mind 

Sees  Paradise  regained  by  all  mankind, 
Whose   brave    example    still  to    vanward 

shines, 
Checks  the  retreat,  and  spurs  our  lagging 

lines. 
Was  I  too  bitter  ?     Who  his  phrase  can 

choose 
That  sees    the    life-blood  of    his    dearest 

ooze  ? 

I  loved  my  Country  so  as  only  they 
Who  love  a  mother  fit  to  die  for  may; 
I    loved    her   old    renown,    her    stainless 

fame,  — 
What  better  proof  than  that  I  loathed  her 

shame  ? 
That  many  blamed  me  could  not  irk  me 

long, 

But,  if  you  doubted,  must  I  not  be  wrong  ? 
'T  is  not  for  me  to  answer:  this  I  know, 
That  man  or  race  so  prosperously  low 


AN    EPISTLE  TO   GEORGE   WILLIAM    CURTIS 


Sunk   in  success   that  wrath   they  cannot 

feel, 
Shall  taste  the  spurn  of  parting  Fortune's 

heel; 

For  never  land  long  lease  of  empire  won 
Whose  sons  sate  silent  when   base  deeds 

were  done. 

POSTSCRIPT,   1887 

Curtis,  so  wrote  I  thirteen  years  ago, 
Tost  it  unfinished  by,  and  left  it  so  ; 
Found  lately,  I  have  pieced  it  out,  or  tried, 
Since  time  for  callid  juncture  was  denied. 
Some  of  the  verses  pleased  me,  it  is  true, 
And  still  were  pertinent,  —  those  honoring 

you. 
These   now   I  offer :    take    them,   if   you 

will, 
Like  the  old  hand-grasp,  when  at  Shady 

Hill 

We  met,  or  Staten  Island,  in  the  days 
When  life  was  its  own  spur,  nor  needed 

praise. 
If  once  you  thought  me  rash,  no  longer 

fear  ; 

Past  my  next  milestone  waits  my  seven 
tieth  year. 
I   mount    no   longer  when   the   trumpets 

call; 

My  battle-harness  idles  on  the  wall, 
The   spider's   castle,   camping  -  ground    of 

dust, 

Not  without  dints,  and  all  in  front,  I  trust. 
Shivering  sometimes  it  calls  me  as  it  hears 
Afar  the  charge's  tramp  and  clash  of 

spears  ; 

But  't  is  such  murmur  only  as  might  be 
The  sea-shell's  lost  tradition  of  the  sea, 
That  makes  me  muse  and  wonder  Where  ? 

and  When  ? 
While  from  my  cliff  I  watch  the  waves  of 

men 
That  climb  to  break  midway  their  seeming 

gain, 
And  think  it  triumph  if  they  shake  their 

chain. 

Little  I  ask  of  Fate  ;  will  she  refuse 
Some     days     of     reconcilement   with    the 

Muse? 

I  take  my  reed  again  and  blow  it  free 
Of   dusty    silence,    murmuring,    "  Sing   to 

me  !" 

And,  as  its  stops  my  curious  touch  retries, 
The  stir  of  earlier  instincts  I  surprise,  — 


Instincts,    if    less    imperious,    yet    more 

strong, 
And  happy  in  the  toil  that  ends  with  song. 

Home  am  I  come  :  not,  as  I  hoped  might 

be, 

To  the  old  haunts,  too  full  of  ghosts  for  me, 
But   to   the    olden   dreams  that   time   en 
dears, 
And  the  loved  books  that  younger  grow 

with  years  ; 

To  country  rambles,  timing  with  my  tread 
Some    happier   verse   that    carols   in   my 

head, 
Yet   all   with   sense   of   something   vainly 

mist, 

Of  something  lost,  but  when  I  never  wist. 
How   empty    seems   to   me   the    populous 

street, 

One  figure  gone  I  daily  loved  to  meet,  — 
The  clear,  sweet  singer  with  the  crown  of 

snow 
Not  whiter  than  the  thoughts  that  housed 

below  ! 

And,  ah,  what  absence  feel  I  at  my  side, 
Like  Dante  when  he  missed  his  laurelled 

guide, 

What  sense  of  diminution  in  the  air 
Once  so  inspiring,  Emerson  not  there  ! 
But  life  is  sweet,  though  all  that  makes  it 

sweet 
Lessen   like   sound    of   friends'   departing 

feet, 

And  Death  is  beautiful  as  feet  of  friend 
Coming   with    welcome   at    our   journey's 

end; 

For  me  Fate  gave,  whate'er  she  else  de 
nied, 

A  nature  sloping  to  the  southern  side  ; 
I   thank    her  for   it,   though  when  clouds 

arise 

Such  natures  double-darken  gloomy  skies. 
I  muse  upon  the  margin  of  the  sea, 
Our  common  pathway  to  the  new  To  Be, 
Watching  the  sails,  that  lessen  more  and 

more, 

Of  good  and  beautiful  embarked  before; 
With  bits  of  wreck  I  patch  the  boat  shall 

bear 

Me  to  that  unexhausted  Otherwhere, 
Whose  friendly-peopled  shore  I  sometimes 

see, 

By  soft  mirage  uplifted,  beckon  me, 
Nor  sadly  hear,  as  lower  sinks  the  sun, 
My  "moorings  to  the  past  snap  one  by  one. 


392 


HEARTSEASE   AND   RUE 


II.    SENTIMENT 
ENDYMION 

A     MYSTICAL     COMMENT     ON     TITIAN'S 
" SACRED   AND   PROFANE   LOVE  " 


MY  day  began  not  till  the  twilight  fell, 
And,  lo,  in  ether  from  heaven's  sweetest 

well, 

The  New  Moon  swam  divinely  isolate 
In  maiden  silence,  she  that  makes  my  fate 
Haply  not  knowing  it,  or  only  so 
As  I  the  secrets  of  my  sheep  may  know ; 
Nor  ask  I  more,  entirely  blest  if  she, 
In  letting  me  adore,  ennoble  me 
To  height  of  what  the  Gods  meant  mak 
ing  man, 

As  only  she  and  her  best  beauty  can. 
Mine  be  the  love  that  in  itself  can  find 
Seed  of  white  thoughts,  the  lilies  of  the 

mind, 

Seed  of  that  glad  surrender  of  the  will 
That  finds  in  service  self's  true  purpose 

still  ; 

Love  that  in  outward  fairness  sees  the  tent 
Pitched  for  an  inmate  far  more  excellent; 
Love  with  a  light  irradiate  to  the  core, 
Lit    at    her   lamp,   but   fed   from   inborn 

store  ; 

Love  thrice-requited  with  the  single  joy 
Of    an   immaculate   vision   naught    could 

cloy, 

Dearer  because,  so  high  beyond  my  scope, 
My  life  grew  rich    with   her,  unbribed  by 

hope<        ,  y 

Of  other  guerdon  save  to  think  she  knew 
One  grateful  votary  paid  her  all  her  due; 
Happy  if  she,  high-radiant  there,  resigned 
To  his  sure  trust  her  image  in  his  mind. 
O    fairer   even   than   Peace    is  when   she 

comes 
Hushing    War's   tumult,    and    retreating 

drums  ,-JL)R. 

Fade  to  a  murmur  like  the  sough  of  bees 
Hidden  among  the  noon-stilled  linden-trees, 
Bringer  of  quiet,  thou  that  canst  allay 
The  dust  and  din  and  travail  of  the  day, 
Strewer  of  Silence,  Giver  of  the  dew 
That  doth  our  pastures  and  our  souls  re 
new, 
Still  dwell  remote,  still  on  thy  shoreless'sea 


Float  unattained  in  silent  empery, 

Still  light   my   thoughts,  nor   listen  to   a 

prayer 
Would  make  thee  less  imperishably  fair  ! 


Can,  then,  my  twofold  nature  fmc^  content 
In  vain  conceits  of  airy  blCh&islmTemV  ? 
Ask  I  no  more  ?     Since  yesterday  I  task 
My  storm-strewn  thoughts  to  tell  me  what 

I  ask: 

Faint  premonitions  of  mutation  strange 
Steal  o'er  my  perfect  orb,  and,  with  the 

change, 
Myself   am   changed;   the   shadow  of  my 

earth 

Darkens  the  disk  of  that  celestial  worth 
Which  only  yesterday  could  still  suffice 
Upwards  to  waft  my  thoughts  in  sacrifice; 
My    heightened    fancy   with    its    touches 

warm 

Moulds  to  a  woman's  that  ideal  form; 
Nor  yet  a  woman's  wholly,  but  divine 
With  awe  her  purer  essence  bred  in  mine. 
Was  it  long  brooding  on  their  own  surmise, 
Which,  of  the  eyes  engendered,  fools  the 

eyes, 

Or  have  I  seen  through  that  translucent  air 
A  Presence  shaped  in  its  seclusions  bare, 
My  Goddess  looking  on  me  from  above 
As  look  our  russet  maidens  when  they  love, 
But  high-uplifted  o'er  our  human  heat 
And  passion-paths  too  rough  for  her  pearl 

feet? 

Slowly  the  Shape  took  outline  as  I  gazed 
At  her  full-orbed  or  crescent,  till,  bedazed 
With    wonder-working   light    that   subtly 

wrought 
My  brain   to   its  own  substance,  steeping 

thought 

In  trances  such  as  poppies  give,  I  saw 
Things   shut  from  vision  by  sight's  sober 
„>,-,  ,  .law, 

AmorpTiOus,  changeful,  but  defined  at  last 
Into  the  peerless  Shape  mine  eyes  hold 

fast. 
This,  too,    at   first   I    worshipt:  soon,  like 

wine, 
Her  eyes,  in  mine  poured,  frenzy-philtred 

mine;  G**zr*tG*J~e£ 

Passion  put  Worship's  priestly  raiment  on 
And  to  the  woman  knelt,  the  Goddess  gone. 
Was  I,  then,  more  than  mortal  made  ?  or 

she 


ENDYMION 


393 


Less  than  divine  that  she  might  mate  with 

me  ? 

If  mortal  merely,  could  my  nature  cope 
With    such    o'ermastery    of     maddening 

hope  ? 

If  Goddess,  could  she  feel  the  blissful  woe 
That  women  in  their  self-surrender  know  ? 

ill 
/Long  she  abode  aloof  there  in  her  heaven, 

\Fg£JjJLJ'he- grape^bunch  of  the_Plejadjse.ven 

Beyond    my    madness'   utmost    leap;    but 
here 

Mine  eyes  have  feigned  of  late  her  rapture 
near, 

Moulded  of  mind-mist  that  broad  day  dis 
pels, 

Here  in  these  shadowy  woods  and  brook- 
lulled  dells.         $lJrtX)     Of   6G& 

Have  no  heaven-habitants  e'er  felt  a  void 
In  hearts  sublimed  with  ichor  unalloyed  ? 
E'er  longed  to  mingle  with  a  mortal  fate 
Intense  with  pathos  of  its  briefer  date  ? 
Could  she  partake,  and  live,   our   human 

stains  ? 
Even  with  the  thought  there  tingles  through 

my  veins 

Sense  of  unwarned  renewal;  I,  the  dead, 
Receive  and  house  again  the  ardor  fled, 
i  As  once  Alcestis ;  to  the  ruddy  brim        ^ 
Feel  mascTiline  virtue  flooding  every  limb, 
And  life,  like  Spring  returning,  brings  the 

key 

That  sets  my  senses  from  their  winter  free, 
Dancing  like   naked  fauns  too   glad  for 

shame. 

Her  passion,  purified  to  palest  flame, 
Can  it  thus  kindle  ?     Is  her  purpose  this  ? 
I  will  not  argue,  lest  I  lose  a  bliss 
That  makes  me  dream  Tithonus^fortune 

mine, 

Or  what  of  it  was  palpably  divine 
"re  came  the  fruitlessly  immortal  gift;) 
I  cannot  curb  my  hope's  imperious  drift 
That  wings  with  fire  my  dull  mortality; 
Though  fancy-forged,  't  is  all  I  feel  or  see. 

IV 

My  Goddess  sinks;  round  Latmos'  darken 
ing  brow 

Trembles  the  parting  of  her  presence  now, 
Faint  as  the  perfume  left  upon  the  grass 
By  her   limbs'  pressure  or   her  feet  that 


By  me  conjectured,  but  conjectured  so 
As  things    I   touch   far  fainter   substance 

show. 

Was  it  mine  eyes'  imposture  I  have  seen 
Flit  with  the  moonbeams  on  from  shade  to 

sheen 
Through  the  wood-openings  ?     Nay,  I  see 

her  now 
Out  of  her   heaven  new-lighted,  from  her 

brow 
The  hair  breeze-scattered,  like  loose  mists 

that  blow 

Across  her  crescent,  goldening  as  they  go 
High-kirtled  for  the  chase,  and  what  was 

shown,  JtPUMD*)S^ 

Of  maiden   rondure,   like   the  rose   half- 
blown. 

If  dream,  turn  real !     If  a  vision,  stay  ! 
Take  mortal  shape,  my  philtre's  spell  obey  ! 
If  hags  compel  thee  from  thy  secret  sky 
Witli  gruesome  incantations,  why  not  I, 
Whose  only  magic  is  that  I  distil 
A  potion,   blent  of  passion,  thought,  and 

will, 

Deeper  in  reach,  in  force  of  fate  more  rich, 
Than  e'er  was  juice  wrung  by  Thessalian 

witch 
From   moon-enchanted    herbs,  —  a   potion 

brewed 

Of  my  best  life  in  each  diviner  mood  ? 
Myself  the  elixir  am,  myself  the  bowl 
Seething  and  mantling  with  my  soul  of  soul. 
Taste  and  be  humanized:   what  though  the 

cup, 
With  thy  lips  frenzied,  shatter  ?     Drink  it 

up  ! 

If  but  these  arms  may  clasp,  o'erquited  so, 
My   world,  thy  heaven,  all   life    means   I 

shall  know. 


Sure  she  hath  heard  my  prayer  and  granted 

half, 

As  Gods  do  who  at  mortal  madness  laugh. 
Yet  if  life's  solid  things  illusion  seem, 
Why  may  not  substance  wear  the  mask  of 

dream  ? 

In  sleep  she  comes;  she  visits  me  in  dreams, 
And,  as  her  image  in  a  thousand  streams, 
So  in  my  veins,  that  her  obey,  she  sees, 
Floating  and  flaming  there,  her  images 
Bear  to  my  little  world's  remotest  zone 
Glad  messages  of  her,  and  her  alone. 
With  silence-sandalled  Sleep  she  comes  to 


/.  • 


394 


HEARTSEASE   AND    RUE 


(But   softer-footed,  sweeter-browed,   than 

she,) 

In  motion  gracious  as  a  seagull's  wing, 
And  all  her  bright  limbs,  moving,  seem  to 

sing. 

Let  me  believe  so,  then,  if  so  I  may 
With  the  night's  bounty  feed  my  beggared 

day. 

In  dreams  I  see  her  lay  the  goddess  down 
With  bow  and  quiver,  and  her  cresceiit- 

crown 

Flicker  and  fade  away  to  dull  eclipse 
As  down  to  mine  she  deigns  her  longed-for 

lips; 

And  as  her  neck  my  happy  arms  enfold, 
Flooded  and  lustred  with  her  loosened  gold, 
She  whispers  words  each   sweeter  than  a 

kiss: 
Then,  wakened  with  the  shock  of  sudden 

bliss, 

My  arms  are  empty,  my  awakener  fled, 
And,  silent  in  the  silent  sky  o'erhead, 
But   coldly   as    on   ice  -  plated   snow,   she 

gleams, 
Herself  the  mother  and  the  child  of  dreams. 


Gone   is  the  time  when   phantasms  could 

appease 
My   quest  phantasmal  and   bring  cheated 

ease; 

When,  if  she  glorified  my  dreams,  I  felt 
Through  all  my  limbs  a  change  immortal 

melt 

At  touch  of  hers  illuminate  with  soul. 
Not  lon     could  I  be   stilled  with  Fancy's 
>^ 


Too  soon  the  mortal  mixture  in  me  caught 
Red   fire    from    her   celestial   flame,   and 

fought 

For  tyrannous  control  in  all  my  veins: 
My  fool's  prayer  was  accepted;  what  re 

mains  ?  pjfftislTOH 
Or  was  it  some  eidolon  merely,  sent 
By  her  who  rules  the  shades  in  banishment, 
To  mock  me  with  her  semblance  ?     Were 

it  thus, 
How  'scape  I  shame,  whose  will  was  trai 

torous  ? 

What  shall  compensate  an  ideal  dimmed  ? 

\   ^_H2w_J?lanch  again  my  statue  virgin-limbed, 

Soiled  with  the  incense-smoke  her  chosen 

priest 

Poured  more  profusely  as  within  decreased 
The  fire  unearthly,  fed  with  coals  from  far 


Within  the  soul's  shrine  ?    Could  my  fallen 

star 

Be  set  in  heaven  again  by  prayers  and  tears 
And  quenchless  sacrifice  of  all  my  years, 
How  would  the  victim  to  the  flame  n  leap, 
And  life  for  life's   redemption  paid'  hold 

cheap  ! 

But   what  resource  when   she  herself  de 

scends 
From  her  blue  throne,  and  o'er  her  vassal 

bends  -  --- 

That   shape  .thrice-deifie3jl  by   love,  those 


. 

Wherein  the  Lethe  of  all  others  lies  ? 
When  my  white  queen  of  heaven's  remote 

ness  tires, 

Herself  against  her  other  self  conspires, 
Takes  woman's  nature,   walks   in   mortal 

ways, 
And    finds   in   my   remorse   her   beauty's 

praise  ? 

Yet  all  would  I  renounce  to  dream  again 
The  dream  in  dreams  fulfilled  that  made 

my  pain, 
My    noble   pain   that   heightened    all   my 

years     ^y^{^0Rrr\>  /AJ  HULI-TY 
With  crowns  to  win  and  prowess-breeding 

tears  ; 
Nay,  would  that  dream  renounce  once  more 

to  see 
Her  from  her  sky  there  looking  down  at 

me  ! 

VII 

Goddess,  reclimb  thy  heaven,  and  be  once 

more 

An  inaccessible  splendor  to  adore, 
A  faith,  a  hope  of  such  transcendent  worth 
As  bred  ennobling  discontent  with  earth; 
Give  back  the   longing,   back   the   elated 

mood 
That,  fed  with  thee,  spurned  every  meaner 

good; 

Give  even  the  spur  of  impotent  despair 
That,  without  hope,  still  bade  aspire  and 

dare; 
Give  back  the  need  to  worship,  that  still 

pours 
Down  to  the  soul  the  virtue  it  adores  ! 

Nay,  brightest  and  most  beautiful,   deem 

naught 
These  frantic  words,  the  reckless  wind  of 

thought: 


THE  BLACK   PREACHER 


395 


Still  stoop,  still  grant,  —  I  live  but  in  thy 
will; 

Be  what  thou  wilt,  but  be  a  woman  still  ! 

Vainly  I  cried,  nor  could  myself  believe 

That  what  I  prayed  for  I  would  fain  re 
ceive. 

My  moon  is  set;  my  vision  set  with  her; 

No  more  can  worship  vain  my  pulses  stir. 

Goddess  Triform,  I  own  thy  triple  spell, 

My  heaven's  queen,  —  queen,  too,  of  my 
earth  and  hell ! 


THE   BLACK   PREACHER 

A   BRETON   LEGEND 

AT  Carnac  in  Brittany,  close  on  the  bay, 
They  show   you   a  church,  or   rather   the 

gray 

Ribs  of  a  dead  one,  left  there  to  bleach 
With  the  wreck  lying  near  on  the  crest  of 

the  beach, 

Roofless  and  splintered  with  thunder-stone, 
'Mid  lichen-blurred  gravestones  all  alone; 
'T  is  the  kind  of   ruin  strange  sights  to 

see 
That  may  have  their  teaching  for  you  and 


Something  like  this,  then,  my  guide  had  to 

tell, 
Perched  on  a  saint  cracked  across  when  lie 

fell; 
But  since  I  might  chance  give  his  meaning 

a  wrench, 

He  talking  his  patois  and  I  English-French, 
I  '11  put  what  he  told  me,  preserving  the 

tone, 
In  a  rhymed  prose  that  makes  it  half  his, 

half  my  own. 

An   abbey-church  stood   here,  once    on   a 

time, 

Built  as  a  death-bed  atonement  for  crime: 
'T  was   for   somebody's   sins,  I    know  not 

whose ; 

But  sinners  are  plenty,  and  you  can  choose. 
Though  a  cloister  now  of  the  dusk-winged 

bat, 
'T  was  rich  enough  once,  and  the  brothers 

grew  fat, 

Looser  in  girdle  and  purpler  in  jowl, 
Singing  good  rest  to  the  founder's  lost  soul. 


But  one   day  came   Northmen,   and   lithe 

tongues  of  fire 
Lapped   up   the  chapter-house,  licked  off 

the  spire, 
And    left   all   a   rubbish-heap,   black  and 

dreary, 
Where  only  the  wind  sings  miserere. 

No  priest  has  kneeled  since  at  the  altar's 

foot, 

Whose  crannies  are  searched  by  the  night 
shade's  root, 

Nor  sound  of  service  is  ever  heard, 
Except  from  throat  of  the  unclean  bird, 
Hooting  to  unassoiled  shapes  as  they  pass 
in  midnights  unholy  his  witches'  mass, 
Or  shouting  "  Ho  !  ho  !  "  from  the  belfry 

high 
As  the  Devil's  sabbath-train  whirls  by. 

But  once  a  year,  on  the  eve  of  All-Souls, 
Through    these     arches    dishallowed    the 

organ  rolls, 

Fingers  long  fleshless  the  bell-ropes  work, 
The   chimes   peal   muffled    with   sea-mists 

mirk, 

The  skeleton  windows  are  traced  anew 
On  the  baleful  flicker  of  corpse-lights  blue, 
And  the  ghosts  must  come,  so  the  legend 

saith, 
To  a  preaching  of  Reverend  Doctor  Death. 

Abbots,  monks,  barons,  and  ladies  fair 
Hear  the  dull  summons  and  gather  there: 
No  rustle  of  silk  now,  no  clink  of  mail, 
Nor   ever   a   one   greets   his   church-mate 

pale; 
No  knight  whispers  love  in  the  chatelaine's 

ear, 
His  next-door  neighbor   this   five-hundred 

year; 

No  monk  has  a  sleek  benedicite 
For  the  great  lord  shadowy  now  as  he; 
Nor  needeth  any  to  hold  his  breath, 
Lest   he   lose    the   least   word   of   Doctor 

Death. 

He  chooses  his  text  in  the  Book  Divine, 
Tenth  verse  of   the    Preacher   in   chapter 

nine : — 
"  <  Whatsoever  thy  hand  shall  find  thee  to 

do, 
That  do  with   thy  whole   might,   or   thoii 

shalt  rue; 
For  no  man  is  wealthy,  or  wise,  or  brave, 


396 


HEARTSEASE   AND   RUE 


In  that  quencher  of  might-be's  and  would- 

be's,  the  grave.' 
Bid  by  the  Bridegroom,  'To-morrow,'  ye 

said, 
And  To-morrow  was  digging  a  trench  for 

your  bed; 
Ye  said,  'God  can  wait;  let   us  finish  our 

wine ; ' 
Ye  had  wearied  Him,  fools,  and  that  last 

knock  was  mine  ! " 

But  I  can't  pretend  to  give  you  the  ser 
mon, 
Or  say  if  the  tongue  were  French,  Latin, 

or  German; 
Whatever  he  preached  in,  I  give  you  my 

word 

The  meaning  was  easy  to  all  that  heard ; 
Famous  preachers  there  have  been  and  be, 
But  never  was  one  so  convincing  as  he; 
So  blunt  was  never  a  begging  friar, 
No  Jesuit's  tongue  so  barbed  with  fire, 
Cameronian  never,  nor  Methodist, 
Wrung  gall  out  of  Scripture  with  such  a 
twist. 

And  would  you  know  who  his  hearers  must 

be? 

I  tell  you  just  what  my  guide  told  me: 
Excellent    teaching    men   have,    day  and 

night, 
From  two  earnest   friars,    a   black   and  a 

white, 
The  Dominican  Death  and  the  Carmelite 

Life; 
And    between   these    two    there   is   never 

strife, 

For  each  has  his  separate  office  and  station, 
And  each  his  own  work  in  the  congrega 
tion; 
Whoso  to   the   white   brother  deafens  his 

ears, 
And  cannot  be  wrought  on  by  blessings  or 

tears, 

Awake  in  his  coffin  must  wait  and  wait, 
In  that  blackness  of  darkness  that  means 

too  late, 
And  come  once  a  year,  when  the  ghost-bell 

tolls, 
As  till  Doomsday  it   shall  on  the  eve  of 

All-Souls, 
To  hear  Doctor  Death,  whose  words  smart 

with  the  brine 

Of  the  Preacher,  the  tenth  verse  of   chap 
ter  nine. 


ARCADIA    REDIVIVA 

I,  WALKING  the  familiar  street, 

While    a    crammed    horse -car  jingled 

through  it, 
Was  lifted  from  my  prosy  feet 

And  in  Arcadia  ere  I  knew  it. 

Fresh  sward  for  gravel  soothed  my  tread, 
And  shepherd's  pipes  my  ear  delighted; 

The  riddle  may  be  lightly  read: 
I  met  two  lovers  newly  plighted. 

They  murmured  by  in  happy  care, 
New  plans  for  paradise  devising, 

Just  as  the  moon,  with  pensive  stare, 
O'er  Mistress  Craigie's  pines  was  rising. 

Astarte,  known  nigh  threescore  years, 
Me  to  no  speechless  rapture  urges; 

Them  in  Elysium  she  enspheres, 

Queen,  from  of  old,  of  thaumaturges. 

The  railings  put  forth  bud  and  bloom, 
The  house-fronts  all  with  myrtles  twine 

them, 

And  light-winged  Loves  in  every  room 
Make  nests,   and   then  with   kisses  line 
them. 

O  sweetness  of  untasted  life  ! 

O  dream,  its  own  supreme  fulfilment ! 
O  hours  with  all  illusion  rife, 

As  ere  the  heart  divined  what  ill  meant  I 

"  Et  ego"  sighed  I  to  myself, 

And  strove  some  vain  regrets  to  bridle, 
"  Though  now  laid  dusty  on  the  shelf, 

Was  hero  once  of  such  an  idyl  ! 

"  An  idyl  ever  newly  sweet, 

Although  since  Adam's  day  recited, 

Whose  measures  time  them  to  Love's  feet, 
Whose  sense  is  every  ill  requited." 

Maiden,  if  I  may  counsel,  drain 

Each  drop  of  this  enchanted  season, 

For  even  our  honeymoons  must  wane, 
Convicted  of  green  cheese  by  Reason. 

And  none  will  seem  so  safe  from  change, 
Nor  in  such  skies  benignant  hover, 

As  this,  beneath  whose  witchery  strange 
You  tread  on  rose-leaves  with  your  lover 


THE  NEST 


397 


The  glass  unfilled  all  tastes  can  fit, 
As  round  its  brim  Conjecture  dances; 

For  not  Mephisto's  self  hath  wit 
To  draw  such  vintages  as  Fancy's. 

When  our  pulse  beats  its  minor  key, 

When  play-time  halves  and  school-time 

doubles, 
Age  fills  the  cup  with  serious  tea, 

Which  once  Dame  Clicquot  starred  with 
bubbles. 

"  Fie,  Mr.  Gray  beard !     Is  this  wise  ? 

Is  this  the  moral  of  a  poet, 
Who,  when  the  plant  of  Eden  dies, 

Is  privileged  once  more  to  sow  it  ? 

"  That  herb  of  clay-disdaining  root, 
From  stars  secreting  what  it  feeds  on, 

Is  burnt-out  passion's  slag  and  soot 
Fit  soil  to  strew  its  dainty  seeds  on  ? 

"  Pray,  why,  if  in  Arcadia  once, 

Need    one     so     soon    forget    the    way 

there  ? 
Or  why,  once  there,  be  such  a  dunce 

As  not  contentedly  to  stay  there  ?  " 

Dear  child,  't  was  but  a  sorry  jest, 
And  from  my  heart  I  hate  the  cynic 

Who  makes  the  Book  of  Life  a  nest 
For  comments  staler  than  rabbinic. 

If  Love  his  simple  spell  but  keep, 

Life  with  ideal  eyes  to  flatter, 
The  Grail  itself  were  crockery  cheap 

To  Every-day's  communion-platter. 

One  Darby  is  to  me  well  known, 

Who,  as  the  hearth  between  them  blazes, 

Sees  the  old  moonlight  shine  on  Joan, 
And  float  her  youthward  in  its  hazes. 

He  rubs  his  spectacles,  he  stares, — 

'T  is  the  same  face   that   witched   him 
early  ! 

He  gropes  for  his  remaining  hairs,  — 
Is  this  a  fleece  that  feels  so  curly  ? 

"Good  heavens  !    but   now  't  was   winter 
gray, 

And  I  of  years  had  more  than  plenty; 
The  almanac  's  a  fool  !     'T  is  May  ! 

Hang  family  Bibles  !     I  am  twenty  ! 


"  Come,  Joan,  your  arm ;   we  '11  walk  the 
room  — 

The  lane,  I  mean  —  do  you  remember  ? 
How  confident  the  roses  bloom, 

As  if  it  ne'er  could  be  December  I 

"  Nor  more  it  shall,  while  in  your  eyes 
My  heart  its  summer  heat  recovers, 

And  you,  howe'er  your  mirror  lies, 
Find  your  old  beauty  in  your  lover's." 


THE  NEST 

MAY 

WHEN  oaken  woods  with  buds  are  pink, 
And  new-come  birds  each  morning  sing. 

When  fickle  May  on  Summer's  brink 
Pauses,  and  knows  not  which  to  fling, 

Whether  fresh  bud  and  bloom  again, 

Or  hoar-frost  silvering  hill  and  plain, 

Then  from  the  honeysuckle  gray 
The  oriole  with  experienced  quest 

Twitches  the  fibrous  bark  away, 
The  cordage  of  his  hammock-nest, 

Cheering  his  labor  with  a  note 

Rich  as  the  orange  of  his  throat. 

High  o'er  the  loud  and  dusty  road 
The  soft  gray  cup  in  safety  swings, 

To  brim  ere  August  with  its  load 

Of  downy  breasts  and  throbbing  wings, 

O'er  which  the  friendly  elm-tree  heaves 

An  emerald  roof  with  sculptured  eaves. 

Below,  the  noisy  World  drags  by 
In  the  old  way,  because  it  must, 

The  bride  with  heartbreak  in  her  eye, 
The  mourner  following  hated  dust: 

Thy  duty,  winged  flame  of  Spring, 

Is  but  to  love,  and  fly,  and  sing. 

Oh,  happy  life,  to  soar  and  sway 
Above  the  life  by  mortals  led, 

Singing  the  merry  months  away, 
Master,  not  slave  of  daily  bread, 

And,  when  the  Autumn  comes,  to  flee 

Wherever  sunshine  beckons  thee  ! 

PALINODE  —DECEMBER 

Like  some  lorn  abbey  now,  the  wood 
Stands  roofless  in  the  bitter  air; 


HEARTSEASE   AND   RUE 


In  ruins  on  its  floor  is  strewed 

The  carven  foliage  quaint  and  rare, 
And  homeless  winds  complain  along 
The  columned  choir  once  thrilled  with  song. 

And  thou,  dear  nest,  whence  joy  and  praise 
The  thankful  oriole  used  to  pour, 

Swing'st  empty  while  the  north  winds  chase 
Their  snowy  swarms  from  Labrador: 

But,  loyal  to  the  happy  past, 

I  love  thee  still  for  what  thou  wast. 

Ah,  when  the  Summer  graces  flee 

From  other  nests  more  dear  than  thou, 

And,  where  June  crowded  once,  I  see 
Only  bare  trunk  and  disleaved  bough; 

When  springs  of   life   that  gleamed   and 
gushed 

Run  chilled,  and  slower,  and  are  hushed ; 

When  our  own  branches,  naked  long, 
The  vacant  nests  of  Spring  betray, 

Nurseries  of  passion,  love,  and  song 
That  vanished  as  our  year  grew  gray; 

When  Life  drones  o'er  a  tale  twice  told 

O'er  embers  pleading  with  the  cold,  — 

I  '11  trust,  that,  like  the  birds  of  Spring, 
Our  good  goes  not  without  repair, 

But  only  flies  to  soar  and  sing 
Far  off  in  some  diviner  air, 

Where  we  shall  find  it  in  the  calms 

Of  that  fair  garden  'neath  the  palms. 


A   YOUTHFUL   EXPERIMENT   IN 
ENGLISH    HEXAMETERS 

IMPRESSIONS  OF   HOMER 

SOMETIMES  come  pauses  of  calm,  when  the 
rapt  bard,  holding  his  heart  back, 

Over  his  deep  mind  muses,  as  when  o'er 
awe-stricken  ocean 

Poises  a  heapt  cloud  luridly,  ripening  the 
gale  and  the  thunder; 

Slow  rolls  onward  the  verse  with  a  long 
swell  heaving  and  swinging, 

Seeming  to  wait  till,  gradually  wid'ning 
from  far-off  horizons, 

Piling  the  deeps  up,  heaping  the  glad- 
hearted  surges  before  it, 

Gathers  the  thought  as  a  strong  wind 
darkening  and  cresting  the  tumult. 

Then  every  pause,  every  heave,  each  trough 
in  the  waves,  has  its  meaning; 


Full-sailed,  forth  like  a  tall  ship  steadies 

the  theme,  and  around  it, 
Leaping  beside  it  in  glad  strength,  running 

in  wild  glee  beyond  it, 
Harmonies  billow  exulting  and  floating  the 

soul  where  it  lists  them, 
Swaying  the  listener's  fantasy  hither  and 

thither  like  driftweed. 


BIRTHDAY  VERSES 

WRITTEN    IN   A    CHILD'S    ALBUM 

'T  WAS  sung  of  old  in  hut  and  hall 
How  once  a  king  in  evil  hour 
Hung  musing  o'er  his  castle  wall, 
And,  lost  in  idle  dreams,  let  fall 
Into  the  sea  his  ring  of  power. 

Then,  let  him  sorrow  as  he  might, 
And  pledge  his  daughter  and  his  throne 
To  who  restored  the  jewel  bright, 
The  broken  spell  would  ne'er  unite; 
The  grim  old  ocean  held  its  own. 

Those  awful  powers  on  man  that  wait, 
Oil  man,  the  beggar  or  the  king, 
To  hovel  bare  or  hall  of  state 
A  magic  ring  that  masters  fate 
With  each  succeeding  birthday  bring. 


Therein  are  set  four  jewels  rare: 
Pearl  winter,  summer's  ruby  blaze, 
Spring's  emerald,  and,  than  all  more  fair, 
Fall's  pensive  opal,  doomed  to  bear 
A  heart  of  fire  bedreamed  with  haze. 


To  him  the  simple  spell  who  knows 
The  spirits  of  the  ring  to  sway, 
Fresh  power  with  every  sunrise  flows, 
And  royal  pursuivants  are  those 
That  fly  his  mandates  to  obey. 

But  he  that  with  a  slackened  will 
Dreams  of  things  past  or  things  to  be, 
From  him  the  charm  is  slipping  still, 
And  drops,  ere  he  suspect  the  ill, 
Into  the  inexorable  sea. 

ESTRANGEMENT 

THE  path  from  me  to  you  that  led, 

Untrodden  long,  with  grass  is  grown, 
Mute  carpet  that  his  lieges  spread 


DAS   EWIG-WEIBLICHE 


399 


Before  the  Prince  Oblivion 
When  he  goes  visiting  the  dead. 

And  who  are  they  but  who  forget  ? 

You,  who  my  corning  could  surmise 
Ere  any  hint  of  me  as  yet 

Warned  other  ears  and  other  eyes, 
See  the  path  blurred  without  regret. 

But  when  I  trace  its  windings  sweet 
With  saddened  steps,  at  every  spot 

That  feels  the  memory  in  my  feet, 
Each  grass-blade  turns  forge t-me-not, 

Where  murmuring  bees  your  name  repeat. 

PHCEBE 

This  poem  was  sent  from  London  September 
4,  1881,  to  Mr.  Gilder  for  The  Century.  Its 
first  form  was  in  the  main  the  same  as  this, 
but  before  the  poem  was  published  several 
changes  and  omissions  were  made.  The  inter 
esting  evolution  of  the  final  form  may  be  seen 
in  detail  in  the  Notes  and  Illustrations. 

ERE  pales  in  Heaven  the  morning  star, 
A  bird,  the  loneliest  of  its  kind, 

Hears  Dawn's  faint  footfall  from  afar 
While  all  its  mates  are  dumb  and  blind. 

It  is  a  wee  sad-colored  thing, 

As  shy  and  secret  as  a  maid, 
That,  ere  in  choir  the  robins  sing, 

Pipes  its  own  name  like  one  afraid. 

It  seems  pain-prompted  to  repeat 

The  story  of  some  ancient  ill, 
But  Phoebe  !  Phoebe  !  sadly  sweet 

Is  all  it  says,  and  then  is  still. 

It  calls  and  listens.     Earth  and  sky, 
Hushed  by  the  pathos  of  its  fate, 

Listen  :  no  whisper  of  reply 

Comes  from  its  doom-dissevered  mate. 

Phoebe  !  it  calls  and  calls  again, 

And  Ovid,  could  he  but  have  heard, 

Had  hung  a  legendary  pain 

About  the  memory  of  the  bird  ; 

A  pain  articulate  so  long, 

In  penance  of  some  mouldered  crime 
Whose  ghost  still  flies  the  Furies'  thong 

Down  the  waste  solitudes  of  time. 


Waif  of  the  young  World's  wonder-hour, 
When  gods  found  mortal  maidens  fair, 

And  will  malign  was  joined  with  power 
Love's  kindly  laws  to  overbear, 

Like  Progne,  did  it  feel  the  stress 
And  coil  of  the  prevailing  words 

Close  round  its  being,  and  compress 
Man's  ampler  nature  to  a  bird's  ? 

One  only  memory  left  of  all 

The  motley  crowd  of  vanished  scenes, 
Hers,  and  vain  impulse  to  recall 

By  repetition  what  it  means. 

Phcebe  I  is  all  it  has  to  say 

In  plaintive  cadence  o'er  and  o'er, 

Like  children  that  have  lost  their  way, 
And  know  their  names,  but  nothing  more 

Is  it  a  type,  since  Nature's  Lyre 
Vibrates  to  every  note  in  man, 

Of  that  insatiable  desire, 

Meant  to  be  so  since  life  began  ? 

I,  in  strange  lands  at  gray  of  dawn, 

Wakeful,  have  heard  that  fruitless  plaint 

Through    Memory's  chambers  deep  with 
drawn 
Renew  its  iterations  faint. 

So  nigh  !  yet  from  remotest  years 
It  summons  back  its  magic,  rife 

With  longings  unappeased,  and  tears 
Drawn  from  the  very  source  of  life. 


DAS    EWIG-WEIBLICHE 

How  was  I  worthy  so  divine  a  loss, 

Deepening    my  midnights,  kindling   all 

my  morns  ? 
Why  waste  such  precious  wood  to  make  my 

cross, 

Such  far-sought  roses  for  my  crown  of 
thorns  ? 

And  when  she  came,  how  earned  I  such  a 

gift? 
Why  spend  on  me,  a  poor  earth-delving 

mole, 
The  fireside  sweetnesses,  the  heavenward 

lift, 
The  hourly  mercy,  of  a  woman's  soul  ? 


400 


HEARTSEASE   AND   RUE 


Ah,  did  we  know  to  give  her  all  her  right, 
What   wonders   even   in  our   poor  clay 

were  done  ! 

It  is  not  Woman  leaves  us  to  our  night, 
But  our  brute  earth  that  grovels  from 
her  sun. 

Our  nobler  cultured   fields   and   gracious 

domes 
We  whirl   too  oft  from  her   who   still 

shines  on 
To  light  in  vain  our  caves  and  clefts,  the 

homes 

Of  night-bird  instincts  pained  till  she  be 
gone. 

Still  must  this  body  starve  our  souls  with 

shade  ; 
But  when  Death  makes  us  what  we  were 

before, 
Then   shall   her   sunshine   all   our   depths 

invade, 

And  not  a  shadow  stain  heaven's  crystal 
floor. 

THE    RECALL 

COME  back  before  the  birds  are  flown, 
Before  the  leaves  desert  the  tree, 
And,  through  the  lonely  alleys  blown, 
Whisper  their  vain  regrets  to  me 
Who  drive  before  a  blast  more  rude, 
The  plaything  of  my  gusty  mood, 
In  vain  pursuing  and  pursued  ! 

Nay,  come  although  the  boughs  be  bare, 
Though    snowflakes   fledge   the   summer's 

nest, 

And  in  some  far  Ausonian  air 
The  thrush,  your  minstrel,  warm  his  breast. 
Come,  sunshine's  treasurer,  and  bring 
To  doubting  flowers  their  faith  in  spring, 
To  birds  and  me  the  need  to  sing  ! 


ABSENCE 

SLEEP  is  Death's  image,  —  poets  tell  us  so  ; 
But  Absence  is  the  bitter  self  of  Death, 
And,  you  away,  Life's  lips  their  red  forego, 
Parched   in  an   air   unfreshened   by   your 
breath. 

Light  of  those  eyes  that  made  the  light  of 
mine, 


Where  shine  you  ?     On  what  happier  fields 

and  flowers  ? 
Heaven's    lamps   renew  their   lustre   less 

divine, 
But  only  serve  to  count  my  darkened  hours. 

If  with  your  presence  went  your  image  too, 
That  brain-born  ghost  my  path  would  never 

cross 
Which  meets  me  now  where'er  I  once  met 

you, 
Then  vanishes,  to  multiply  my  loss. 


MONNA   LISA 

SHE  gave  me  all  that  woman  can, 
Nor  her  soul's  nunnery  forego, 
A  confidence  that  man  to  man 
Without  remorse  can  never  show. 

Rare  art,  that  can  the  sense  refine 
Till  not  a  pulse  rebellious  stirs, 
And,  since  she  never  can  be  mine, 
Makes  it  seem  sweeter  to  be  hers  ! 


THE  OPTIMIST 

TURBID  from  London's  noise  and  smoke, 
Here  I  find  air  and  quiet  too: 
Air  filtered  through  the  beech  and  oak, 
Quiet  by  nothing  harsher  broke 
Than  wood-dove's  meditative  coo. 

The  Truce  of  God  is  here ;  the  breeze 
Sighs  as  men  sigh  relieved  from  care, 
Or  tilts  as  lightly  in  the  trees 
As  might  a  robin:  all  is  ease, 
With  pledge  of  ampler  ease  to  spare. 

Time,  leaning  on  his  scythe,  forgets 
To  turn  the  hour-glass  in  his  hand, 
And  all  life's  petty  cares  and  frets, 
Its  teasing  hopes  and  weak  regrets, 
Are  still  as  that  oblivious  sand. 

Repose  fills  all  the  generous  space 
Of  undulant  plain;  the  rook  and  crow 
Hush ;  't  is  as  if  a  silent  grace, 
By  Nature  murmured,  calmed  the  face 
Of  Heaven  above  and  Earth  below. 

From  past  and  future  toils  I  rest, 
One  Sabbath  pacifies  my  year; 


THE   PROTEST 


401 


I  am  the  halcyon,  this  my  nest; 

And  all  is  safely  for  the  best 

While  the  World  's  there  and  I  am  here. 

So  I  turn  tory  for  the  nonce, 
And  think  the  radical  a  bore, 
Who  cannot  see,  thick-witted  dunce, 
That  what  was  good  for  people  once 
Must  be  as  good  forevermore. 

Sun,  sink  no  deeper  down  the  sky; 
Earth,  never  change  this  summer  mood; 
Breeze,  loiter  thus  forever  by, 
Stir  the  dead  leaf  or  let  it  lie; 
Since  I  am  happy,  all  is  good. 


ON    BURNING    SOME    OLD 
LETTERS 

WITH  what  odorous  woods  and  spices 
Spared  for  royal  sacrifices, 
With  what  costly  gums  seld-seen, 
Hoarded  to  embalm  a  queen, 
With  what  frankincense  and  myrrh, 
Burn  these  precious  parts  of  her, 
Full  of  life  and  light  and  sweetness 
As  a  summer  day's  completeness, 
Joy  of  sun  and  song  of  bird 
Running  wild  in  every  word, 
Full  of  all  the  superhuman 
Grace  and  winsomeness  of  woman? 

O'er  these  leaves  her  wrist  has  slid, 
Thrilled  with  veins  where  fire  is  hid 
'Neath  the  skin's  pellucid  veil, 
Like  the  opal's  passion  pale; 
This  her  breath  has  sweetened ;  this 
Still  seems  trembling  with  the  kiss 
She  half-ventured  on  my  name, 
Brow  and  cheek  and  throat  aflame; 
Over  all  caressing  lies 
Sunshine  left  there  by  her  eyes; 
From  them  all  an  effluence  rare 
With  her  nearness  fills  the  air, 
Till  the  murmur  I  half -hear 
Of  her  light  feet  drawing  near. 

Rarest  woods  were  coarse  and  rough, 
Sweetest  spice  not  sweet  enough, 
Too  impure  all  earthly  fire 
For  this  sacred  funeral-pyre; 
These  rich  relics  must  suffice 
For  their  own  dear  sacrifice. 


Seek  we  first  an  altar  fit 
For  such  victims  laid  on  it: 
It  shall  be  this  slab  brought  home 
In  old  happy  days  from  Rome,  — 
Lazuli,  once  blest  to  line 
Dian's  inmost  cell  and  shrine. 
Gently  now  I  lay  them  there, 
Pure  as  Dian's  forehead  bare, 
Yet  suffused  with  warmer  hue, 
Such  as  only  Latmos  knew. 

Fire  I  gather  from  the  sun 
In  a  virgin  lens :  't  is  done  ! 
Mount  the  flames,  red,  yellow,  blue, 
As  her  moods  were  shining  through, 
Of  the  moment's  impulse  born,  — 
Moods  of  sweetness,  playful  scorn, 
Half  defiance,  half  surrender, 
More  than  cruel,  more  than  tender, 
Flouts,  caresses,  sunshine,  shade, 
Gracious  doublings  of  a  maid 
Infinite  in  guileless  art, 
Playing  hide-seek  with  her  heart. 

On  the  altar  now,  alas, 
There  they  lie  a  crinkling  mass, 
Writhing  still,  as  if  with  grief 
Went  the  life  from  every  leaf; 
Then  (heart-breaking  palimpsest !) 
Vanishing  ere  wholly  guessed, 
Suddenly  some  lines  flash  back, 
Traced  in  lightning  on  the  black, 
And  confess,  till  now  denied, 
All  the  fire  they  strove  to  hide. 
What  they  told  me,  sacred  trust, 
Stays  to  glorify  my  dust, 
There  to  burn  through  dust  and  damp 
Like  a  mage's  deathless  lamp, 
While  an  atom  of  this  frame 
Lasts  to  feed  the  dainty  flame. 

All  is  ashes  now,  but  they 

In  my  soul  are  laid  away, 

And  their  radiance  round  me  hovers 

Soft  as  moonlight  over  lovers, 

Shutting  her  and  me  alone 

In  dream-Edens  of  our  own; 

First  of  lovers  to  invent 

Love,  and  teach  men  what  it  meant. 


THE   PROTEST 

I  COULD  not  bear  to  see  those  eyes 
On  all  with  wasteful  largess  shine, 


402 


HEARTSEASE   AND   RUE 


And  that  delight  of  welcome  rise 
Like  sunshine  strained  through  amber  wine, 
But  that  a  glow  from  deeper  skies, 
From  conscious  fountains  more  divine, 
Is  (is  it  ?)  mine. 

Be  beautiful  to  all  mankind, 
As  Nature  fashioned  thee  to  be; 
'T  would  anger  me  did  all  not  find 
The  sweet  perfection  that  's  in  thee: 
Yet  keep  one  charm  of  charms  behind,  — 
Nay,  thou  'rt  so  rich,  keep  two  or  three 
For  (is  it  ?)  me  ! 

THE   PETITION 

OH,  tell  me  less  or  tell  me  more, 
Soft  eyes  with  mystery  at  the  core, 
That  always  seem  to  meet  my  own 
Frankly  as  pansies  fully  grown, 
Yet  waver  still  'tween  no  and  yes  ! 

So  swift  to  cavil  and  deny, 
Then  parley  with  concessions  shy, 
Dear  eyes,  that  make  their  youth  be  mine 
And  through  my  inmost  shadows  shine, 
Oh,  tell  me  more  or  tell  me  less  ! 


FACT   OR   FANCY? 

IN  town  I  hear,  scarce  wakened  yet, 
My  neighbor's  clock  behind  the  wall 

Record  the  day's  increasing  debt, 
And  Cuckoo  I  Cuckoo  !  faintly  call. 

Our  senses  run  in  deepening  grooves, 
Thrown  out  of  which  they  lose  their  tact, 

And  consciousness  with  effort  moves 
From  habit  past  to  present  fact. 

So,  in  the  country  waked  to-day, 
I  hear,  unwitting  of  the  change, 

A  cuckoo's  throb  from  far  away 

Begin  to  strike,  nor  think  it  strange. 

The  sound  creates  its  wonted  frame: 
My  bed  at  home,  the  songster  hid 

Behind  the  wainscoting,  —  all  came 
As  long  association  bid. 

Then,  half  aroused,  ere  yet  Sleep's  mist 
From  the  mind's  uplands  furl  away, 

To  the  familiar  sound  I  list, 

Disputed  for  by  Night  and  Day. 


1  count  to  learn  how  late  it  is, 

Until,  arrived  at  thirty-four, 
I  question,  "  What  strange  world  is  this 

Whose    lavish    hours    would    make    me 
poor  ?  " 

Cuckoo  !  Cuckoo  !     Still  on  it  went, 
With  hints  of  mockery  in  its  tone; 

How  could  such  hoards  of  time  be  spent 
By  one  poor  mortal's  wit  alone  ? 

I  have  it  !     Grant,  ye  kindly  Powers, 
I  from  this  spot  may  never  stir, 

If  only  these  uncounted  hours 

May  pass,  and  seem  too  short,  with  Her  ! 

But  who  She  is,  her  form  and  face, 
These  to  the  world  of  dream  belong; 

She  moves  through  fancy's  visioned  space, 
Unbodied,  like  the  cuckoo's  song. 

AGRO-DOLCE 

ONE  kiss  from  all  others  prevents  me, 

And  sets  all  my  pulses  astir, 
And  burns  on  my  lips  and  torments  me: 

'T  is  the  kiss  that  I  fain  would  give  her. 

One  kiss  for  all  others  requites  me, 

Although  it  is  never  to  be, 
And  sweetens  my  dreams  and  invites  me: 

'T  is  the  kiss  that  she  dare  not  give  me. 

Ah,  could  it  be  mine,  it  were  sweeter 
Than  honey  bees  garner  in  dream, 

Though  its  bliss  on  my  lips  were  fleeter 
Than  a  swallow's  dip  to  the  stream. 

And  yet,  thus  denied,  it  can  never 
In  the  prose  of  life  vanish  away; 

O'er  my  lips  it  must  hover  forever, 
The  sunshine  and  shade  of  my  day. 


THE   BROKEN    TRYST 

WALKING  alone  where  we  walked  together, 
When  June  was  breezy  and  blue, 

I  watch  in  the  gray  autumnal  weather 
The  leaves  fall  inconstant  as  you. 

If  a  dead  leaf  startle  behind  me, 
I  think  't  is  your  garment's  hem, 

And,  oh,  where  no  memory  could  find  me, 
Might  I  whirl  away  with  them  ! 


PAOLO   TO   FRANCESCA 


403 


CASA   SIN    ALMA 

RECUERDO   DE    MADRID 

SILENCIOSO  por  la  puerta 

Voy  de  su  casa  desierta 

Do  siempre  feliz  entrd, 

Y  la  encuentro  en  vano  abierta 

Cual  la  boca  de  una  muerta 

Despues  que  el  alma  se  fue. 

A  CHRISTMAS   CAROL 

FOR  THE   SUNDAY-SCHOOL   CHILDREN  OF 
THE   CHURCH   OF   THE   DISCIPLES 

The  Church  of  the  Disciples  in  Boston  was 
under  the  ministration  of  the  Reverend  James 
Freeman  Clarke. 

"  WHAT  means  this  glory  round  our  feet," 
The   Magi   mused,    "  more  bright  than 

morn  ?  " 

And  voices  chanted  clear  and  sweet, 
"  To-day  the  Prince  of  Peace  is  born  ! " 

"  What  means  that  star,"  the  Shepherds 

said, 
"  That    brightens    through     the    rocky 

glen?" 
And  angels,  answering  overhead, 

Sang,   "Peace    on    earth,  good -will   to 
men  ! " 

'T  is  eighteen  hundred  years  and  more 
Since  those  sweet  oracles  were  dumb; 

We  wait  for  Him,  like  them  of  yore ; 
Alas,  He  seems  so  slow  to  come  ! 

But  it  was  said,  in  words  of  gold 
No  time  or  sorrow  e'er  shall  dim, 

That  little  children  might  be  bold 
In  perfect  trust  to  come  to  Him. 

All  round  about  our  feet  shall  shine 
A  light  like  that  the  wise  men  saw, 

If  we  our  loving  wills  incline 

To  that  sweet  Life  which  is  the  Law. 

So  shall  we  learn  to  understand 

The  simple  faith  of  shepherds  then, 

And,  clasping  kindly  hand  in  hand, 

Sing,    "Peace    on   earth,  good -will    to 
men  ! " 


And  they  who  do  their  souls  no  wrong, 
But  keep  at  eve  the  faith  of  morn, 

Shall  daily  hear  the  angel-song, 

"  To-day  the  Prince  of  Peace  is  born  !  " 


MY  PORTRAIT  GALLERY 

OFT  round  my  hall  of  portraiture  I  gaze, 
By   Memory  reared,  the  artist   wise  and 

holy, 
From   stainless    quarries   of  deep -buried 

days. 

There,  as  I  muse  in  soothing  melancholy, 
Your  faces  glow  in  more  than  mortal  youth, 
Companions  of  my  prime,  now    vanished 

wholly, 
The  loud,  impetuous  boy,  the  low-voiced 

maiden, 

Now  for  the  first  time  seen  in  flawless  truth. 
Ah,  never  master  that  drew  mortal  breath 
Can  match  thy  portraits,  just  and  generous 

Death, 
Whose  brush  with  sweet  regretful  tints  is 

laden  ! 
Thou  paintest   that  which  struggled  here 

below 

Half  understood,  or  understood  for  woe, 
And  with  a  sweet  forewarning 
Mak'st  round  the  sacred  front  an  aureole 

glow 
Woven  of  that  light  that  rose  on  Easter 

morning. 

PAOLO  TO  FRANCESCA 

I  WAS  with  thee  in  Heaven:  I  cannot  tell 
If  years  or  moments,  so  the  sudden  bliss, 
When  first  we  found,  then  lost,  us  in  a  kiss, 
Abolished  Time,  abolished  Earth  and  Hell, 
Left  only  Heaven.     Then  from  our  blue 

there  fell 

The  dagger's  flash,  and  did  not  fall  amiss, 
For  nothing  now  can  rob  my  life  of  this,  — 
That  once  with  thee  in  Heaven,  all  else  is 

well. 

Us,  undivided  when  man's  vengeance  came, 
God's  half  -  forgives  that  doth  not  here 

divide; 
And,  were  this   bitter  whirl-blast   fanged 

with  flame, 
To  me  't  were  summer,  we  being  side  by 

side: 

This  granted,  I  God's  mercy  will  not  blame, 
For,  given  thy  nearness,  nothing  is  denied. 


404 


HEARTSEASE   AND   RUE 


SONNET 

SCOTTISH   BORDER 

The  following1  letter  to  Mr.  Howells,  then 
editor  of  The  Atlantic  Monthly,  in  which  this 
sonnet  was  printed,  is  a  little  out  of  proportion 
as  a  head-note  to  a  poem  of  fourteen  lines,  but 
it  is  too  characteristic  and  too  indicative  of 
Lowell's  extreme  solicitude  over  his  verse  to 
be  omitted.  u  There  was  one  verse  in  the 
Border  sonnet  which,  when  I  came  to  copy 
it,  worried  me  with  its  lack  of  just  what  I 
wanted.  Only  one  ?  you  will  say.  Yes,  all ; 
but  never  mind  —  this  one  most.  Instead  of 
'  Where  the  shy  ballad  could  its  leaves  unfold ' 

read  '  dared  its  blooms.'  I  had  liefer  '  cup,' 
but  cup  is  already  metaphoric  when  applied 
to  flowers,  and  Bottom  the  Weaver  would  be 
sure  to  ask  in  one  of  the  many  journals  he 
edits  —  '  How  unfold  a  cup  ?  Does  he  mean 
one  of  those  pocket  drinking-cups —  leathern 
inconveniences  that  always  stick  when  you  try 
to  unfold  'em  ?  '  Damn  Bottom  !  We  ought 
not  to  think  of  him,  but  then  the  Public  is 
made  up  of  him,  and  I  wish  him  to  know  that 
I  was  thinking  of  a  flower.  Besides,  the  son 
net  is,  more  than  any  other  kind  of  verse,  a 
deliberate  composition,  and  '  susceptible  of  a 
high  polish,"  as  the  dendrologists  say  of  the 
woods  of  certain  trees.  Or  shall  we  say  '  grew 
in  secret  bold '  ?  I  write  both  on  the  opposite 
^eaf,  that  you  may  choose  one  to  paste  over 
and  not  get  the  credit  of  tinkering  my  rhymes. 

dared  its  blooms 
grew  in  secret  bold. 

Perhaps,  after  all,  it  is  the  buzzing  of  that  b  in 
blooms  and  bold,  answering  his  brother  b  in 
ballads  that  fc-witched  me,  and  merely  chang 
ing  '  could  '  to  '  dared  '  is  all  that  is  wanted. 
The  sentiment  of  this  sonnet  pleases  me." 

As  sinks  the  sun  behind  yon  alien  hills 
Whose    heather-purpled   slopes,   in   glory 

rolled, 
Flush   all   my   thought    with    momentary 

gold, 
What   pang  of  vague   regret    my    fancy 

thrills  ? 
Here  't  is  enchanted  ground   the  peasant 

tills, 

Where  the  shy  ballad  dared  its  blooms  un 
fold, 
And  memory's  glamour  makes  new  sights 

seem  old, 
As   when   our   life   some  vanished  dream 

fulfils. 


Yet  not  to  thee  belong  these  painless  tears, 
Land  loved  ere  seen:  before  my  darkened 

eyes, 

From  far  beyond  the  waters  and  the  years, 
Horizons  mute  that  wait  their  poet  rise; 
The  stream  before  me  fades  and  disappears, 
And  in  the  Charles  the   western  splendor 

dies. 

SONNET 

ON   BEING   ASKED   FOR   AN   AUTOGRAPH 
IN  VENICE 

AMID  these  fragments  of  heroic  days 
When  thought  met  deed  with  mutual  pas 
sion's  leap, 
There  sits  a  Fame  whose  silent  trump  makes 

cheap 
What   short-lived  rumor  of  ourselves  we 

raise. 

They  had  far  other  estimate  of  praise 
Who  stamped  the  signet  of  their  souls  so 

deep 
In   art   and   action,   and    whose  memories 

keep 
Their   height   like  stars  above  our  misty 

ways: 

In  this  grave  presence  to  record  my  name 
Something  within  me  hangs  the  head  and 

shrinks. 
Dull   were   the  soul  without  some  joy  in 

fame; 
Yet  here  to  claim  remembrance  were,  me- 

thinks, 

Like  him  who,  in  the  desert's  awful  frame, 
Notches  his  cockney  initials  on  the  Sphinx. 


THE  DANCING  BEAR 

FAR  over  Elf-land  poets  stretch  their  sway, 
And  win  their  dearest  crowns  beyond  the 

goal 

Of  their  own  conscious  purpose ;   they  con 
trol 
With   gossamer    threads    wide-flown    our 

fancy's  play, 

And  so  our  action.     On  my  walk  to-day, 
A  wallowing  bear  begged  clumsily  his  toll, 
When  straight  a  vision  rose  of  Atta  Troll, 
And  scenes  ideal  witched  mine  eyes  away. 
"  Merci,  Mossieu  I "   the   astonished   bear- 
ward  cried, 
Grateful  for  thrice   his   hope   to   me,    the 


PRISON   OF   CERVANTES 


405 


Of  partial  memory,  seeing  at  his  side 
A  bear  immortal.     The  glad  dole  I  gave 
Was  none  of   mine;  poor  Heine   o'er   the 

wide 
Atlantic  welter  stretched  it  from  his  grave. 


THE   MAPLE 

THE  Maple  puts  her  corals  on  in  May, 

While  loitering  frosts  about  the  lowlands 
cling, 

To  be  in  tune  with  what  the  robins  sing, 

Plastering  new  log-huts  'mid  her  branches 
gray; 

But  when  the  Autumn  southward  turns 
away, 

Then  in  her  veins  burns  most  the  blood  of 
Spring, 

And  every  leaf,  intensely  blossoming, 

Makes  the  year's  sunset  pale  the  set  of 
day. 

O  Youth  unprescient,  were  it  only  so 

With  trees  you  plant,  and  in  whose  shade 
reclined, 

Thinking  their  drifting  blooms  Fate's  cold 
est  snow, 

You  carve  dear  names  upon  the  faithful 
rind, 

Nor  in  that  vernal  stem  the  cross  fore 
know 

That  Age  shall  bear,  silent,  yet  uiire- 
signed  ! 


NIGHTWATCHES 

WHILE  the  slow  clock,  as  they  were  miser's 

gold, 
Counts  and  recounts  the  mornward  steps  of 

Time, 
The   darkness   thrills   with    conscience   of 

each  crime 
By  Death    committed,    daily   grown  more 

bold. 
Once  more  the  list   of   all  my  wrongs   is 

told, 
And  ghostly  hands  stretch  to  me  from  my 

prime 

Helpless  farewells,  as  from  an  alien  clime ; 
For  each  new  loss  redoubles  all  the  old. 
This  morn  't  was  May;  the  blossoms  were 

astir 
With  southern  wind;  but  now  the  boughs 

are  bent 


With  snow  instead  of  birds,  and  all  things 

freeze. 
How  much  of  all  my  past   is  dumb  with 

her, 

And  of  my  future,  too,  for  with  her  went 
Half  of  that  world  I  ever  cared  to  please  ! 


DEATH   OF    QUEEN    MERCEDES 

In  a  letter*  to  his  daughter  from  Madrid, 
July  26,  1878,  Lowell  wrote  of  Queen  Mer 
cedes:  "  Anything  more  tragic  than  the  cir 
cumstances  of  her  death  it  would  be  hard  to 
imagine.  She  was  actually  receiving1  extreme 
unction  while  the  guns  were  firing1  in  honor  of 
her  eighteenth  birthday,  and  four  days  later 
we  saw  her  dragged  to  her  dreary  tomb  at  the 
Escorial,  followed  by  the  coach  and  its  eight 
white  horses  in  which  she  had  driven  in  tri 
umph  from  the  church  to  the  palace  on  the 
day  of  her  wedding1.  The  poor  brutes  tossed 
their  snowy  plumes  as  haughtily  now  as  then. 
Her  death  is  really  a  great  public  loss.  She 
was  amiable,  intelligent,  and  simple  —  not 
beautiful  but  <7oorf-looking  —  and  was  already 
becoming  popular." 

HERS  all  that  Earth  could  promise  or  be 
stow,  — 

Youth,  Beauty,  Love,  a  crown,  the  beckon 
ing  years, 

Lids  never  wet,  unless  with  joyous  tears, 

A  life  remote  from  every  sordid  woe, 

And  by  a  nation's  swelled  to  lordlier  flow. 

What  lurking-place,  thought  we,  for  doubts 
or  fears, 

When,  the  day's  swan,  she  swam  along  the 
cheers 

Of  the  Alcald,  five  happy  months  ago  ? 

The  guns  were  shouting  lo  Hymen  then 

That,  on  her  birthday,  now  denounce  her 
doom; 

The  same  white  steeds  that  tossed  their 
scorn  of  men 

To-day  as  proudly  drag  her  to  the  tomb. 

Grim  jest  of  fate  !  Yet  who  dare  call  it 
blind, 

Knowing  what  life  is,  what  our  human 
kind  ? 

PRISON    OF    CERVANTES 

SEAT  of  all  woes  ?  Though  Nature's  firm 
decree 

The  narrowing  soul  with  narrowing  dun 
geon  bind, 


406 


HEARTSEASE   AND   RUE 


Yet  was  his  free  of  motion  as  the  wind, 
And  held  both  worlds,  of  spirit  and  sense, 

in  fee. 

In  charmed  communion  with  his  dual  mind 
He  wandered  Spain,  himself  both  knight 

and  hind, 

Redressing  wrongs  he  knew  must  ever  be. 
His  humor  wise  could  see  life's   long  de 
ceit, 

Man's  baffled  aims,  nor  therefore  both  de 
spise  ; 

His  knightly  nature  could  ill  fortune  greet 
Like  an  old  friend.     Whose  ever  such  kind 


That  pierced  so  deep,  such  scope,  save  his 

whose  feet 
By  Avon  ceased  'neath  the  same   April's 

skies  ? 

TO    A   LADY   PLAYING    ON   THE 
CITHERN 

So  dreamy-soft  the  notes,  so  far  away 
They  seem  to  fall,  the  horns  of  Oberon 
Blow  their  faint  Hunt's-up  from  the  good- 
time  gone; 

Or,  on  a  morning  of  long-withered  May, 
Larks  tinkle  unseen  o'er  Claudian  arches 


That  Rome  ward  crawl   from  Dreamland; 

and  anon 

My  fancy  flings  her  cloak  of  Darkness  on, 
To  vanish  from  the  dungeon  of  To-day. 
In   happier  times   and  scenes   I  seem  to 

be, 

And,  as  her  fingers  flutter  o'er  the  strings, 
The  days  return  when  I  was  young  as  she, 
And  my  fledged  thoughts  began  to  feel 

their  wings 
With    all    Heaven's    blue    before    them: 

Memory 
Or  Music  is  it  such  enchantment  sings  ? 


THE   EYE'S   TREASURY 

GOLD  of  the  reddening  sunset,  backward 
thrown 

In  largess  on  my  tall  paternal  trees, 

Thou  with  false  hope  or  fear  didst  never 
tease 

His  heart  that  hoards  thee;  nor  is  child 
hood  flown 

From  him  whose  life  no  fairer  boon  hath 
known 


Than  that  what  pleased  him  earliest  still 
should  please: 

And  who  hath  incomes  safe  from  chance  as 
these, 

Gone  in  a  moment,  yet  for  life  his  own  ? 

All  other  gold  is  slave  of  earthward  laws; 

This  to  the  deeps  of  ether  takes  its  flight, 

And  on  the  topmost  leaves  makes  glorious 
pause 

Of  parting  pathos  ere  it  yield  to  night: 

So  linger,  as  from  me  earth's  light  with 
draws, 

Dear  touch  of  Nature,  tremulously  bright ! 


PESSIMOPTIMISM 

YE  little  think  what  toil  it  was  to  build 
A  world  of  men  imperfect  even  as  this, 
Where  we  conceive  of  Good  by  what  we 

miss, 
Of  111  by  that  wherewith   best  days  are 

filled; 

A  world  whose  every  atom  is  self-willed, 
Whose  corner-stone  is  propt  on  artifice, 
Whose  joy  is  shorter-lived  than  woman's 

kiss, 
Whose    wisdom    hoarded    is    but    to   be 

spilled. 

Yet  this  is  better  than  a  life  of  caves, 
Whose   highest   art  was  scratching  on  a 

bone, 

Or  chipping  toilsome  arrowheads  of  flint ; 
Better,  though  doomed  to  hear  while  Cleon 

raves, 
To  see   wit's   want    eterned    in  paint  or 

stone, 
And  wade   the  drain-drenched  shoals  of 

daily  print. 


THE   BRAKES 

WHAT  countless  years  and  wealth  of  brain 
were  spent 

To  bring  us  hither  from  our  caves  and 
huts, 

And  trace  through  pathless  wilds  the  deep- 
worn  ruts 

Of  faith  and  habit,  by  whose  deep  in 
dent 

Prudence  may  guide  if  genius  be  not  lent, 

Genius,  not  always  happy  when  it  shuts 

Its  ears  against  the  plodder's  ifs  and 
buts, 


LOVE'S   CLOCK 


407 


Hoping  in   one   rash  leap  to   snatch   the 

event. 
The  coursers  of  the  sun,  whose  hoofs  of 

flame 

Consume  morn's  misty  threshold,  are  exact 
As  bankers'  clerks,  and  all  this  star-poised 

frame, 
One  swerve  allowed,  were  with  convulsion 

rackt ; 
This  world  were  doomed,  should  Dulness 

fail,  to  tame 
Wit's  feathered  heels  in  the  stern  stocks  of 

fact. 

A   FOREBODING 

WHAT  were  the  whole  void  world,  if  thou 

wert  dead, 
Whose   briefest   absence   can    eclipse   my 

day, 
And   make   the   hours   that    danced   with 

Time  away 
Drag    their   funereal   steps   with   muffled 

head? 
Through  thee,  meseems,  the  very  rose  is 

red, 
From  thee  the  violet  steals  its  breath  in 

May, 
From  thee  draw  life  all  things  that  grow 

not  gray, 

And  by  thy  force  the  happy  stars  are  sped. 
Thou  near,  the  hope  of  thee  to  overflow 
Fills  all  my  earth  and  heaven,  as  when  in 

Spring, 
Ere  April  come,  the   birds  and   blossoms 

know, 
And   grasses    brighten  round   her  feet  to 

cling; 

Nay,  and  this  hope  delights  all  nature  so 
That  the  dumb  turf  I  tread  on  seems  to 

sing. 


III.  FANCY 
UNDER  THE  OCTOBER  MAPLES 

WHAT  mean  these  banners  spread, 

These  paths  with  royal  red 

So  gaily  carpeted  ? 

Comes  there  a  prince  to-day  ? 

Such  footing  were  too  fine 

For  feet  less  argentine 

Than  Dian's  own  or  thine, 

Queen  whom  my  tides  obey. 


Surely  for  thee  are  meant 
These  hues  so  orient 
That  with  a  sultan's  tent 
Each  tree  invites  the  sun  ; 
Our  Earth  such  homage  pays, 
So  decks  her  dusty  ways, 
And  keeps  such  holidays, 
For  one  and  only  one. 

My  brain  shapes  form  and  face, 
Throbs  with  the  rhythmic  grace 
And  cadence  of  her  pace 
To  all  fine  instincts  true  ; 
Her  footsteps,  as  they  pass, 
Than  moonbeams  over  grass 
Fall  lighter,  —  but,  alas, 
More  insubstantial  too  ! 


LOVE'S    CLOCK 


A  PASTORAL 

DAPHNIS  waiting 

"  O  DRYAD  feet, 
Be  doubly  fleet, 

Timed  to  my  heart's  expectant  beat 
While  I  await  her  ! 
*  At  four,'  vowed  she  ; 
'T  is  scarcely  three, 
Yet  by  my  time  it  seems  to  be 
A  good  hour  later  !  " 

CHLOE 

"  Bid  me  not  stay  ! 
Hear  reason,  pray  ! 
'T  is  striking  six  !     Sure  never  day 
Was  short  as  this  is  ! " 

DAPHNIS 

"  Reason  nor  rhyme 
Is  in  the  chime  ! 

It  can't  be  five  ;  I  've  scarce  had  time 
To  beg  two  kisses  !  " 

BOTH 

"  Early  or  late, 
When  lovers  wait, 

And  Love's  watch  gains,  if  Time  a  gait 
So  snail-like  chooses, 
Why  should  his  feet 
Become  more  fleet 

Than  cowards'  are,  when  lovers  meet 
And  Love's  watch  loses  ?  " 


408 


HEARTSEASE   AND   RUE 


ELEANOR   MAKES   MACAROONS 

LIGHT  of  triumph  in  her  eyes, 
Eleanor  her  apron  ties; 
As  she  pushes  back  her  sleeves, 
High  resolve  her  bosom  heaves. 
Hasten,  cook  !  impel  the  fire 
To  the  pace  of  her  desire; 
As  you  hope  to  save  your  soul, 
Bring  a  virgin  casserole, 
Brightest  bring  of  silver  spoons, — 
Eleanor  makes  macaroons  ! 

Almond-blossoms,  now  adance 
In  the  smile  of  Southern  France, 
Leave  your  sport  with  sun  and  breeze, 
Think  of  duty,  not  of  ease ; 
Fashion,  'neath  their  jerkins  brown, 
Kernels  white  as  thistle-down, 
Tiny  cheeses  made  with  cream 
From  the  Galaxy's  mid-stream, 
Blanched  in  light  of  honeymoons,  — 
Eleanor  makes  macaroons  ! 

Now  for  sugar,  —  nay,  our  plan 
Tolerates  no  work  of  man. 
Hurry,  then,  ye  golden  bees; 
Fetch  your  clearest  honey,  please, 
Garnered  on  a  Yorkshire  moor, 
While  the  last  larks  sing  and  soar, 
From  the  heather-blossoms  sweet 
Where  sea-breeze  and  sunshine  meet, 
And  the  Augusts  mask  as  Junes,  • — 
Eleanor  makes  macaroons  ! 

Next  the  pestle  and  mortar  find, 
Pure  rock-crystal,  —  these  to  grind 
Into  paste  more  smooth  than  silk, 
Whiter  than  the  milkweed's  milk: 
Spread  it  on  a  rose-leaf,  thus, 
Gate  to  please  Theocritus; 
Then  the  fire  with  spices  swell, 
While,  for  her  cornpleter  spell, 
Mystic  canticles  she  croons,  — 
Eleanor  makes  macaroons  ! 

Perfect  !  and  all  this  to  waste 
On  a  graybeard's  palsied  taste  ! 
Poets  so  their  verses  write, 
Heap  them  full  of  life  and  light, 
And  then  fling  them  to  the  rude 
Mumbling  of  the  multitude. 


Not  so  dire  her  fate  as  theirs, 
Since  her  friend  this  gift  declares 
Choicest  of  his  birthday  boons,  — 
Eleanor's  dear  macaroons ! 

February  22,  1884. 


TELEPATHY 

"  AND    how    could  you  dream  of  meet 
ing  ?  " 

Nay,  how  can  you  ask  me,  sweet  ? 
All  day  my  pulse  had  been  beating 
The  tune  of  your  coming  feet. 

And  as  nearer  and  ever  nearer 
I  felt  the  throb  of  your  tread, 

To  be  in  the  world  grew  dearer, 
And  my  blood  ran  rosier  red. 

Love  called,  and  I  could  not  linger, 
But  sought  the  forbidden  tryst, 

As  music  follows  the  finger 
Of  the  dreaming  lutanist. 

And  though  you  had  said  it  and  said  it, 
"  We  must  not  be  happy  to-day," 

Was  I  not  wiser  to  credit 

The  fire  in  my  feet  than  your  Nay  ? 


SCHERZO 

WHEN  the  down  is  on  the  chin 
And  the  gold-gleam  in  the  hair, 
When  the  birds  their  sweethearts  win 
And  champagne  is  in  the  air, 
Love  is  here,  and  Love  is  there, 
Love  is  welcome  everywhere. 

Summer's  cheek  too  soon  turns  thin, 
Days  grow  briefer,  sunshine  rare; 
Autumn  from  his  cannekin 
Blows  the  froth  to  chase  Despair: 
Love  is  met  with  frosty  stare, 
Cannot  house  'neath  branches  bare. 

When  new  life  is  in  the  leaf 

And  new  red  is  in  the  rose, 

Though  Love's  Maytime  be  as  brief 

As  a  dragon-fly's  repose, 

Never  moments  come  like  those, 

Be  they  Heaven  or  Hell :  who  knows  ? 


THE   PREGNANT   COMMENT 


409 


All  too  soon  comes  Winter's  grief, 
Spendthrift  Love's  false  friends  turn  foes; 
Softly  comes  Old  Age,  the  thief, 
Steals  the  rapture,  leaves  the  throes: 
Love  his  mantle  round  him  throws,  — 
u  Time  to  say  Good-by;  it  snows." 


"FRANCISCUS    DE    VERULAMIO 
SIC  COGITAVIT" 

THAT'S  a  rather  bold   speech,  my  Lord 
Bacon, 

For,  indeed,  is 't  so  easy  to  know 
Just  how  much  we  from  others  have  taken, 

And  how  much  our  own  natural  flow  ? 

Since  your  mind  bubbled  up  at  its  foun 
tain, 

How  many  streams  made  it  elate, 
While   it  calmed   to   the   plain   from   the 

mountain, 
As  every  mind  must  that  grows  great  ? 

While  you  thought  't  was  You  thinking  as 

newly 

As  Adam  still  wet  with  God's  dew, 
You  forgot  in  your  self-pride  that  truly 
The   whole  Past  was  thinking  through 
you. 

Greece,   Rome,   nay,  your   namesake,   old 

Roger, 
With    Truth's     nameless    delvers    who 

wrought 
In  the  dark  mines  of  Truth,  helped  to  prod 

your 
Fine  brain  with  the  goad  of  their  thought. 

As  mummy  was  prized  for  a  rich  hue 
The  painter  no  elsewhere  could  find, 

So  't  was  buried  men's  thinking  with  which 

you 
Gave  the  ripe  mellow  tone  to  your  mind. 

I  heard  the  proud  strawberry  saying, 
"  Only  look  what  a  ruby  I  've  made  !  " 

It  forgot  how  the  bees  in  their  maying 
Had  brought  it  the  stuff  for  its  trade. 

And  yet  there 's  the  half  of  a  truth  in  it, 
And  my  Lord  might  his  copyright  sue; 

For  a  thought 's  his  who  kindles  new  youth 

in  it, 
Or  so  puts  it  as  makes  it  more  true. 


The  birds  but  repeat  without  ending 
The  same  old  traditional  notes, 

Which  some,  by  more  happily  blending, 
Seem  to  make  over  new  in  their  throats; 

And  we  men  through  our  old  bit  of  song 
run, 

Until  one  just  improves  on  the  rest, 
And  we  call  a  thing  his,  in  the  long  run, 

Who  utters  it  clearest  and  best. 


AUSPEX 

MY  heart,  I  cannot  still  it, 
Nest  that  had  song-birds  in  it; 
And  when  the  last  shall  go, 
The  dreary  days,  to  fill  it, 
Instead  of  lark  or  linnet, 
Shall  whirl  dead  leaves  and  snow. 

Had  they  been  swallows  only, 
Without  the  passion  stronger 
That  skyward  longs  and  sings,  — 
Woe 's  me,  I  shall  be  lonely 
When  I  can  feel  no  longer 
The  impatience  of  their  wings  1 

A  moment,  sweet  delusion, 
Like  birds  the  brown  leaves  hover; 
But  it  will  not  be  long 
Before  their  wild  confusion 
Fall  wavering  down  to  cover 
The  poet  and  his  song. 


THE  PREGNANT  COMMENT 

OPENING  one  day  a  book  of  mine, 
I  absent,  Hester  found  a  line 
Praised  with  a  pencil-mark,  and  this 
She  left  transfigured  with  a  kiss. 

When  next  upon  the  page  I  chance, 
Like  Poussin's  nymphs  my  pulses  dance, 
And  whirl  my  fancy  where  it  sees 
Pan  piping  'neath  Arcadian  trees, 
Whose  leaves  no  winter-scenes  rehearse, 
Still  young  and  glad  as  Homer's  verse. 
"  What  mean,"  I  ask, "  these  sudden  joys  ? 
This  feeling  fresher  than  a  boy's  ? 
What  makes  this  line,  familiar  long, 
New  as  the  first  bird's  April  song  ? 
I  could,  with  sense  illumined  thus, 
Clear  doubtful  texts  in  ^Eschylus  !  " 


410 


HEARTSEASE   AND   RUE 


Laughing,  one  day  she  gave  the  key, 
My  riddle's  open-sesame; 
Then  added,  with  a  smile  demure, 
Whose  downcast  lids  veiled  triumph  sure, 
"  If  what  I  left  there  give  you  pain, 
You  —  you  —  can  take  it  off  again ; 
'T  was  for  my  poet,  not  for  him, 
Your  Doctor  Donne  there  ! " 

Earth  grew  dim 
And  wavered  in  a  golden  mist, 
As  rose,  not  paper,  leaves  I  kissed. 
Donne,  you  forgive  ?     I  let  you  keep 
Her  precious  comment,  poet  deep. 


THE  LESSON 

I  SAT  and  watched  the  walls  of  night 
With  cracks  of  sudden  lightning  glow, 

And  listened  while  with  clumsy  might 
The  thunder  wallowed  to  and  fro. 

The  rain  fell  softly  now;  the  squall, 
That  to  a  torrent  drove  the  trees, 

Had  whirled  beyond  us  to  let  fall 
Its  tumult  on  the  whitening  seas. 

But  still  the  lightning  crinkled  keen, 
Or  fluttered  fitful  from  behind 

The  leaden  drifts,  then  only  seen, 
That  rumbled  eastward  on  the  wind. 

Still  as  gloom  followed  after  glare, 

While  bated  breath  the  pine-trees  drew, 

Tiny  Salmoneus  of  the  air, 

His  mimic  bolts  the  firefly  threw. 

He    thought,    no    doubt,   "Those    flashes 

grand, 
That   light  for   leagues   the  shuddering 

sky, 

Are  made,  a  fool  could  understand, 
By  some  superior  kind  of  fly. 

"  He  's  of  our  race's  elder  branch, 
His  family-arms  the  same  as  ours, 

Both  born  the  twy-forked  flame  to  launch, 
Of  kindred,  if  unequal,  powers." 

And  is  man  wiser  ?  Man  who  takes 
His  consciousness  the  law  to  be 

Of  all  beyond  his  ken,  and  makes 
God  but  a  bigger  kind  of  Me  ? 


SCIENCE  AND   POETRY 

HE  who  first  stretched  his  nerves  of  sub 
tile  wire 
Over  the  laud  and  through  the  sea-depths 

still, 

Thought  only  of  the  flame-winged  messen 
ger 

As  a  dull  drudge  that  should  encircle  earth 
With  sordid  messages  of  Trade,  and  tame 
Blithe  Ariel  to  a  bagman.     But  the  Muse 
Not  long  will  be  defrauded.     From  her  foe 
Her  misused  wand  she  snatches;  at  a  touch, 
The  Age  of  Wonder  is  renewed  again, 
And  to  our  disenchanted  day  restores 
The  Shoes  of  Swiftness  that  give  odds  to 

Thought, 
The  Cloak  that  makes  invisible;  and  with 

these 

I  glide,  an  airy  fire,  from  shore  to  shore, 
Or  from  my  Cambridge  whisper  to  Cathay. 

A   NEW   YEAR'S    GREETING 

THE  century  numbers  fourscore  years; 

You,  fortressed  in  your  teens, 
To  Time's  alarums  close  your  ears, 
And,  while  he  devastates  your  peers, 

Conceive  not  what  he  means. 

If  e'er  life's  winter  fleck  with  snow 

Your  hair's  deep  shadowed  bowers, 
That  winsome  head  an  art  would  know 
To  make  it  charm,  and  wear  it  so 
As  't  were  a  wreath  of  flowers. 

If  to  such  fairies  years  must  come, 

May  yours  fall  soft  and  slow 
As,  shaken  by  a  bee's  low  hum, 
The  rose-leaves  waver,  sweetly  dumb, 
Down  to  their  mates  below  ! 


THE    DISCOVERY 

I  WATCHED  a  moorland  torrent  run 
Down  through  the  rift  itself  had  made{ 

Golden  as  honey  in  the  sun, 
Of  darkest  amber  in  the  shade. 

In  this  wild  glen  at  last,  methought, 
The  magic's  secret  I  surprise; 

Here  Celia's  guardian  fairy  caught 
The  changeful  splendors  of  her  eyes 


FITZ   ADAM'S    STORY 


411 


All  else  grows  tame,  the  sky's  one  blue, 
The  one  long  languish  of  the  rose, 

But  these,  beyond  prevision  new, 
Shall  charm  and  startle  to  the  close. 


WITH   A   SEASHELL 

SHELL,  whose  lips,  than  mine  more  cold, 
Might  with  Dian's  ear  make  bold, 
Seek  my  Lady's;  if  thou  win 
To  that  portal,  shut  from  sin, 
Where  commissioned  angels'  swords 
Startle  back  unholy  words, 
Thou  a  miracle  shalt  see 
Wrought  by  it  and  wrought  in  thee  ; 
Thou,  the  dumb  one,  shalt  recover 
Speech  of  poet,  speech  of  lover. 
If  she  deign  to  lift  you  there, 
Murmur  what  I  may  not  dare; 
In  that  archway,  pearly-pink 
As  the  Dawn's  untrodden  brink, 
Murmur,  "  Excellent  and  good, 
Beauty's  best  in  every  mood, 
Never  common,  never  tame, 
Changeful  fair  as  windwaved  flame  "  — 
Nay,  I  maunder;  this  she  hears 
Every  day  with  mocking  ears, 
With  a  brow  not  sudden-stained 
With  the  flush  of  bliss  restrained, 
With  no  tremor  of  the  pulse 
More  than  feels  the  dreaming  dulse 
In  the  midmost  ocean's  caves, 
When  a  tempest  heaps  the  waves. 
Thou  must  woo  her  in  a  phrase 
Mystic  as  the  opal's  blaze, 
Which  pure  maids  alone  can  see 
When  their  lovers  constant  be. 
I  with  thee  a  secret  share, 
Half  a  hope,  and  half  a  prayer, 
Though  no  reach  of  mortal  skill 
Ever  told  it  all.  or  will; 
Say,  "  He  bids  me  —  nothing  more  — 
Tell  you  what  you  guessed  before  !  " 

THE  SECRET 

I  HAVE  a  fancy:  how  shall  I  bring  it 
Home  to  all  mortals  wherever  they  be  ? 
Say  it  or  sing  it  ?     Shoe  it  or  wing  it, 
So  it  may  outrun  or  outfly  ME, 
Merest  cocoon-web  whence  it  broke  free  ? 

Only  one  secret  can  save  from  disaster, 
Only  one  magic  is  that  of  the  Master  : 


Set  it  to  music;  give  it  a  tune,  — 

Tune  the  brook  sings  you,  tune  the  breeze 

brings  you, 
Tune  the  wild  columbines  nod  to  in  June  ! 

This  is  the  secret:  so  simple,  you  see  ! 

Easy  as  loving,  easy  as  kissing, 

Easy  as  —  well,  let  me  ponder  —  as  miss 
ing* 

Known,  since  the  world  was,  by  scarce  two 
or  three. 


IV.  HUMOR   AND    SATIRE 

FITZ  ADAM'S    STORY 

[The  greater  part  of  this  poem  was  written 
many  years  ago  as  part  of  a  larger  one,  to  be 
called  The  Nooning,  made  up  of  tales  in  verse, 
some  of  them  grave,  some  comic.  It  gives 
me  a  sad  pleasure  to  remember  that  I  was  en 
couraged  in  this  project  by  my  friend  the  late 
Arthur  Hugh  Clough.] 

Thus  Lowell  in  the  note  which  he  prefixed 
to  this  poem  when  printing  it  in  Heartsease  and 
Rue.  In  his  Letters  are  some  more  detailed 
references  to  the  design  of  The  Nooning.  As 
far  back  as  1849,  when  issuing  a  new  edition 
of  his  Poems,  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Briggs :  "  My 
next  volume,  I  think,  will  show  an  advance. 
It  is  to  be  called  The  Nooning.  Now  guesa 
what  it  will  be.  The  name  suggests  pleas 
ant  thoughts,  does  it  not  ?  But  I  shall  not 
tell  you  anything  about  it  yet,  and  you  must 
not  mention  it."  A  little  later  he  wrote  to 
the  same  correspondent :  '"  Maria  invented  the 
title  for  me,  and  is  it  not  a  pleasant  one  ?  My 
plan  is  this.  I  am  going  to  bring  together  a 
party  of  half  a  dozen  old  friends  at  Elmwood. 
They  go  down  to  the  river  and  bathe,  and  then 
one  proposes  that  they  shall  go  up  into  a  great 
willow-tree  (which  stands  at  the  end  of  the 
causey  near  our  house,  and  has  seats  in  it)  to 
take  their  nooning.  There  they  agree  that 
each  shall  tell  a  story  or  recite  a  poem  of 
some  sort.  In  the  tree  they  find  a  countryman 
already  resting  himself,  who  enters  into  the 
plan  and  tells  a  humorous  tale,  with  touches 
of  Yankee  character  and  habits  in  it.  /  am 
to  read  my  poem  of  the  Voyage  of  Leif  to 
Vinland,  in  which  I  mean  to  bring  my  hero 
straight  into  Boston  Bay,  as  befits  a  Bay-state 
poet.  Two  of  my  poems  are  already  written 
—  one  The  Fountain  of  Youth  (no  connection 
with  any  other  firm),  and  the  other  an  Address 
to  the  Muse,  by  the  Transcendentalist  of  the 
party.  ...  In  The  Nooning  I  shall  have  not 


412 


HEARTSEASE  AND   RUE 


even  a  glance  towards  Reform."  Apparently 
Lowell  regarded  the  book  as  imminent,  but 
the  death  of  his  daughter  Kose  early  in  1850 
and  the  subsequent  journey  to  Europe  seem  to 
have  deferred  the  execution  of  his  plans,  and 
the  book,  as  we  know,  never  had  a  whole, 
though  there  were  several  fragments  of  it  pub 
lished.  He  held  tenaciously,  however,  to  his 
plan.  In  June,  1853,  he  wrote  again  to  Mr. 
Briggs  :  "  I  have  The  Nooning  to  finish  —  which 
shall  turn  out  well ;  "  and  thirteen  years  later 
he  wrote  to  Mr.  Norton :  "  I  have  been  work 
ing  hard,  and  if  my  liver  will  let  me  alone,  as 
it  does  now,  am  likely  to  go  on  all  winter. 
And  on  what,  do  you  suppose  ?  I  have  taken 
up  one  of  the  unfinished  tales  of  The  Nooning, 
and  it  grew  to  a  poem  of  near  seven  hundred 
lines !  [plainly  this  poem  of  Fitz  Adam's 
Story].  It  is  mainly  descriptive.  First,  a 
sketch  of  the  narrator,  then  his  '  prelude,' 
then  his  '  tale.'  I  describe  an  old  inn  and  its 
landlord,  bar-room,  etc.  It  is  very  homely, 
but  right  from  nature.  I  have  lent  it  to  Child 
and  hope  he  will  like  it,  for  if  he  does  n't  I 
shall  feel  discouraged.  It  was  very  interest 
ing  to  take  up  a  thread  dropt  so  long  ago,  and 
curious  as  a  phenomenon  of  memory  to  find 
how  continuous  it  had  remained  in  my  mind, 
and  how  I  could  go  on  as  if  I  had  let  it  fall 
only  yesterday." 

A  scheme  so  long  persisted  in  and  returned 
to  so  often  could  scarcely  be  wholly  unknown, 
and  in  a  letter  to  Professor  James  B.  Thayer 
written  in  December,  1868,  we  find  Lowell 
answering  a  query  he  had  put :  "  And  The 
Nooning.  Sure  enough,  where  is  it  ?  The 
June  Idyl  [renamed  Under  the  Willows]  (writ 
ten  in  '51  or  '52)  is  a  part  of  what  I  had  writ 
ten  as  the  induction  to  it.  The  description  of 
spring  in  one  of  the  Biglow  Papers  is  another 
fragment  of  the  same,  tagged  with  rhyme  for 
the  nonce.  So  is  a  passage  in  Mason  and  Slidell 
beginning 

'  Oh,  strange  new  world.' 

The  Voyage  to  Vinland,  the  Pictures  from 
Appledore,  and  Fitz  Adam's  Story  were  written 
for  The  Nooning,  as  originally  planned.  So, 
you  see,  I  had  made  some  progress.  Perhaps 
it  will  come  by  and  by  —  not  in  the  shape  I 
meant  at  first,  for  something  broke  my  life  in 
two,  and  I  cannot  piece  it  together  again.  Be 
sides,  the  Muse  asks  all  of  a  man,  and  for  many 
years  I  have  been  unable  to  give  myself  up  as  I 
would."  Fragments  of  an  Unfinished  Poem,  p. 
158,  is  another  bit  of  flotsam  from  The  Nooning. 

THE  next  whose  fortune  't  was  a   tale  to 

tell 
Was  one  whom  men,  before  they  thought, 

loved  well, 


And  after  thinking  wondered  why  they  did, 
For  half  he  seemed  to  let  them,  half  for 
bid, 
And  wrapped  him  so  in  humors,  sheath  on 

sheath, 

'T  was  hard  to  guess  the  mellow  soul  be 
neath; 
But,  once  divined,  you   took  him   to  your 

heart, 
While  he  appeared   to   bear   with  you  as 

part 

Of  life's  impertinence,  and  once  a  year 
Betrayed  his  true  self  by  a  smile  or  tear, 
Or  rather  something  sweetly-shy  and  loath, 
Withdrawn  ere  fully  shown,  and  mixed  of 

both. 

A  cynic  ?     Not  precisely :  one  who  thrust 
Against  a  heart  too  prone  to  love  and  trust, 
Who  so  despised  false  sentiment  he  knew 
Scarce  in   himself  to   part  the   false   and 

true, 
And  strove  to  hide,  by  roughening-o'er  the 

skin, 
Those  cobweb   nerves   he   could   not   dull 

within. 

Gentle  by  birth,  but  of  a  stem  decayed, 
He  shunned  life's  rivalries  and  hated  trade; 
On  a  small  patrimony  and  larger  pride, 
He  lived  uneaseful  on  the  Other  Side 
(So  he  called  Europe),  only  coming  West 
To  give  his  Old- World  appetite  new  zest; 
Yet  still  the  New  World  spooked  it  in  his 

veins, 

A  ghost  he  could  not  lay  with  all  his  pains; 
For  never  Pilgrims'  offshoot  scapes  control 
Of  those  old  instincts  that  have  shaped  his 

soul. 

A  radical  in  thought,  he  puffed  away 
With  shrewd  contempt  the  dust   of  usage 

gray, 

Yet  loathed  democracy  as  one  who  saw, 
In  what  he  longed   to   love,   some  vulgar 

flaw, 

And,  shocked  through  all  his  delicate  re 
serves, 

Remained  a  Tory  by  his  taste  and  nerves. 
His    fancy's    thrall,   he    drew  all    ergoes 

thence, 
And  thought  himself  the  type  of  common 

sense ; 

Misliking  women,  not  from  cross  or  whim, 
But  that  his  mother  shared  too  much  in 

him, 

And  he  half  felt  that  what   in  them  was 
grace 


FITZ   ADAM'S    STORY 


413 


Made  the  unlucky  weakness  of  his  race. 

What  powers  he  had  he  hardly  cared  to 
know, 

But  sauntered  through  the  world  as  through 
a  show; 

A  critic  fine  in  his  haphazard  way, 

A  sort  of  mild  La  Bruyere  on  half-pay. 

For  comic  weaknesses  he  had  an  eye 

Keen  as  an  acid  for  an  alkali, 

Yet  you  could  feel,  through  his  sardonic 
tone, 

He  loved  them  all,  unless  they  were  his 
own. 

You  might  have  called  him,  with  his  hu 
morous  twist, 

A  kind  of  human  entomologist: 

As  these  bring  home,  from  every  walk  they 
take, 

Their  hat-crowns  stuck  with  bugs  of  curi 
ous  make, 

So  he  filled  all  the  lining  of  his  head 

With  characters  impaled  and  ticketed, 

And  had  a  cabinet  behind  his  eyes 

For  all  they  caught  of  mortal  oddities. 

He  might  have  been  a  poet  —  many 
worse  — 

But  that  he  had,  or  feigned,  contempt  of 
verse ; 

Called  it  tattooing  language,  and  held 
rhymes 

The  young  world's  lullaby  of  ruder  times. 

Bitter  in  words,  too  indolent  for  gall, 

He  satirized  himself  the  first  of  all, 

In  men  and  their  affairs  could  find  no  law, 

And  was  the  ill  logic  that  he  thought  he 
saw. 

Scratching   a  match   to    light   his   pipe 

anew, 
With  eyes  half  shut  some  musing  whiffs  he 

drew 

And  thus  began:  "  I  give  you  all  my  word, 
I  think  this  mock-Decameron  absurd; 
Boccaccio's  garden!  how  bring  that  to  pass 
In  our  bleak    clime    save    under  double 

glass  ? 

The  moral  east-wind  of  New  England  life 
Would  snip  its  gay  luxuriance  like  a  knife; 
Mile-deep  the  glaciers  brooded  here,  they 

say, 
Through  aeons  numb;  we  feel   their   chill 

to-day. 
These  foreign  plants   are   but   half-hardy 

still, 
Die  on  a  south,  and  on  a  north  wall  chill. 


Had  we  stayed  Puritans  !  They  had  some 
heat, 

(Though  whence  derived  I  have  my  own 
conceit,) 

But  you  have  long  ago  raked  up  their  fires ; 

Where  they  had  faith,  you  've  ten  sham- 
Gothic  spires. 

Why  more  exotics  ?  Try  your  native 
vines, 

And  in  some  thousand  years  you  may  have 
wines; 

Your  present  grapes  are  harsh,  all  pulps 
and  skins, 

And  want  traditions  of  ancestral  bins 

That  saved  for  evenings  round  the  polished 
board 

Old  lava-fires,  the  sun-steeped  hillside's 
hoard. 

Without  a  Past,  you  lack  that  southern 
wall 

O'er  which  the  vines  of  Poesy  should 
crawl ; 

Still  they 're  your  only  hope;  no  midnight 
oil 

Makes  up  for  virtue  wanting  in  the  soil; 

Manure  them  well  and  prune  them;  't 
won't  be  France, 

Nor  Spain,  nor  Italy,  but  there  's  your 
chance. 

You  have  one  story-teller  worth  a  score 

Of  dead  Boccaccios,  —  nay,  add  twenty 
more,  — 

A  hawthorn  asking  spring's  most  dainty 
breath, 

And  him  you  're  freezing  pretty  well  to 
death. 

However,  since  you  say  so,  I  will  tease 

My  memory  to  a  story  by  degrees, 

Though  you  will  cry,  *  Enough  ! '  I  'm  well- 
nigh  sure, 

Ere  I  have  dreamed  through  half  my  over 
ture. 

Stories  were  good  for  men  who  had  no 
books, 

(Fortunate  race  !)  and  built  their  nests 
like  rooks 

In  lonely  towers,  to  which  the  Jongleur 
brought 

His  pedler's-box  of  cheap  and  tawdry 
thought, 

With  here  and  there  a  fancy  fit  to  see 

Wrought  in  quaint  grace  in  golden  fili 
gree,  — 

Some  ring  that  with  the  Muse's  finger  yet 

Is  warm,  like  Aucassin  and  Nicolete; 


414 


HEARTSEASE   AND   RUE 


The    morning    newspaper    has   spoilt    his 

trade, 

(For  better  or  for  worse,  I  leave  unsaid,) 
And  stories  now,  to  suit  a  public  nice, 
Must  be  half  epigram,  half  pleasant  vice. 

"  All  tourists  know  Shebagog  County: 
there 

The  summer  idlers  take  their  yearly  stare, 

Dress  to  see  Nature  in  a  well-bred  way, 

As  't  were  Italian  opera,  or  play, 

Encore  the  sunrise  (if  they  're  out  of  bed), 

And  pat  the  Mighty  Mother  on  the  head: 

These  have  I  seen,  —  all  things  are  good  to 
see,  — 

And  wondered  much  at  their  complacency. 

This  world's  great  show,  that  took  in  get- 
ting-up 

Millions  of  years,  they  finish  ere  they  sup; 

Sights  that  God  gleams  through  with  soul- 
tingling  force 

They  glance  approvingly  as  things  of 
course, 

Say,  « That 's  a  grand  rock,'  « This  a  pretty 
fall,' 

Not  thinking,  <  Are  we  worthy  ? '  What 
if  all 

The  scornful  landscape  should  turn  round 
and  say, 

*  This  is  a  fool,  and  that  a  popinjay  '  ? 

I  often  wonder  what  the  Mountain  thinks 

Of  French  boots  creaking  o'er  his  breath 
less  brinks, 

Or  how  the  Sun  would  scare  the  chattering 
crowd, 

If  some  fine  day  he  chanced  to  think  aloud. 

I,  who  love  Nature  much  as  sinners  can, 

Love  her  where  she  most  grandeur  shows, 
—  in  man : 

Here  find  I  mountain,  forest,  cloud,  and 
sun, 

River  and  sea,  and  glows  when  day  is  done; 

Nay,  where  she  makes  grotesques,  and 
moulds  in  jest 

The  clown's  cheap  clay,  I  find  unfading 
zest. 

The  natural  instincts  year  by  year  retire, 

As  deer  shrink  northward  from  the  settler's 
fire, 

And  he  who  loves  the  wild  game-flavor 
more 

Than  city-feasts,  where  every  man's  a  bore 

To  every  other  man,  must  seek  it  where 

The  steamer's  throb  and  railway's  iron 
blare 


Have  not  yet  startled  with  their  punctual 
stir 

The  shy,  wood-wandering  brood  of  Charac 
ter. 

"There   is   a  village,  once   the   county 

town, 
Through    which   the    weekly  mail   rolled 

dustily  down, 
Where  the  courts  sat,  it  may  be,  twice  a 

year, 
And  the   one   tavern   reeked   with  rustic 

cheer; 
Cheeshogquesumscot     erst,     now    Jethro 

bight, 

Red-man  and  pale-face  bore  it  equal  spite. 
The  railway  ruined  it,  the  natives  say, 
That  passed  unwisely  fifteen  miles  away, 
And  made  a  drain  to  which,  with  steady 

ooze,  • 
Filtered  away  law,  stage-coach,  trade,  and 

news. 
The    railway   saved  it;  so  at   least  think 

those 

Who  love  old  ways,  old  houses,  old  repose. 
Of  course   the   Tavern  stayed:  its   genial 

host 
Thought  not  of  flitting  more  than  did  the 

post 
On  which  high-hung  the  fading  signboard 

creaks, 
Inscribed,    'The     Eagle     Inn,     by    Ezra 

Weeks.' 

"If  in  life's   journey  you   should  ever 

find 

An  inn  medicinal  for  body  and  mind, 
'T  is  sure  to  be  some  drowsy-looking  house 
Whose  easy  landlord  has  a  bustling  spouse: 
He,  if  he  like  you,  will  not  long  forego 
Some  bottle  deep  in  cobwebbed  dust  laid 

low, 
That,  since  the  War  we  used  to  call  the 

« Last,' 
Has  dozed  and  held  its  lang-syne  memories 

fast: 

From  him  exhales  that  Indian-summer  air 
Of  hazy,  lazy  welcome  everywhere, 
While  with  her  toil  the  napery  is  white, 
The  china  dustless,  the  keen  knife-blades 

bright, 
Salt  dry  as  sand,  and  bread  that  seems  as 

though 
'T  were  rather  sea-foam  baked  than  vulgar 

dough. 


FITZ  ADAM'S   STORY 


"  In  our  swift  country,  houses  trim  and 

white 
Are  pitched  like  tents,  the  lodging  of  a 

night; 
Each  on  its  bank  of  baked  turf  mounted 

high 

Perches  impatient  o'er  the  roadside  dry, 
While  the  wronged  landscape  coldly  stands 

aloof, 

Refusing  friendship  with  the  upstart  roof. 
Not  so  the  Eagle ;  on  a  grass-green  swell 
That  toward  the  south  with  sweet  conces 
sions  fell 

It  dwelt  retired,  and  half  had  grown  to  be 
As  aboriginal  as  rock  or  tree. 
It  nestled  close   to  earth,  and  seemed  to 

brood 
O'er  homely  thoughts  in  a  half-conscious 

mood, 

As  by  the  peat  that  rather  fades  than  burns 
The  smouldering  grandam  nods  and  knits 

by  turns, 

Happy,  although  her  newest  news  were  old 
Ere  the  first  hostile  drum  at  Concord 

rolled. 

If  paint  it  e'er  had  known,  it  knew  no  more 
Than  yellow  lichens  spattered  thickly  o'er 
That  soft  lead-gray,  less  dark  beneath  the 

eaves 
Which  the  slow  brush  of  wind  and  weather 

leaves. 
The  ample   roof  sloped  backward  to   the 

ground, 

And  vassal  lean-tos  gathered  thickly  round, 
Patched  on,  as  sire  or  son  had  felt  the  need, 
Like  chance  growths  sprouting  from  the 

old  roof's  seed, 

Just  as  about  a  yellow-pine-tree  spring 
Its  rough-barked  darlings  in  a  filial  ring. 
But  the   great   chimney   was   the   central 

thought 
Whose    gravitation  through    the     cluster 

wrought; 
For  't  is  not  styles  far-fetched  from  Greece 

or  Rome, 
But  just  the   Fireside,  that   can  make   a 

home; 
None  of  your  spindling  things  of  modern 

style, 

Like  pins  stuck  through  to  stay  the  card- 
built  pile, 

It  rose   broad    shouldered,   kindly,  debo 
nair, 
Its  warm  breath  whitening  in  the  October 


While  on  its  front  a  heart  in  outline  showed 
The  place  it  filled  in  that  serene  abode. 

"  When  first  I  chanced  the  Eagle  to  ex 
plore, 

Ezra  sat  listless  by  the  open  door; 
One  chair  careened  him  at  an  angle  meet, 
Another  nursed  his  hugely-slippered  feet; 
Upon  a  third  reposed  a  shirt-sleeved  arm, 
And   the   whole   man    diffused    tobacco's 

charm. 
« Are  you  the  landlord  ?  '     *  Wahl,  I  guess 

I  be,' 

Watching   the   smoke,   he   answered  leis 
urely. 
He  was  a  stoutish  man,  and  through  the 

breast 
Of  his  loose  shirt  there  showed  a  brambly 

chest; 

Streaked  redly  as  a  wind-foreboding  morn, 
His  tanned  cheeks  curved  to  temples  closely 

shorn ; 
Clean-shaved  he  was,  save  where  a  hedge 

of  gray 

Upon  his  brawny  throat  leaned  every  way 
About  an  Adam's-apple,  that  beneath 
Bulged  like  a  boulder  from  a  brambly  heath. 
The  Western  World's  true  child  and  nurs 
ling  he, 

Equipt  with  aptitudes  enough  for  three: 
No  eye  like  his  to  value  horse  or  cow, 
Or  gauge  the  contents  of  a  stack  or  mow; 
He  could  foretell  the  weather  at  a  word, 
He  knew  the  haunt  of  every  beast  and  bird, 
Or  where  a  two-pound  trout  was  sure  to  lie, 
Waiting  the  flutter  of  his  home-made  fly; 
Nay,  once    in    autumns  five,  he   had  the 

luck 
To   drop  at   fair-play  range    a  ten-tined 

buck; 

Of  sportsmen  true  he  favored  every  whim, 
But  never  cockney  found  a  guide  in  him; 
A  natural  man,  with  all  his  instincts  fresh, 
Not  buzzing  helpless  in  Reflection's  mesh, 
Firm  on  its  feet  stood  his  broad-shouldered 

mind, 

As  bluffly  honest  as  a  northwest  wind; 
Hard-headed  and  soft-hearted,  you  'd  scarce 

meet 
A  kindlier    mixture   of  the    shrewd    and 

sweet; 

Generous  by  birth,  and  ill  at  saying  'No,' 
Yet  in  a  bargain  he  was  all  men's  foe, 
Would  yield  no  inch  of  vantage  in  a  trade, 
And  give  away  ere  nightfall  all  he  made. 


4i6 


HEARTSEASE   AND   RUE 


"  « Can  I  have  lodging  here  ?  '  once  more 

I  said. 
He   blew   a  whiff,  and,   leaning  back  his 

head, 
'  You  come  a  piece  through  Bailey's  woods, 

I  s'pose, 
Acrost  a  bridge  where  a  big  swamp-oak 

grows  ? 
It  don't  grow,  neither ;    it  's  ben  dead  ten 

year, 

Nor  th'  ain't  a  livin'  creetur,  fur  nor  near, 
Can  tell  wut  killed  it;  but  I  some  misdoubt 
'T  was  borers,  there's  sech  heaps  on  'em 

about. 

You  did  n'  chance  to  run  ag'inst  my  son, 
A  long,  slab-sided  youngster  with  a  gun  ? 
He  'd  oughto  ben  back  more  'n  an  hour 

ago, 
An'  brought  some  birds  to  dress  for  supper 

—  sho  ! 
There  he  comes  now.     'Say,  Obed,  wut  ye 

got? 

(He  '11  hev  some  upland  plover  like  as  not.) 
Wai,  them  's  real  nice  uns,  an  '11  eat  A  1, 
Ef  I  can  stop  their  bein'  over-done; 
Nothin'  riles  me  (I  pledge  my  fastin'  word) 
Like  cookin'  out  the  natur'  of  a  bird; 
(Obed,  you  pick  'em  out  o'  sight  an'  sound, 
Your  ma'am  don't  love  no  feathers  cluttrin' 

round;) 
Jes'  scare  'em  with  the  coals,  —  thet  's  my 

idee.' 

Then,  turning  suddenly  about  on  me, 
*  Wai,   Square,   I   guess   so.     Callilate    to 

stay? 
I  '11  ask  Mis'  Weeks;  'bout  thet  it 's  hern  to 

say.' 

"Well,   there   I    lingered    all    October 

through, 

In  that  sweet  atmosphere  of  hazy  blue, 
So  leisurely,  so  soothing,  so  forgiving, 
That  sometimes  makes  New  England  fit 

for  living. 
I  watched  the  landscape,  erst  so  granite 

glum, 
Bloom  like  the  south  side  of   a   ripening 

plum, 

And  each  rock-maple  on  the  hillside  make 
His  ten  days'  sunset  doubled  in  the  lake ; 
The  very  stone  walls  draggling  up  the  hills 
Seemed    touched,   and   wavered    in    their 

roundhead  wills. 

Ah  !   there  's  a  deal  of  sugar  in  the  sun  ! 
Tap  me  in  Indian  summer,  I  should  run 


A  juice  to  make  rock-candy  of,  —  but  then 
We  get  such  weather  scarce  one  year  in 
ten. 

"  There  was  a  parlor  in  the  house,  a  room 
To   make    you   shudder   with   its   prudish 

gloom. 

The  furniture  stood  round  with  such  an  air, 
There    seemed   an    old    maid's    ghost    in 

every  chair, 
Which   looked   as   it  had   scuttled   to   its 

place 

And  pulled  extempore  a  Sunday  face, 
Too  smugly  proper  for  a  world  of  sin, 
Like  boys  on  whom  the  minister  comes  in. 
The  table,  fronting  you  with  icy  stare, 
Strove  to  look  witless  that  its  legs  were 

bare, 
While  the  black  sofa  with  its   horse-hair 

pall 

Gloomed  like  a  bier  for  Comfort's  funeral. 
Each  piece  appeared  to  do  its  chilly  best 
To  seem  an  utter  stranger  to  the  rest, 
As  if  acquaintanceship  were  deadly  sin, 
Like  Britons  meeting  in  a  foreign  inn.. 
Two  portraits  graced  the  wall  in  grimmest 

truth, 

Mister  and  Mistress  W.  in  their  youth,  — 
New  England  youth,  that  seems  a  sort  of 

pill, 
Half  wish-I-dared,  half  Edwards   on   the 

Will, 

Bitter  to  swallow,  and  which  leaves  a  trace 
Of  Calvinistic  colic  on  the  face. 
Between  them,  o'er  the  mantel,  hung   in 

state 

Solomon's  temple,  done  in  copperplate; 
Invention  pure,  but  meant,  we  may  pre 
sume, 
To   give   some   Scripture   sanction  to  the 

room. 
Facing  this  last,  two  samplers  you  might 

see, 

Each,  with  its  urn  and  stiffly-weeping  tree, 
Devoted  to  some  memory  long  ago 
More  faded  than  their  lines  of  worsted  woe ; 
Cut  paper  decked  their  frames  against  the 

flies, 
Though  none  e'er  dared  an  entrance  who 

were  wise, 

And  bushed  asparagus  in  fading  green 
Added  its  shiver  to  the  franklin  clean. 

"When  first  arrived,  I    chilled  a  half- 
hour  there, 


FITZ   ADAM'S    STORY 


Nor  dared  deflower  with  use  a  single  chair; 
I  caught  no  cold,  yet  flying  pains  could  find 
For  weeks  in  me,  —  a  rheumatism  of  mind. 
One  thing  alone  imprisoned  there  had 

power 

To  hold  me  in  the  place  that  long  half- 
hour: 

A  scutcheon  this,  a  helm-surmounted  shield, 
Three  griffins  argent  on  a  sable  field; 
A  relic  of  the  shipwrecked  past  was  here, 
And  Ezra  held   some  Old- World  lumber 

dear. 

Nay,  do  not  smile ;  I  love  this  kind  of  thing, 
These  cooped  traditions  with  a  broken  wing, 
This  freehold  nook  in  Fancy's  pipe-blown 

ball, 
This  less  than  nothing  that  is  more  than 

all! 

Have  I  not  seen  sweet  natures  kept  alive 
Amid  the  humdrum  of  your  business  hive, 
Undowered    spinsters    shielded    from    all 

harms, 
By  airy  incomes  from  a  coat  of  arms  ?  " 

He  paused  a  moment,  and  his  features 

took 

The  flitting  sweetness  of  that  inward  look 
I  hinted  at  before;  but,  scarcely  seen, 
It  shrank  for  shelter  'neath  his  harder  mien, 
And,  rapping  his  black  pipe  of  ashes  clear, 
He  went  on  with  a  self-derisive  sneer: 
"  No  doubt  we  make  a  part  of  God's  de 
sign, 

And  break  the  forest-path  for  feet  divine; 
To  furnish  foothold  for  this  grand  prevision 
Is  good,  and  yet  —  to  be  the  mere  transi 
tion, 

That,  you  will  say,  is  also  good,  though  I 
Scarce  like  to  feed  the  ogre  By-and-by. 
Raw  edges  rasp  my  nerves;  my  taste  is 

wooed 

By  things  that  are,  not  going  to  be,  good, 
Though  were  I  what  I  dreamed  two  lustres 

gone, 

I  'd  stay  to  help  the  Consummation  on, 
Whether  a  new  Rome  than  the  old  more 

fair, 

Or  a  deadflat  of  rascal-ruled  despair; 
But   my  skull  somehow  never  closed   the 

suture 
That  seems  to  knit  yours  firmly  with  the 

future, 

So  you  '11  excuse  me  if  I  'm  sometimes  fain 
To  tie  the  Past's  warm  nightcap  o'er  my 
brain; 


I  'm  quite  aware  't  is  not  in  fashion  here, 
But   then    your    northeast   winds   are    so 
severe ! 

"But  to  my  story:  though  'tis  truly 
naught 

But  a  few  hints  in  Memory's  sketchbook 
caught, 

And  which  may  claim  a  value  on  the  score 

Of  calling  back  some  scenery  now  no  more. 

Shall  I  confess  ?     The  tavern's  only  Lar 

Seemed  (be  not  shocked  !)  its  homely-fea 
tured  bar. 

Here  dozed  a  fire  of  beechen  logs,  that  bred 

Strange  fancies  in  its  embers  golden-red, 

And  nursed  the  loggerhead  whose  hissing 
dip, 

Timed  by  nice  instinct,  creamed  the  mug 
of  flip 

That  made  from  mouth  to  mouth  its  genial 
round, 

Nor  left  one  nature  wholly  winter-bound; 

Hence  dropt  the  tinkling  coal  all  mellow- 
ripe 

For  Uncle  Reuben' stalk-extinguished  pipe; 

Hence  rayed  the  heat,  as  from  an  indoor 
sun, 

That  wooed  forth  many  a  shoot  of  rustic 
fun. 

Here  Ezra  ruled  as  king  by  right  divine; 

No  other  face  had  such  a  wholesome  shine, 

No  laugh  like  his  so  full  of  honest  cheer; 

Above  the  rest  it  crowed  like  Chanticleer. 

"In  this  one  room  his  dame  you  never 

saw, 

Where  reigned  by  custom  old  a  Salic  law; 
Here  coatless  lolled  he  on  his  throne  of  oak, 
And  every  tongue  paused  midway  if  he 

spoke. 

Due  mirth  he  loved,  yet  was  his  sway  severe ; 
No  blear-eyed  driveller  got  his  stagger 

here; 

'  Measure  was  happiness;  who  wanted  more, 
Must  buy  his  ruin  at  the  Deacon's  store ; ' 
None  but  his  lodgers  after  ten  could  stay, 
Nor  after  nine  on  eves  of  Sabbath-day. 
He  had  his  favorites  and  his  pensioners, 
The  same  that  gypsy  Nature  owns  for  hers: 
Loose-ended  souls,  whose  skills  bring  scanty 

gold, 
And   whom  the  poor-house   catches   when 

they  're  old ; 
Rude  country-minstrels,  men  who  doctor 

kine, 


HEARTSEASE   AND   RUE 


Or  graft,  and,  out  of  scions  ten,  save  nine; 
Creatures  of  genius  they,  but  never  meant 
To  keep  step  with  the  civic  regiment. 
These  Ezra  welcomed,  feeling  in  his  mind 
Perhaps  some  motions  of  the  vagrant  kind; 
These  paid  no  money,  yet  for  them  he  drew 
Special  Jamaica  from  a  tap  they  knew, 
And,  for  their  feelings,  chalked  behind  the 

door 

With  solemn  face  a  visionary  score. 
This   thawed   to   life    in   Uncle   Reuben's 

throat 

A  torpid  shoal  of  jest  and  anecdote, 
Like  those  queer  fish  that  doze  the  droughts 

away, 

And  wait  for  moisture,  wrapped  in   sun 
baked  clay; 
This  warmed  the  one-eyed  fiddler   to  his 

task, 

Perched  in  the  corner  on  an  empty  cask, 
By  whose  shrill  art  rapt  suddenly,  some 

boor 

Rattled  a  double-shuffle  on  the  floor; 
*  Hull's  Victory  '  was,  indeed,  the  favorite 

air, 
Though    '  Yankee    Doodle '    claimed    its 

proper  share. 

"  'T  was    there    I    caught    from    Uncle 

Reuben's  lips, 
In  dribbling  monologue  'twixt  whiffs  and 

sips, 

The  story  I  so  long  have  tried  to  tell; 
The  humor  coarse,  the  persons  common,  — 

well, 

From  Nature  only  do  I  love  to  paint, 
Whether  she  send  a  satyr  or  a  saint; 
To  me  Sincerity 's  the  one  thing  good, 
Soiled  though  she  be  and  lost  to  maiden 
hood. 

Quompegan  is  a  town  some  ten  miles  south 
From  Jethro,  at  Nagumscot  river-mouth, 
A  seaport  town,  and  makes  its  title  good 
With  lumber  and  dried  fish   and   eastern 

wood. 
Here  Deacon  Bitters  dwelt  and  kept  the 

Store, 

The  richest  man  for  many  a  mile  of  shore; 
In  little  less  than  everything  dealt  he, 
From  meeting-houses  to  a  chest  of  tea; 
So  dextrous  therewithal  a  flint  to  skin, 
He  could  make  profit  on  a  single  pin; 
In  business  strict,  to  bring  the  balance  true 
He  had  been  known  to  bite  a  fig  in  two, 
And  change  a  board-nail  for  a  shingle-nail. 


All  that  he  had  he  ready  held  for  sale, 
His  house,  his  tomb,  whate'er  the  law  allows, 
And  he  had  gladly  parted  with  his  spouse. 
His  one  ambition  still  to  get  and  get, 
He  would  arrest  your  very  ghost  for  debt. 
His  store  looked  righteous,  should  the  Par 
son  come, 

But  in  a  dark  back-room  he  peddled  rum, 
And  eased  Ma'am  Conscience,  if  she  e'er 

would  scold, 

By  christening  it  with  water  ere  he  sold. 
A  small,  dry  man  he  was,  who  wore  a  queue, 
And  one  white  neckcloth  all  the  week-days 

through,  — 

On  Monday  white,  by  Saturday  as  dun 
As  that  worn  homeward  by  the  prodigal  son. 
His   frosted    earlocks,   striped   with  foxy 

brown, 

Were  braided  up  to  hide  a  desert  crown; 
His  coat  was  brownish,  black  perhaps  of 

yore; 

In  summer-time  a  banyan  loose  he  wore; 
His  trousers  short,  through  many  a  season 

true, 

Made  no  pretence  to  hide  his  stockings  blue ; 
A  waistcoat  buff  his  chief  adornment  was, 
Its  porcelain  buttons  rimmed  with  dusky 

brass. 

A  deacon  he,  you  saw  it  in  each  limb, 
And  well  he  knew  to  deacon-off  a  hymn, 
Or  lead  the  choir  through  all  its  wandering 

woes 
With  voice   that  gathered  unction  in  his 

nose, 

Wherein  a  constant  snuffle  you  might  hear, 
As  if  with  him  't  were  winter  all  the  year. 
At  pew-head  sat  he  with  decorous  pains, 
In  sermon-time  could  foot  his  weekly  gains, 
Or,  with  closed  eyes  and  heaven-abstracted 

air, 

Could   plan   a   new  investment    in    long- 
prayer. 

A  pious  man,  and  thrifty  too,  he  made 
The  psalms  and  prophets  partners  in  his 

trade, 

And  in  his  orthodoxy  straitened  more 
As  it  enlarged  the  business  at  his  store; 
He   honored    Moses,   but,   when    gain  he 

planned, 
Had  his  own  notion  of  the  Promised  Land. 

"  Soon  as  the  winter  made  the  sledding 

good, 

From  far  around  the  farmers  hauled  him 
wood, 


FITZ   ADAM'S    STORY 


419 


For  all  the  trade  had  gathered  'neath  his 

thumb. 
He  paid  in  groceries  and  New  England 

rum, 
Making    two    profits    with    a    conscience 

clear,  — 
Cheap  all  he  bought,  and  all  he  paid  with 

dear. 
With  his  own  mete-wand  measuring  every 

load, 
Each    somehow   had    diminished    on    the 

road; 

An  honest  cord  in  Jethro  still  would  fail 
By  a  good  foot  upon  the  Deacon's  scale, 
And,  more  to  abate  the  price,  his  gimlet 

eye 
Would  pierce  to  cat-sticks  that  none  else 

could  spy; 
Yet  none  dared   grumble,  for  no  farmer 

yet 
But  New  Year  found  him  in  the  Deacon's 

debt. 

"  While  the  first  snow  was  mealy  under 

feet, 
A  team  drawled  creaking  down  Quompe- 

gan  street. 

Two  cords  of  oak  weighed  down  the  grind 
ing  sled, 

And  cornstalk  fodder  rustled  overhead; 
The  oxen's  muzzles,  as  they  shouldered 

through, 
Were  silver-fringed;  the  driver's  own  was 

blue 
As  the  coarse  frock  that  swung  below  his 

knee. 

Behind  his  load  for  shelter  waded  he; 
His  mitteued  hands  now  on  his  chest  he 

beat, 
Now  stamped  the  stiffened  cowhides  of  his 

feet, 
Hushed   as   a   ghost's;    his   armpit  scarce 

could  hold 
The  walnut  whipstock  slippery-bright  with 

cold. 

What  wonder  if,  the  tavern  as  he  past, 
He   looked    and    longed,   and    stayed   his 

beasts  at  last, 
Who  patient  stood  and  veiled  themselves 

in  steam 
While  he   explored  the  bar-room's  ruddy 

gleam  ? 

"  Before   the   fire,  in   want   of  thought 
profound, 


There  sat  a  brother  -  townsman   weather- 

.  bound: 

A  sturdy  churl,  crisp-headed,  bristly-eared, 
Red  as  a  pepper;  'twixt  coarse  brows  and 

beard 
His  eyes  lay  ambushed,  on  the  watch  for 

fools, 

Clear,  gray,  and  glittering  like  two  bay- 
edged  pools; 

A  shifty  creature,  with  a  turn  for  fun, 
Could  swap   a    poor   horse    for  a  better 

one,  — 

He  'd  a  high-stepper  always  in  his  stall; 
Liked  far  and   near,  and  dreaded   there 
withal. 
To  him  the  in-comer,  'Perez,  how  d'  ye 

do?' 
*  Jest   as  I  'in   mind    to,   Obed ;    how   do 

you?' 
Then,  his  eyes  twinkling  such  swift  gleams 

as  run 

Along  the  levelled  barrel  of  a  gun 
Brought   to   his   shoulder   by  a   man   you 

know 
Will  bring  his  game  down,  he  continued, 

<So, 
I  s'pose  you  're  haulin'  wood  ?   But  you  're 

too  late; 
The  Deacon  's  off;  Old  Splitfoot  could  n't 

wait; 

He  made  a  bee-line  las'  night  in  the  storm 
To  where  he  won't  need  wood  to  keep  him 

warm. 
'Fore    this   he's   treasurer  of  a  fund   to 

train 

Young  imps  as  missionaries;  hopes  to  gain 
That  way  a  contract  that  he  has  in  view 
For  fireproof  pitchforks  of  a  pattern  new. 
It  must  have   tickled  him,  all  drawbacks 

weighed, 

To  think  he  stuck  the  Old  One  in  a  trade; 
His    soul,  to  start  with,  was  n't  worth   a 

carrot, 
And  all  he  'd   left  'ould  hardly  serve  to 

swear  at.' 

"  By  this  time  Obed  had  his  wits  thawed 
out, 

And,  looking  at  the  other  half  in  doubt, 

Took  off  his  fox-skin  cap  to  scratch  his 
head, 

Donned  it  again,  and  drawled  forth,  '  Mean 
he  's  dead  ?  ' 

'  Jesso;  he  's  dead  and  t'  other  d  that  f oi 
lers 


420 


HEARTSEASE   AND   RUE 


With  folks   that   never  love  a  thing  but 

dollars. 
He  pulled  up  stakes  last  evening,  fair  and 

square, 
And  ever  since  there  's  been  a  row  Down 

There. 

The  minute  the  old  chap  arrived,  you  see, 
Comes   the  Boss-devil   to   him,   and   says 

he, 
"  What  are  you  good  at  ?     Little  enough, 

I  fear; 

We  callilate  to  make  folks  useful  here." 
"  Well,"  says  old  Bitters,  "  I  expect  I  can 
Scale  a  fair  load  of  wood  with  e'er  a  man." 
"Wood   we   don't    deal   in;    but   perhaps 

you  '11  suit, 

Because  we  buy  our  brimstone  by  the  foot: 
Here,  take  this  measurin'-rod,  as  smooth  as 

sin, 
And  keep  a  reckonin'  of  what  loads  comes 

in. 
You  '11  not  want  business,  for  we  need  a 

lot 
To  keep   the  Yankees  that   you   send  us 

hot; 

At  firin'  up  they  're  barely  half  as  spry 
As  Spaniards  or  Italians,  though  they  're 

dry; 
At  first  we   have  to   let   the  draught   on 

stronger, 
But,  heat  'em  through,  they  seem  to  hold 

it  longer." 

" '  Bitters  he  took  the  rod,  and  pretty 
soon 

A  teamster  comes,  whistling  an  ex-psalm 
tune. 

A  likelier  chap  you  would  n't  ask  to  see, 

No  different,  but  his  limp,  from  you  or 
me  '  — 

'  No  different,  Perez !  Don't  your  mem 
ory  fail  ? 

Why,  where  in  thunder  was  his  horns  and 
tail?' 

'  They  're  only  worn  by  some  old-fashioned 
pokes; 

They  mostly  aim  at  looking  just  like  folks. 

Sech  things  are  scarce  as  queues  and  top- 
boots  here; 

'T  would  spoil  their  usefulness  to  look  too 
queer. 

Ef  you  could  always  know  'em  when  they 
come, 

They  M  get  no  purchase  on  you :  now  be 
mum. 


On   come   the    teamster,   smart  as   Davy 

Crockett, 

Jinglin'  the  red-hot  coppers  in  his  pocket, 
And  clost  behind,  ('t  was  gold-dust,  you  'd 

ha'  sworn,) 

A  load  of  sulphur  yallower  'n  seed-corn; 
To  see  it  wasted  as  it  is  Down  There 
Would  make  a  Friction-Match  Co.  tear  its 

hair! 
"Hold    on!"   says    Bitters,    "stop    right 

where  you  be; 

You  can't  go  in  athout  a  pass  from  me." 
"All   right,"   says    t'   other,    "only    step 

round  smart; 
I  must   be  home   by  noon-time  with  the 

cart." 

Bitters  goes  round  it  sharp-eyed  as  a  rat, 
Then  with  a  scrap  of  paper  on  his  hat 
Pretends  to  cipher.     "  By  the  public  staff, 
That  load  scarce  rises  twelve  foot  and  a 

half." 
"  There  's  fourteen  foot  and  over,"  says  the 

driver, 
"Worth  twenty  dollars,  ef  it  's  worth  a 

stiver; 
Good  fourth-proof  brimstone,  that  '11  make 

'em  squirm,  — 

I  leave  it  to  the  Headman  of  the  Firm; 
After  we  masure  it,  we  always  lay 
Some  on  to  allow  for  settlin'  by  the  way. 
Imp  and  full-grown,  I  've  carted  sulphur 

here, 

And  gi'n  fair  satisfaction,  thirty  year." 
With  that  they  fell  to  quarrellin'  so  loud 
That  in  five   minutes  they  had  drawed  a 

crowd, 
And  afore   long  the  Boss,  who  heard  the 

row, 
Comes  elbowin'  in  with  "  What  's  to  pay 

here  now  ?  " 
Both  parties  heard,   the  measurin'-rod  he 

takes, 

And  of  the  load  a  careful  survey  makes. 
"  Sence  I  have  bossed  the   business  here," 

says  he, 

"  No  fairer  load  was  ever  seen  by  me." 
Then,  turnin' to  the  Deacon,  "You  mean 

cus, 
None  of  your  old  Quompegan  tricks  with 

us  ! 

They   won't   do   here:    we   're   plain   old- 
fashioned  folks, 
And   don't   quite  understand  that  kind  o' 

jokes. 
I  know  this  teamster,  and  his  pa  afore  him, 


THE   ORIGIN   OF   DIDACTIC    POETRY 


421 


And  the  hard-working  Mrs.  D.  that  bore 

him; 

He  would  n't  soil  his  conscience  with  a  lie, 
Though   he   might   get   the   custom-house 

thereby. 

Here,  constable,  take  Bitters  by  the  queue, 
And  clap  him  into  furnace  ninety-two, 
And  try  this   brimstone   on   him;  if   he  's 

bright, 

He  '11  find  the  masure  honest  afore  night. 
He  is  n't  worth  his  fuel,  and  I  '11  bet 
The  parish  oven  has  to  take  him  yet ! " ' 

"  This  is  my   tale,   heard  twenty  years 

ago 
From  Uncle  Reuben,  as  the   logs  burned 

low, 
Touching  the  walls  and  ceiling   with  that 

bloom 

That  makes  a  rose's  calyx  of  a  room. 
I    could   not  give    his    language,    where 
through  ran 

The  gamy  flavor  of  the  bookless  man 
Who  shapes  a  word  before  the  fancy  cools, 
As  lonely  Crusoe  improvised  his  tools. 
I  liked  the  tale,  —  't  was  like  so  many  told 
By  Rutebeuf   and   his    brother  Trouveres 

bold; 
Nor    were    the   hearers    much    unlike   to 

theirs, 

Men  unsophisticate,  rude-nerved  as  bears. 
Ezra  is  gone  and  his  large-hearted  kind, 
The  landlords  of  the  hospitable  mind; 
Good  Warriner  of  Springfield  was  the  last; 
An  inn  is  now  a  vision  of  the  past; 
One  yet-surviving  host  my  mind  recalls,  — 
You   '11  find   him   if  you  go  to   Trenton 

Falls." 

THE     ORIGIN     OF     DIDACTIC 
POETRY 

WHEN  wise  Minerva  still  was  young 

And  just  the  least  romantic, 
Soon  after  from  Jove's  head  she  flung 

That  preternatural  antic, 
'T  is  said,  to  keep  from  idleness 

Or  flirting,  those  twin  curses, 
She  spent  her  leisure,  more  or  less, 

In  writing  po ,  no,  verses. 

How  nice  they  were  !  to  rhyme  wither 

A  kind  star  did  not  tarry; 
The  metre,  too,  was  regular 

As  schoolboy's  dot  and  carry; 


And  full  they  were  of  pious  plums, 

So  extra-super-moral,  — 
For  sucking  Virtue's  tender  gums 

Most  tooth-enticing  coral. 

A  clean,  fair  copy  she  prepares, 

Makes  sure  of  moods  and  tenses, 
With  her  own  hand,  —  for  prudence  spares 

A  man-(or  woman-)-uensis; 
Complete,  and  tied  with  ribbons  proud, 

She  hinted  soon  how  cosy  a 
Treat  it  would  be  to  read  them  loud 

After  next  day's  Ambrosia. 

The  Gods  thought  not  it  would  amuse 

So  much  as  Homer's  Odyssees, 
But  could  not  very  well  refuse 

The  properest  of  Goddesses; 
So  all  sat  round  in  attitudes 

Of  various  dejection, 
As  with  a  hem  I  the  queen  of  prudes 

Began  her  grave  prelection. 

At    the     first    pause    Zeus    said,    "Well 
sung  !  — 

I  mean  —  ask  Phcebus,  —  lie  knows." 
Says  Phoebus,  "Zounds  !  a  wolf  's  among 

Admetus's  merinos  ! 
Fine  !  very  fine  !  but  I  must  go; 

They  stand  in  need  of  me  there; 
Excuse  me  ! "  snatched  his  stick,  and  so 

Plunged  down  the  gladdened  ether. 

With  the  next  gap,  Mars  said,  "  For  me 

Don't  wait,  —  naught  could  be  finer, 
But  I  'm  engaged  at  half  past  three,  — 

A  fight  in  Asia  Minor  !  " 
Then  Venus  lisped,  "  I  'm  sorely  tried, 

These  duty-calls  are  vip'rous; 
But  I  must  go;  I  have  a  bride 

To  see  about  in  Cyprus." 

Then  Bacchus,  —  "I  must  say  good-by, 

Although  my  peace  it  jeopards; 
I  meet  a  man  at  four,  to  try 

A  well-broke  pair  of  leopards." 
His  words  woke  Hermes.     "  Ah  !  "  he  said, 

"  I  so  love  moral  theses  !  " 
Then  winked  at  Hebe,  who  turned  red, 

And  smoothed  her  apron's  creases. 

Just  then  Zeus  snored,  —  the  Eagle  drew 

His  head  the  wing  from  under; 
Zeus  snored,  — o'er  startled  Greece  there 


422 


HEARTSEASE   AND   RUE 


The  many-volumed  thunder. 
Some  augurs  counted  nine,  some,  ten; 

Some  said  't  was  war,  some,  famine, 
And  all,  that  other-minded  men 

Would  get  a  precious . 

Proud  Pallas  sighed,  "  It  will  not  do; 

Against  the  Muse  I  've  sinned,  oh  1 " 
And  her  torn  rhymes  sent  flying  through 

Olympus's  back  window. 
Then,  packing  up  a  peplus  clean, 

She  took  the  shortest  path  thence, 
And  opened,  with  a  mind  serene, 

A  Sunday-school  in  Athens. 

The  verses  ?     Some  in  ocean  swilled, 

Killed  every  fish  that  bit  to  'em; 
Some  Galen  caught,  and,  when  distilled, 

Found  morphine  the  residuum ; 
But  some  that  rotted  on  the  earth 

Sprang  up  again  in  copies, 
And  gave  two  strong  narcotics  birth, 

Didactic  verse  and  poppies. 

Years  after,  when  a  poet  asked 

The  Goddess's  opinion, 
As  one  whose  soul  its  wings  had  tasked 

In  Art's  clear-aired  dominion, 
"  Discriminate,"  she  said,  "  betimes; 

The  Muse  is  unforgiving; 
Put  all  your  beauty  in  your  rhymes, 

Your  morals  in  your  living." 


THE    FLYING   DUTCHMAN 

This  poem  appeared  in  The  Atlantic  for 
January,  1868,  and  Lowell's  own  criticism  on 
it  is  frank.  He  wrote  to  Mr.  Thayer  :  "  You 
will  find  some  verses  of  mine  in  the  next  At 
lantic,  the  conception  of  which  tickles  me  — 
but  half  spoiled  (and  in  verse  half  is  more 
than  whole)  in  the  writing  ;  "  and  in  a  similar 
vein  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Fields,  the  editor  :  "  The 
trouble  with  The  Flying  Dutchman  is  not  in 
what  I  left  out,  but  in  what  I  could  n't  get  in. 
Let  us  be  honest  with  each  other,  my  dear 
Lorenzo  de'  Medici,  if  we  can't  be  with  any 
body  else.  The  conception  of  the  verses  is 
good  ;  the  verses  are  bad." 

DON'T  believe  in  the  Flying  Dutchman  ? 

I  've  known  the  fellow  for  years; 
My  button  I  've  wrenched  from  his  clutch, 
man: 

I  shudder  whenever  he  nears  ! 


He  's  a  Rip  van  Winkle  skipper, 

A  Wandering  Jew  of  the  sea, 
Who  sails  his  bedevilled  old  clipper 

In  the  wind's  eye,  straight  as  a  bee. 

Back  topsails  !  you  can't  escape  him; 

The  man-ropes  stretch  with  his  weight, 
And  the  queerest  old  toggeries  drape  him, 

The  Lord  knows  how  long  out  of  date  1 

Like  a  long-disembodied  idea, 
(A  kind  of  ghost  plentiful  now,) 

He  stands  there ;  you  fancy  you  see  a 
Coeval  of  Teniers  or  Douw. 

He  greets  you  ;  would  have  you  take  let 
ters: 

You  scan  the  addresses  with  dread, 
While  he  mutters  his  donners  and  welters,  — 

They  're  all  from  the  dead  to  the  dead  ! 

You  seem  taking  time  for  reflection, 

But  the   heart  fills  your  throat  with  a 
jam, 

As  you  spell  in  each  faded  direction 
An  ominous  ending  in  dam. 

Am  I  tagging  my  rhymes  to  a  legend  ? 
That   were    changing    green   turtle    to 

mock: 
No,  thank  you  !     I  've  found  out  which 

wedge-end 
Is  meant  for  the  head  of  a  block. 

The  fellow  I  have  in  my  mind's  eye 

Plays  the  old   Skipper's  part  here  on 
shore, 

And  sticks  like  a  burr,  till  he  finds  I 
Have  got  just  the  gauge  of  his  bore. 

This  postman  'twixt  one  ghost  and  t'  other, 
With  last  dates  that  smell  of  the  mould, 

I  have  met  him  (O  man  and  brother, 
Forgive  me  !)  in  azure  and  gold. 

In  the  pulpit  I  've  known  of  his  preaching, 
Out  of  hearing  behind  the  time, 

Some  statement  of  Balaam's  impeaching, 
Giving  Eve  a  due  sense  of  her  crime. 

I  have  seen  him  some  poor  ancient  thrash 
ing 

Into  something  (God  save  us  !)  more  dry, 
With  the  Water  of  Life  itself  washing 

The  life  out  of  earth,  sea,  and  sky. 


CREDIDIMUS  JOVEM  REGNARE 


423 


O  dread  fellow-mortal,  get  newer 

Despatches  to  carry,  or  none  ! 
We  're  as  quick  as  the  Greek  and  the  Jew 
were 

At  knowing  a  loaf  from  a  stone. 

Till  the  couriers  of  God  fail  in  duty, 
We  sha'n't  ask  a  mummy  for  news, 

Nor  sate  the  soul's  hunger  for  beauty 
With  your   drawings   from   casts   of   a 
Muse. 


CREDIDIMUS   JOVEM    REGNARE 

O  DAYS  endeared  to  every  Muse, 
When  nobody  had  any  Views, 
Nor,  while  the  cloudscape  of  his  mind 
By  every  breeze  was  new  designed, 
Insisted  all  the  world  should  see 
Camels  or  whales  where  none  there  be  ! 

0  happy  days,  when  men  received 
From  sire  to  son  what  all  believed, 
And  left  the  other  world  in  bliss, 
Too  busy  with  bedevilling  this  1 

Beset  by  doubts  of  every  breed 
In  the  last  bastion  of  my  creed, 
With  shot  and  shell  for  Sabbath-chime, 

1  watch  the  storming-party  climb, 
Panting  (their  prey  in  easy  reach), 

To  pour  triumphant  through  the  breach 
In  walls  that  shed  like  snowflakes  tons 
Of  missiles  from  old-fashioned  guns, 
But  crumble  'neath  the  storm  that  pours 
All  day  and  night  from  bigger  bores. 
There,  as  I  hopeless  watch  and  wait 
The  last  life-crushing  coil  of  Fate, 
Despair  finds  solace  in  the  praise 
Of  those  serene  dawn-rosy  days 
Ere  microscopes  had  made  us  heirs 
To  large  estates  of  doubts  and  snares, 
By  proving  that  the  title-deeds, 
Once  all-sufficient  for  men's  needs, 
Are  palimpsests  that  scarce  disguise 
The  tracings  of  still  earlier  lies, 
Themselves  as  surely  written  o'er 
An  older  fib  erased  before. 

So  from  these  days  I  fly  to  those 
That  in  the  landlocked  Past  repose, 
Where  no  rude  wind  of  doctrine  shakes 
From     bloom -flushed     boughs     untimely 

flakes; 
Where  morning's  eyes  see  nothing  strange, 


No  crude  perplexity  of  change, 

And  morrows  trip  along  their  ways 

Secure  as  happy  yesterdays. 

Then  there  were  rulers  who  could  trace 

Through  heroes  up  to  gods  their  race, 

Pledged  to  fair  fame  and  noble  use 

By  veins  from  Odin  filled  or  Zeus, 

And  under  bonds  to  keep  divine 

The  praise  of  a  celestial  line. 

Then  priests  could  pile  the  altar's  sods, 

With  whom  gods  spake  as  they  with  gods, 

And  everywhere  from  haunted  earth 

Broke  springs  of  wonder,  that  had  birth 

In  depths  divine  beyond  the  ken 

And  fatal  scrutiny  of  men; 

Then  hills   and   groves  and    streams  and 


Thrilled  with  immortal  presences, 

Not  too  ethereal  for  the  scope 

Of  human  passion's  dream  or  hope. 

Now  Pan  at  last  is  surely  dead, 

And  King  No-Credit  reigns  instead, 

Whose  officers,  morosely  strict, 

Poor  Fancy's  tenantry  evict, 

Chase  the  last  Genius  from  the  door, 

And  nothing  dances  any  more. 

Nothing  ?     Ah,  yes,  our  tables  do, 

Drumming  the  Old  One's  own  tattoo, 

And,  if  the  oracles  are  dumb, 

Have  we  not  mediums  ?     Why  be  glum  ? 

Fly  thither  ?     Why,  the  very  air 

Is  full  of  hindrance  and  despair  ! 

Fly  thither  ?     But  I  cannot  fly; 

My  doubts  enmesh  me  if  I  try, 

Each  Liliputian,  but,  combined, 

Potent  a  giant's  limbs  to  bind. 

This  world  and  that  are  growing  dark; 

A  huge  interrogation  mark, 

The  Devil's  crook  episcopal, 

Still  borne  before  him  since  the  Fall, 

Blackens  with  its  ill-omened  sign 

The  old  blue  heaven  of  faith  benign. 

Whence  ?  Whither  ?  Wherefore  ?  How  ? 

Which  ?     Why  ? 
All  ask  at  once,  all  wait  reply. 
Men  feel  old  systems  cracking  under  'em; 
Life  saddens  to  a  mere  conundrum 
Which  once  Religion  solved,  but  she 
Has  lost  —  has  Science  found  ?  —  the  key. 

What  was  snow-bearded  Odin,  trow, 

The  mighty  hunter  long  ago, 

Whose  horn  and  hounds  the  peasant  hears 


424 


HEARTSEASE   AND   RUE 


Still  when    the   Northlights    shake   their 

spears  ? 

Science  hath  answers  twain,  I've  heard; 
Choose  which  you  will,  nor  hope  a  third; 
Whichever  box  the  truth  be  stowed  in, 
There  's  not  a  sliver  left  of  Odin. 
Either  he  was  a  pinchbrowed  thing, 
With  scarcely  wit  a  stone  to  fling, 
A  creature  both  in  size  and  shape 
Nearer  than  we  are  to  the  ape, 
Who  hung  sublime  with  brat  and  spouse 
By  tail  prehensile  from  the  boughs, 
And,  happier  than  his  maimed  descendants, 
The  culture-curtailed  independents, 
Could  pluck  his  cherries  with  both  paws, 
And  stuff  with  both  his  big-boned  jaws; 
Or  else  the  core  his  name  enveloped 
Was  from  a  solar  myth  developed, 
Which,  hunted  to  its  primal  shoot, 
Takes  refuge  in  a  Sanskrit  root, 
Thereby  to  instant  death  explaining 
The  little  poetry  remaining. 

Try  it  with  Zeus,  't  is  just  the  same; 
The  thing  evades,  we  hug  a  name; 
Nay,  scarcely  that,  —  perhaps  a  vapor 
Born  of  some  atmospheric  caper. 
All  Lempriere's  fables  blur  together 
In  cloudy  symbols  of  the  weather, 
And  Aphrodite  rose  from  frothy  seas 
But  to  illustrate  such  hypotheses. 
With  years  enough  behind  his  back, 
Lincoln  will  take  the  selfsame  track, 
And  prove,  hulled  fairly  to  the  cob, 
A  mere  vagary  of  Old  Prob. 
Give  the  right  man  a  solar  myth, 
And  he  '11  confute  the  sun  therewith. 

They  make  things  admirably  plain, 
But  one  hard  question  will  remain: 
If  one  hypothesis  you  lose, 
Another  in  its  place  you  choose, 
But,  your  faith  gone,  O  man  and  brother, 
Whose  shop  shall  furnish  you  another  ? 
One  that  will  wash,  I  mean,  and  wear, 
And  wrap  us  warmly  from  despair  ? 
While  they  are  clearing  up  our  puzzles, 
And  clapping  prophylactic  muzzles 
On  the  Actseon's  hounds  that  sniff 
Our  devious  track  through  But  and  If, 
Would  they  'd  explain  away  the  Devil 
And  other  facts  that  won't  keep  level, 
But  rise  beneath  our  feet  or  fail, 
A  reeling  ship's  deck  in  a  gale  ! 
God  vanished  long  ago,  iwis, 


A  mere  subjective  synthesis; 

A  doll,  stuffed  out  with  hopes  and  fears, 

Too  homely  for  us  pretty  dears, 

Who  want  one  that  conviction  carries, 

Last  make  of  London  or  of  Paris. 

He  gone,  I  felt  a  moment's  spasm, 

But  calmed  myself  with  Protoplasm, 

A  finer  name,  and,  what  is  more, 

As  enigmatic  as  before; 

Greek,  too,  and  sure  to  fill  with  ease 

Minds  caught  in  the  Symplegades 

Of  soul  and  sense,  life's  two  conditions, 

Each  baffled  with  its  own  omniscience. 

The  men  who  labor  to  revise 

Our  Bibles  will,  I  hope,  be  wise, 

And  print  it  without  foolish  qualms 

Instead  of  God  in  David's  psalms: 

Noll  had  been  more  effective  far 

Could  he  have  shouted  at  Dunbar, 

«  Rise,  Protoplasm  !  "     No  dourest  Scot 

Had  waited  for  another  shot. 

And  yet  I  frankly  must  confess 

A  secret  unforgivingness, 

And  shudder  at  the  saving  chrism 

Whose  best  New  Birth  is  Pessimism; 

My  soul  —  I  mean  the  bit  of  phosphorus 

That  fills  the  place  of  what  that  was  for 

us  — 

Can't  bid  its  inward  bores  defiance 
With  the  new  nursery-tales  of  science. 
What  profits  me,  though  doubt  by  doubt, 
As  nail  by  nail,  be  driven  out, 
When  every  new  one,  like  the  last, 
Still  holds  my  coffin-lid  as  fast  ? 
Would  I  find  thought  a  moment's  truce, 
Give  me  the  young  world's  Mother  Goose 
With  life  and  joy  in  every  limb, 
The  chimney-corner  tales  of  Grimm ! 

Our  dear  and  admirable  Huxley 
Cannot  explain  to  me  why  ducks  lay, 
Or,  rather,  how  into  their  eggs 
Blunder  potential  wings  and  legs 
With  will  to  move  them  and  decide 
Whether  in  air  or  lymph  to  glide. 
Who  gets  a  hair's-breadth  on  by  showing 
That  Something  Else  set  all  agoing  ? 
Farther  and  farther  back  we  push 
From  Moses  and  his  burning  bush; 
Cry,   "Art    Thou    there?"      Above,    be 
low, 

All  Nature  mutters  yes  and  no  ! 
'T  is  the  old  answer:  we  're  agreed 
Being  from  Being  must  proceed, 


TEMPORA   MUTANTUR 


425 


Life  be  Life's  source.     I  might  as  well 
Obey  the  meeting-house's  bell, 
And  listen  while  Old  Hundred  pours 
Forth  through  the  summer-opened  doors, 
From  old  and  young.     I  hear  it  yet, 
Swelled  by  bass-viol  and  clarinet, 
While  the  gray  minister,  with  face 
Radiant,  let  loose  his  noble  bass. 
If  Heaven  it  reached  not,  yet  its  roll 
Waked  all  the  echoes  of  the  soul, 
And  in  it  many  a  life  found  wings 
To  soar  away  from  sordid  things. 
Church  gone  and  singers  too,  the  song 
Sings  to  me  voiceless  all  night  long, 
Till  my  soul  beckons  me  afar, 
Glowing  and  trembling  like  a  star. 
Will  any  scientific  touch 
With  my  worn  strings  achieve  as  much  ? 

I  don't  object,  not  I,  to  know 

My  sires  were  monkeys,  if  't  was  so ; 

I  touch  my  ear's  collusive  tip 

And  own  the  poor-relationship. 

That  apes  of  various  shapes  and  sizes 

Contained  their  germs  that  all  the  prizes 

Of  senate,  pulpit,  camp,  and  bar  win 

May  give  us  hopes  that  sweeten  Darwin. 

Who  knows  but  from  our  loins  may  spring 

(Long  hence)  some  winged  sweet-throated 

thing 

As  much  superior  to  us 
As  we  to  Cynocephalus  ? 

This  is  consoling,  but,  alas, 

It  wipes  no  dimness  from  the  glass 

Where  I  am  flattening  my  poor  nose, 

In  hope  to  see  beyond  my  toes. 

Though  I  accept  my  pedigree, 

Yet  where,  pray  tell  me,  is  the  key 

That  should  unlock  a  private  door 

To  the  Great  Mystery,  such  no  more  ? 

Each  offers  his,  but  one  nor  all 

Are  much  persuasive  with  the  wall 

That  rises  now,  as  long  ago, 

Between  I  wonder  and  I  know, 

Nor  will  vouchsafe  a  pin-hole  peep 

At  the  veiled  Isis  in  its  keep. 

Where  is  no  door,  I  but  produce 

My  key  to  find  it  of  no  use. 

Yet  better  keep  it,  after  all, 

Since  Nature  's  economical, 

And  who  can  tell  but  some  fine  day 

(If  it  occur  to  her)  she  may, 

In  her  good-will  to  you  and  me, 

Make  door  and  lock  to  match  the  key  ? 


TEMPORA  MUTANTUR 

This  poem,  written  not  long  after  Lowell's 
return  from  a  journey  in  Europe  and  printed 
in  The  Nation,  called  out  many  angry  retorts. 
The  reader  will  find  a  vigorous  letter  by  Lowell 
to  Mr.  Joel  Benton,  restating1  his  position,  in 
The  Century  for  November,  1891,  and  reprinted 
in  Letters  II.  155-160. 

THE  world  turns   mild;   democracy,  they 

say, 

Rounds  the  sharp  knobs  of  character  away, 
And  no  great  harm,  unless  at  grave  ex 
pense 
Of  what  needs  edge  of  proof,  the  moral 

sense ; 

For  man  or  race  is  on  the  downward  path 
Whose   fibre   grows   too    soft   for    honest 

wrath, 

And  there  's  a  subtle  influence  that  springs 
From  words  to  modify  our  sense  of  things. 
A  plain  distinction  grows  obscure  of  late: 
Man,  if  he  will,  may  pardon;  but  the  State 
Forgets  its  function  if  not  fixed  as  Fate. 
So  thought  our  sires  :    a  hundred   years 

ago, 
If  men  were  knaves,  why,  people   called 

them  so, 
And   crime   could    see    the    prison-portal 

bend 

Its  brow  severe  at  no  long  vista's  end. 
In  those  days  for  plain  things  plain  words 

would  serve; 
Men  had  not  learned  to  admire  the  graceful 

swerve 
Wherewith  the  ^Esthetic  Nature's   genial 

mood 

Makes  public  duty  slope  to  private  good; 
No  muddled  conscience  raised  the  saving 

doubt; 
A  soldier  proved  unworthy  was  drummed 

out, 

An  officer  cashiered,  a  civil  servant 
(No  matter  though  his  piety  were  fervent) 
Disgracefully  dismissed,  and  through  the 

land 

Each  bore  for  life  a  stigma  from  the  brand 
Whose   far-heard  hiss  made  others  more 

averse 

To  take  the  facile  step  from  bad  to  worse. 
The  Ten  Commandments  had  a  meaning 

then, 
Felt  in  their  bones  by  least  considerate 

men, 


426 


HEARTSEASE   AND   RUE 


Because   behind   them   Public   Conscience 

stood, 
And  without  wincing  made  their  mandates 

good. 
But  now  that  "Statesmanship"  is  just  a 

way 
To  dodge  the  primal  curse  and  make  it 

Pa7> 

Since  office  means  a  kind  of  patent  drill 
To  force  an  entrance  to  the  Nation's  till, 
And  peculation  something  rather  less 
Risky  than  if  you  spelt  it  with  an  s  • 
Now  that  to  steal  by  law  is  grown  an  art, 
Whom  rogues  the  sires,  their  milder  sons 

call  smart, 

And  "  slightly  irregular  "  dilutes  the  shame 
Of   what  had    once    a    somewhat  blunter 

name. 
With  generous  curve  we  draw  the  moral 

line: 

Our  swindlers  are  permitted  to  resign; 
Their  guilt  is  wrapped  in  deferential  names, 
And  twenty  sympathize  for  one  that  blames. 
Add  national  disgrace  to  private  crime, 
Confront  mankind  with  brazen  front  sub 
lime, 

Steal  but  enough,  the  world  is  uusevere,  — 
Tweed  is  a  statesman,  Fisk  a  financier; 
Invent  a  mine,  and  be  —  the   Lord   knows 

what; 
Secure,   at   any   rate,   with    what   you  've 

The  public  servant  who  has  stolen  or  lied, 
If  called  on,  may  resign  with  honest  pride: 
As  unjust  favor  put  him  in,  why  doubt 
Disfavor  as  unjust  has  turned  him  out  ? 
Even  if  indicted,  what  is  that  but  fudge 
To  him  who  counted-in  the  elective  judge  ? 
Whitewashed,    he    quits    the     politician's 

strife 
At  ease  in   mind,  with   pockets  filled  for 

life: 

His  "  lady  "  glares  with  gems  whose  vul 
gar  blaze 
The  poor  man  through  his  heightened  taxes 

pays, 

Himself  content  if  one  huge  Kohinoor 
Bulge  from  a  shirt-front  ampler  than  be 
fore, 

But  not  too  candid,  lest  it  haply  tend 
To  rouse  suspicion  of  the  People's  Friend. 
A  public  meeting,  treated  at  his  cost, 
Resolves  him   back   more   virtue   than  he 

lost; 
With  character  regilt  he  counts  his  gains; 


What  's  gone  was  air,  the  solid  good  re 
mains; 
For  what  is  good,  except  what  friend  and 

foe 

Seem  quite  unanimous  in  thinking  so, 
The  stocks  and  bonds  which,  in  our  age  of 

loans, 
Replace    the   stupid    pagan's    stocks   and 

stones  ? 

With  choker  white,  wherein  no  cynic  eye 
Dares  see  idealized  a  hempen  tie, 
At  parish-meetings  he  conducts  in  prayer, 
And  pays   for   missions   to   be   sent  else 
where; 

On  'Change  respected,  to   his  friends  en 
deared, 

Add   but   a   Sunday-school-class,  he  's  re 
vered, 

And  his  too  early  tomb  will  not  be  dumb 
To  point  a  moral  for  our  youth  to  come. 


IN   THE   HALF-WAY   HOUSE 


AT  twenty  we   fancied  the  blest  Middle 

Ages 

A  spirited  cross  of  romantic  and  grand, 
All  templars  and  minstrels  and  ladies  and 

pages, 
And  love  and  adventure   in   Outre-Mer 

land; 

But  ah,  where  the  youth  dreamed  of  build 
ing  a  minster, 
The  man  takes  a  pew  and  sits  reckoning 

his  pelf, 
And   the   Graces   wear  fronts,    the   Muse 

thins  to  a  spinster, 

When    Middle-Age    stares    from   one's 
glass  at  oneself  ! 


Do  you  twit  me  with  days  when  I  had  an 

Ideal, 

And  saw  the  sear  future   through  spec 
tacles  green  ? 
Then  find  me   some   charm,  while  I  look 

round  and  see  all 
These  fat  friends  of  forty,  shall  keep  me 

nineteen; 
Should  we  go   on  pining  for   chaplets   of 

laurel 

Who  Ve  paid  a  perruquier  for  mending 
our  thatch, 


AT  THE   BURNS    CENTENNIAL 


427 


Or,  our  feet   swathed   in   baize,  with   our 

Fate  pick  a  quarrel, 

If,  instead  of  cheap  bay-leaves,  she  sent 
a  dear  scratch  ? 

in 

We  called  it  our  Eden,  that  small  patent- 
baker, 
When  life  was  half  moonshine  and  half 

Mary  Jane ; 

But  the  butcher,  the  baker,  the  candlestick- 
maker  !  — 
Did  Adam  have  duns  and  slip   down  a 

back-lane  ? 
Nay,  after  the  Fall  did   the  modiste  keep 

coming 
With  last  styles  of  fig-leaf   to  Madam 

Eve's  bower  ? 
Did  Jubal,   or   whoever   taught  the   girls 

thrumming, 

Make  the  patriarchs  deaf  at  a  dollar  the 
hour? 

IV 

As  I  think  what  I  was,  I  sigh  Desunt  non- 

nulla  ! 
Years  are  creditors  Sheridan's  self  could 

not  bilk; 
But  then,  as  my  boy  says,  "  What  right  has 

a  fullah 
To  ask  for  the  cream,  when  himself  spilt 

the  milk  ?  " 
Perhaps  when  you  're  older,  my  lad,  you  '11 

discover 
The  secret  with  which  Auld  Lang  Syne 

there  is  gilt,  — 
Superstition  of  old  man,  maid,   poet,  and 

lover,  — 

That  cream  rises  thickest  on  milk  that 
was  spilt  ! 


We  sailed  for  the  moon,  but,  in  sad  disil 
lusion, 
Snug  under  Point  Comfort  are  glad  to 

make  fast, 
And  strive  (sans  our  glasses)    to  make  a 

confusion 
'Twixt  our  rind  of  green  cheese  and  the 

moon  of  the  past. 
Ah,     Might-have-been,     Could -have-been, 

Would-have-been  !  rascals, 
He  's  a  genius  or  fool  whom  ye  cheat  at 
two-score, 


And  the  man  whose  boy-promise  was  lik 
ened  to  Pascal's 

Is  thankful  at  forty  they  don't  call  him 
bore  ! 

VI 

With  what  fumes  of  fame  was  each  con 
fident  pate  full  ! 
How  rates  of  insurance   should  rise  on 

the  Charles  ! 
And  which  of  us  now  would  not  feel  wisely 

grateful, 

If  his  rhymes  sold  as   fast  as   the  Em 
blems  of  Quarles  ? 
E'en  if  won,  what  's   the   good   of  Life's 

medals  and  prizes  ? 
The  rapture  's   in  what  never  was  or  is 

gone; 
That  we  missed   them   makes   Helens   of 

plain  Ann  Elicys, 

For  the  goose  of  To-day  still   is   Mem 
ory's  swan. 

VII 

And  yet  who  would  change  the  old  dream 

for  new  treasure  ? 
Make  not  youth's  sourest  grapes  the  best 

wine  of  our  life  ? 
Need  he  reckon  his  date  by  the  Almanac's 

measure 
Who  is  twenty  life-long  in  the  eyes  of 

his  wife  ? 

Ah,  Fate,  should  I  live  to  be  nonagenarian, 
Let  me  still  take  Hope's  frail  I.  O.  U.'s 

upon  trust, 

Still  talk  of  a  trip  to  the  Islands  Macarian, 
And  still   climb   the   dream-tree   for  — 
ashes  and  dust ! 


AT   THE   BURNS    CENTENNIAL 

JANUARY,    1859 
I 

A  HUNDRED  years  !  they  're  quickly  fled, 

With  all  their  joy  and  sorrow; 
Their  dead  leaves  shed  upon  the  dead, 

Their  fresh  ones  sprung  by  morrow  ! 
And  still  the  patient  seasons  bring 

Their  change  of  sun  and  shadow; 
New  birds  still  sing  with  every  spring, 

New  violets  spot  the  meadow. 


428 


HEARTSEASE  AND   RUE 


ii 

A  hundred  years  !  and  Nature's  powers 

No  greater  grown  nor  lessened  ! 
They   saw    no   flowers    more   sweet   than 
ours, 

No  fairer  new  moon's  crescent. 
Would  she  but  treat  us  poets  so, 

So  from  our  winter  free  us, 
And  set  our  slow  old  sap  aflow 

To  sprout  in  fresh  ideas  ! 

ill 

Alas,  think  I,  what  worth  or  parts 

Have  brought  me  here  competing, 
To  speak  what  starts  in  myriad  hearts 

With  Burns's  memory  beating  ! 
Himself  had  loved  a  theme  like  this; 

Must  I  be  its  entomber  ? 
No  pen  save  his  but 's  sure  to  miss 

Its  pathos  or  its  humor. 

IV 

As  I  sat  musing  what  to  say, 

And  how  my  verse  to  number, 
Some  elf  in  play  passed  by  that  way, 

And  sank  my  lids  in  slumber; 
And  on  my  sleep  a  vision  stole, 

Which  I  will  put  in  metre, 
Of  Burns's  soul  at  the  wicket-hole 

Where  sits  the  good  Saint  Peter. 


The  saint,  methought,  had  left  his  post 

That  day  to  Holy  Willie, 
Who  swore,  "  Each  ghost  that  comes  shall 
toast 

In  brunstane,  will  he,  nill  he ; 
There 's  nane  need  hope  with  phrases  fine 

Their  score  to  wipe  a  sin  frae; 
I  '11  chalk  a  sign,  to  save  their  tryin',  — 

A  hand  (gp  and  '  Vide  infra  ! '  " 

VI 

Alas  !  no  soil  's  too  cold  or  dry 

For  spiritual  small  potatoes, 
Scrimped  natures,  spry  the  trade  to  ply 

Of  diaboli  advocatus; 
Who  lay  bent  pins  in  the  penance-stool 

Where  Mercy  plumps  a  cushion, 
Who  Ve  just  one  rule  for  knave  and  fool, 

It  saves  so  much  confusion  ! 


VII 

So  when   Burns   knocked,   Will   knit   his 
brows, 

His  window  gap  made  scanter, 
And  said,  "  Go  rouse  the  other  house; 

We  lodge  no  Tarn  O'Shanter  ! " 
"  We  lodge  !  "  laughed  Burns.    «  Now  well 
I  see 

Death  cannot  kill  old  nature ; 
No  human  flea  but  thinks  that  he 

May  speak  for  his  Creator  ! 

VIII 

"  But,  Willie,  friend,  don't  turn  me  forth, 

Auld  Clootie  needs  no  ganger; 
And  if  on  earth  I  had  small  worth, 

You  Ve  let  in  worse  I  'se  wager  !  " 
"  Na,  nane  has  knockit  at  the  yett 

But  found  me  hard  as  whunstane; 
There  's  chances  yet  your  bread  to  get 

Wi  Auld  Nick,  gaugin'  brunstane." 

IX 

Meanwhile,  the  Unco'  Guid  had  ta'en 

Their  place  to  watch  the  process, 
Flattening  in  vain  on  many  a  pane 

Their  disembodied  noses. 
Remember,  please,  't  is  all  a  dream; 

One  can't  control  the  fancies 
Through  sleep  that  stream  with  wayward 
gleam, 

Like  midnight's  boreal  dances. 


Old  Willie's  tone  grew  sharp  's  a  knife: 

"  In  primis,  I  indite  ye, 
For  makin'  strife  wi'  the  water  o'  life, 

And  preferrin'  aqua  vitce  !  " 
Then  roared  a  voice  with  lusty  din, 

Like  a  skipper's  when  't  is  blowy, 
"  If  that 's  a  sin,  /  'd  ne'er  got  in, 

As  sure  as  my  name  's  Noah  !  " 

XI 

Baulked,  Willie  turned  another  leaf,  — 

"  There  's  many  here  have  heard  ye, 
To  the  pain  and  grief  o'  true  belief, 

Say  hard  things  o'  the  clergy  ! " 
Then  rang  a  clear  tone  over  all,  — 

"  One  plea  for  him  allow  me : 
I  once  heard  call  from  o'er  me,  '  Saul, 

Why  persecutest  thou  me  ? ' " 


AT   THE   BURNS    CENTENNIAL 


429 


XII 

To  the  next  charge  vexed  Willie  turned, 

And,  sighing,  wiped  his  glasses: 
"  I  'm  much  concerned  to  find  ye  yearned 

O'er-warmly  tow'rd  the  lasses  ! " 
Here  David  sighed  ;  poor  Willie's  face 

Lost  all  its  self-possession: 
"  I  leave  this  case  to  God's  own  grace; 

It  baffles  my  discretion  !  " 

XIII 

Then  sudden  glory  round  me  hroke, 

And  low  melodious  surges 
Of  wings  whose  stroke  to  splendor  woke 

Creation's  farthest  verges; 
A  cross  stretched,  ladder-like,  secure 

From  earth  to  heaven's  own  portal, 
Whereby  God's  poor,  with  footing  sure, 

Climbed  up  to  peace  immortal. 

XIV 

I  heard  a  voice  serene  and  low 

(With  my  heart  I  seemed  to  hear  it,) 
Fall  soft  and  slow  as  snow  on  snow, 

Like  grace  of  the  heavenly  spirit; 
As  sweet  as  over  new-born  son 

The  croon  of  new-made  mother, 
The  voice  begun,  "  Sore  tempted  one  ! " 

Then,  pausing,  sighed,  "  Our  brother  ! 

xv 

"  If  not  a  sparrow  fall,  unless 

The  Father  sees  and  knows  it, 
Think  !  recks  He  less  his  form  express, 

The  soul  his  own  deposit  ? 
If  only  dear  to  Him  the  strong, 

That  never  trip  nor  wander, 
Where  were   the   throng   whose   morning 
song 

Thrills  his  blue  arches  yonder  ? 

XVI 

"  Do  souls  alone  clear-eyed,  strong-kneed, 

To  Him  true  service  render, 
And  they  who  need  his  hand  to  lead, 

Find  they  his  heart  untender  ? 
Through  all  your  various  ranks  and  fates 

He  opens  doors  to  duty, 
And  he  that  waits  there  at  your  gates 

Was  servant  of  his  Beauty. 

XVII 

M  The  Earth  must  richer  sap  secrete, 
(Could  ye  in  time  but  know  it !) 


Must  juice  concrete  with  fiercer  heat, 

Ere  she  can  make  her  poet; 
Long  generations  go  and  come, 

At  last  she  bears  a  singer, 
For  ages  dumb  of  senses  numb 

The  compensation-bringer  ! 

XVIII 

"  Her  cheaper  broods  in  palaces 

She  raises  under  glasses, 
But  souls  like  these,  heav'n's  hostages, 

Spring  shelterless  as  grasses: 
They  share  Earth's  blessing  and  her  bane, 

The  common  sun  and  shower; 
What  makes  your  pain  to  them  is  gain, 

Your  weakness  is  their  power. 

XIX 

"  These  larger  hearts  must  feel  the  rolls 

Of  stormier-waved  temptation; 
These  star-wide  souls  between  their  poles 

Bear  zones  of  tropic  passion. 
He  loved  much  !  —  that  is  gospel  good, 

Howe'er  the  text  you  handle ; 
From  common  wood  the  cross  was  hewed, 

By  love  turned  priceless  sandal. 

xx 

"  If  scant  his  service  at  the  kirk, 

He  paters  heard  and  aves 
From  choirs  that  lurk  in  hedge  and  birk, 

From  blackbird  and  from  mavis; 
The  cowering  mouse,  poor  unroofed  thing, 

In  him  found  Mercy's  angel; 
The  daisy's  ring  brought  every  spring 

To  him  Love's  fresh  evangel ! 

XXI 

"  Not  he  the  threatening  texts  who  deals 

Is  highest  'mong  the  preachers, 
But  he  who  feels  the  woes  and  weals 

Of  all  God's  wandering  creatures. 
He  doth  good  work  whose  heart  can  find 

The  spirit  'neath  the  letter; 
Who  makes  his  kind  of  happier  mind, 

Leaves  wiser  men  and  better. 

XXII 

"  They  make  Religion  be  abhorred 
Who  round  with  darkness  gulf  her, 

And  think  no  word  can  please  the  Lord 
Unless  it  smell  of  sulphur. 

Dear  Poet-heart,  that  childlike  guessed 
The  Father's  loving  kindness, 


43° 


HEARTSEASE   AND   RUE 


Come     now    to    rest !      Thou    didst    his 

hest, 
If  haply  't  was  in  blindness  !  " 

XXIII 

Then  leapt  heaven's  portals  wide  apart, 

And  at  their  golden  thunder 
With  sudden  start  I  woke,  my  heart 

Still  throbbing-full  of  wonder. 
"  Father,"  I  said,  "  't  is  known  to  Thee 

How  Thou  thy  Saints  preparest; 
But  this  I  see,  —  Saint  Charity 

Is  still  the  first  and  fairest  ! " 

XXIV 

Dear  Bard  and  Brother  !  let  who  may 

Against  thy  faults  be  railing, 
(Though  far,  I  pray,  from  us  be  they 

That  never  had  a  failing  !) 
One  toast  I  '11  give,  and  that  not  long, 

Which  thou  wouldst  pledge  if  present,  — 
To  him  whose  song,  in  nature  strong, 

Makes  man  of  prince  and  peasant ! 


IN  AN  ALBUM 

THE  misspelt  scrawl,  upon  the  wall 
By  some  Pompeian  idler  traced, 
In  ashes  packed  (ironic  fact !) 
Lies  eighteen  centuries  uneffaced, 
While  many  a  page  of  bard  and  sage, 
Deemed  once  mankind's  immortal  gain, 
Lost  from  Time's  ark,  leaves  no  more  mark 
Than  a  keel's  furrow  through  the  main. 

O  Chance  and  Change  !  our  buzz's  range 
Is  scarcely  wider  than  a  fly's; 
Then  let  us  play  at  fame  to-day, 
To-morrow  be  unknown  and  wise; 
And  while  the  fair  beg  locks  of  hair, 
And  autographs,  and  Lord  knows  what, 
Quick  !     let     us     scratch    our    moment's 

match, 
Make  our  brief  blaze,  and  be  forgot ! 

Too  pressed  to  wait,  upon  her  slate 
Fame  writes  a  name  or  two  in  doubt; 
Scarce  written,  these  no  longer  please, 
And  her  own  finger  rubs  them  out: 
It  may  ensue,  fair  girl,  that  you 
Years  hence  this  yellowing  leaf  may  see, 
And  put  to  task,  your  memory  ask 
In  vain,  "  This  Lowell,  who  was  he  ?  " 


AT  THE  COMMENCEMENT 
DINNER,  1866 

IN     ACKNOWLEDGING   A   TOAST   TO   THE 
SMITH  PROFESSOR 

I  RISE,  Mr.  Chairman,  as  both  of  us  know, 
With  the  impromptu  I  promised  you  three 

weeks  ago, 
Dragged  up  to  my  doom  by  your  might 

and  my  mane, 

To  do  what  I  vowed  I  'd  do  never  again; 
And  I  feel  like  your  good  honest  dough 

when  possest 

By  a  stirring,  impertinent  devil  of  yeast. 
"  You   must   rise,"   says  the   leaven.     "  I 

can't,"  says  the  dough; 
"  Just  examine  my  bumps,  and  you  '11  see 

it  's  no  go." 
"But   you   must,"    the   tormentor  insists, 

"'t  is  all  right; 
You  must  rise  when  I  bid  you,  and,  what 's 

more,  be  light." 

'T  is  a  dreadful  oppression,  this  making 

men  speak 
What  they  're  sure  to  be  sorry  for  all  the 

next  week; 
Some  poor  stick  requesting,  like  Aaron's, 

to  bud 

Into  eloquence,  pathos,  or  wit  in  cold  blood, 
As  if  the  dull  brain  that  you  vented  your 

spite  on 
Could  be  got,  like  an  ox,  by  mere  poking, 

to  Brighton. 

They  say  it  is  wholesome  to  rise  with  the 

sun, 

And   I   dare  say  it  may  be  if  not  over 
done; 
(I  think  it   was  Thomson  who  made  the 

remark 
'T  was  an  excellent  thing  in  its  way  —  for 

a  lark;) 
But  to  rise  after  dinner  and  look  down  the 

meeting 
On  a  distant  (as  Gray  calls  it)  prospect  of 

Eating, 
With  a  stomach  half  full  and  a  cerebrum 

hollow 
As  the  tortoise-shell  ere  it  was  strung  for 

Apollo, 
Under  contract  to  raise  anerithmon  gelasma 


AT   THE   COMMENCEMENT   DINNER,  1866 


With  rhymes  so  hard  hunted  they  gasp  with 

the  asthma, 
And  jokes  not  much  younger  than  Jethro's 

phylacteries, 
Is   something   I   leave   you  yourselves   to 

characterize. 

I've  a  notion,  I  think,  of  a  good  dinner 

speech, 
Tripping  light  as   a   sandpiper   over    the 

beach, 
Swerving  this  way  and  that  as  the  wave  of 

the  moment 
Washes  out  its  slight  trace  with  a  dash  of 

whim's  foam  on  't, 

And  leaving  on  memory's  rim  just  a  sense 
Something  graceful  had  gone   by,  a  live 

present  tense; 
Not  poetry,  —  no,   not  quite  that,  but  as 

good, 
A  kind  of  winged  prose  that  could  fly  if  it 

would. 
'T  is  a  time  for  gay  fancies  as  fleeting  and 

vain 

As   the   whisper  of  foam-beads  on  fresh- 
poured  champagne, 
Since   dinners   were   not   perhaps   strictly 

designed 
For  mano3uvring  the  heavy  dragoons  of  the 

mind. 
When  I  hear  your  set  speeches  that  start 

with  a  pop, 
Then  wander  and  maunder,  too  feeble  to 

stop, 
With  a  vague  apprehension  from  popular 

rumor 
There   used   to   be  something  by  mortals 

called  humor, 
Beginning  again  when  you  thought   they 

were  done, 

Respectable,  sensible,  weighing  a  ton, 
And  as  near  to  the  present  occasions  of 

men 
As  a  Fast  Day  discourse  of  the  year  eighteen 

ten, 
I  —  well,  I  sit   still,   and  my  sentiments 

smother, 
For  am  I  not  also  a  bore  and  a  brother  ? 

And  a  toast,  —  what  should  that  be  ?  Light, 

airy,  and  free, 

The  foam-Aphrodite  of  Bacchus's  sea, 
A  fancy-tinged  bubble,  an  orbed  rainbow- 
stain, 


That  floats  for  an  instant  'twirt  goblet  and 

brain; 
A  breath-born  perfection,  half  something, 

half  naught, 
And  breaks  if  it  strike  the  hard  edge  of  a 

thought. 
Do  you  ask  me  to  make  such?     Ah  no, 

not  so  simple; 
Ask  Apelles   to   paint  you   the   ravishing 

dimple 
Whose  shifting  enchantment  lights  Venus's 

cheek, 
And  the  artist  will  tell  you  his  skill  is  to 

seek; 
Once  fix  it,  't  is  naught,  for  the  charm  of 

it  rises 
From  the   sudden  bopeeps   of  its   smiling 

surprises. 

I  've  tried  to  define  it,  but  what  mother's 

son 
Could  ever  yet  do  what  he  knows  should 

be  done  ? 

My  rocket  has  burst,  and  I  watch  in  the  air 
Its  fast-fading  heart's-blood  drop  back  in 

despair; 
Yet  one  chance  is  left  me,  and,  if  I  am 

quick, 
I  can  palm  off,  before  you  suspect  me,  the 

stick. 

Now  since  I  've  succeeded  —  I  pray  do  not 
frown  — 

To  Ticknor's  and  Longfellow's  classical 
gown, 

And  profess  four  strange  languages,  which, 
luckless  elf, 

I  speak  like  a  native  (of  Cambridge)  my 
self, 

Let  me  beg,  Mr.  President,  leave  to  propose 

A  sentiment  treading  on  nobody's  toes, 

And  give,  in  such  ale  as  with  pump-handles 
we  brew, 

Their  memory  who  saved  us  from  all  talk 
ing  Hebrew,  — 

A  toast  that  to  deluge  with  water  is  good, 

For  in  Scripture  they  come  in  just  after 
the  flood: 

I  give  you  the  men  but  for  whom,  as  I 
guess,  sir, 

Modern  languages  ne'er  could  have  had  a 
professor, 

The  builders  of  Babel,  to  whose  zeal  the 
lungs 


432 


HEARTSEASE   AND   RUE 


Of  the  children  of  men  owe  confusion  of 
tongues; 

And  a  name  all-embracing  I  couple  there 
with, 

Which  is  that  of  my  founder  —  the  late 
Mr.  Smith. 


A  PARABLE 

AN  ass  munched  thistles,  while  a  nightin 
gale 
From  passion's   fountain    flooded   all   the 

vale. 
"  Hee-haw  !  "  cried  he,  "  I  hearken,"  as 

who  knew 
For  such  ear-largess  humble  thanks  were 

due. 
"  Friend,"  said  the  winged  pain,  "  in  vain 

you  bray, 
Who  tunnels   bring,  not  cisterns,  for  my 

lay; 

None  but  his  peers  the  poet  rightly  hear, 
Nor  mete  we  listeners  by  their  length  of 

ear." 


V.    EPIGRAMS 
SAYINGS 


IN  life's  small  things  be  resolute  and  great 
To  keep  thy  muscle  trained:  know'st  thou 

when  Fate 
Thy  measure  takes,  or  when  she  '11  say  to 

thee, 
"  I  find  thee  worthy ;  do  this  deed  for  me  "  ? 


A  camel-driver,  angry  with  his  drudge, 
Beating  him,  called  him  hunchback;  to  the 

hind 
Thus  spake  a  dervish:  "  Friend,  the  Eternal 

Judge 
Dooms  not  his  work,  but  ours,  the  crooked 

mind." 

3- 
Swiftly  the  politic  goes:  is  it  dark?  —  he 

borrows  a  lantern; 
Slowly  the  statesman  and  sure,  guiding  his 

steps  by  the  stars. 


"  Where  lies  the  capital,  pilgrim,  seat  of 
who  governs  the  Faithful  ?  " 

"  Thither  my  footsteps  are  bent:  it  is  where 
Saadi  is  lodged." 


INSCRIPTIONS 

FOR   A   BELL   AT   CORNELL    UNIVERSITY 

I  CALL  as  fly  the  irrevocable  hours, 

Futile  as  air  or  strong  as  fate  to  make 
Your    lives    of    sand    or   granite;    awful 

powers, 
Even  as  men  choose,  they  either  give  or 

take. 

FOR  A  MEMORIAL  WINDOW  TO  SIR  WAL 
TER  RALEIGH,  SET  UP  IN  ST.  MARGA 
RET'S,  WESTMINSTER,  BY  AMERICAN 
CONTRIBUTORS 

THE  New  World's   sons,  from  England's 

breasts  we  drew 
Such  milk  as  bids  remember  whence  we 

came; 
Proud  of  her  Past,  wherefrom  our  Present 

grew, 

This  window  we  inscribe  with  Raleigh's 
name. 

PROPOSED  FOR  A  SOLDIERS*  AND  SAIL 
ORS5  MONUMENT  IN  BOSTON 

To  those  who  died  for  her  on  land  and 

sea, 
That  she  might  have  a  country  great  and 

free, 

Boston  builds  this:  build  ye  her  monument 
In  lives    like   theirs,   at  duty's   summons 

spent. 

A   MISCONCEPTION 

B,  TAUGHT  by  Pope  to  do  his  good  by 
stealth, 

'Twixt  participle  and  noun  no  difference 
feeling, 

In  office  placed  to  serve  the  Commonwealth, 

Does  himself  all  the  good  he  can  by  steal 
ing. 


THE  ORACLE  OF   THE  GOLDFISHES 


433 


THE  BOSS 

SKILLED  to  pull  wires,  he  baffles  Nature's 

hope, 
Who  sure  intended  him  to  stretch  a  rope. 


SUN-WORSHIP 

IF  I  were  the  rose  at  your  window, 
Happiest  rose  of  its  crew, 
Every  blossom    I    bore   would    bend    in 
ward, 
They  'd  know  where  the  sunshine  grew. 


CHANGED  PERSPECTIVE 

FULL  oft  the  pathway  to  her  door 
I  've  measured  by  the  selfsame  track, 
Yet  doubt  the  distance  more  and  more, 
'T  is  so  much  longer  coming  back ! 


WITH  A  PAIR  OF  GLOVES  LOST 
IN  A  WAGER 

WE  wagered,  she  for  sunshine,  I  for  rain, 
And   I   should   hint   sharp   practice   if    I 

dared; 

For  was  not  she  beforehand  sure  to  gain 
Who  made  the  sunshine  we  together  shared  ? 

SIXTY-EIGHTH  BIRTHDAY 

As  life  runs  on,  the  road  grows  strange 
With  faces  new,  and  near  the  end 
The  milestones  into  headstones  change, 
'Neath  every  one  a  friend. 

INTERNATIONAL  COPYRIGHT 

IN  vain  we  call  old  notions  fudge, 

And  bend  our  conscience  to  our  dealing  : 

The  Ten  Commandments  will  not  budge, 
And  stealing  will  continue  stealing. 


LAST   POEMS 


THE  following  note  was  prefixed  to  this 
group  when  published  in  1895:  "This  little 
volume  contains  those  of  the  poems  which  Mr. 
Lowell  wrote  in  his  last  years  which,  I  believe, 

HOW  I  CONSULTED  THE  ORACLE 
OF  THE  GOLDFISHES 

WHAT  know  we  of  the  world  immense 
Beyond  the  narrow  ring  of  sense  ? 
What  should  we  know,  who  lounge  about 
The  house  we  dwell  in,  nor  find  out, 
Masked  by  a  wall,  the  secret  cell 
Where  the  soul's  priests  in  hiding  dwell  ? 
The  winding  stair  that  steals  aloof 
To  chapel-mysteries  'neath  the  roof  ? 

It  lies  about  us,  yet  as  far 

From  sense  sequestered  as  a  star 

New  launched  its  wake  of  fire  to  trace 

In  secrecies  of  unprobed  space, 

Whose  beacon's  lightning-pinioned  spears 

Might  earthward  haste  a  thousand  years 

Nor  reach  it.     So  remote  seems  this 

World  undiscovered,  yet  it  is 

A  neighbor  near  and  dumb  as  death, 

So  near,  we  seem  to  feel  the  breath 


he  might  have  wished  to  preserve.  Three 
of  them  were  published  before  his  death.  Of 
the  rest,  two  appear  here  for  the  first  time. 
C.  E.  N." 

Of  its  hushed  habitants  as  they 
Pass  us  unchallenged,  night  and  day. 

Never  could  mortal  ear  nor  eye 

By  sound  or  sign  suspect  them  nigh, 

Yet  why  may  not  some  subtler  sense 

Than  those  poor  two  give  evidence  ? 

Transfuse  the  ferment  of  their  being 

Into  our  own,  past  hearing,  seeing, 

As  men,  if  once  attempered  so, 

Far  off  each  other's  thought  can  know  ? 

As  horses  with  an  instant  thrill 

Measure  their  rider's  strength  of  will  ? 

Comes  not  to  all  some  glimpse  that  brings 

Strange  sense  of  sense-escaping  things  ? 

Wraiths  some  transfigured  nerve  divines  ? 

Approaches,  premonitions,  signs, 

Voices  of  Ariel  that  die  out 

In  the  dim  No  Man's  Land  of  Doubt  ? 

Are  these  Night's  dusky  birds  ?  Are  these 
Phantasmas  of  the  silences 


434 


LAST   POEMS 


Outer  or  inner  ?  — rude  heirlooms 
From  grovellers  in  the  cavern-glooms, 
Who  in  unhuman  Nature  saw 
Misshapen  foes  with  tusk  and  claw, 
And  with  those  night-fears  brute  and  blind 
Peopled  the  chaos  of  their  mind, 
Which,  in  ungovernable  hours, 
Still  make  their  bestial  lair  in  ours  ? 

Were    they,    or    were    they    not  ?     Yes; 

no; 

Uncalled  they  come,  unhid  they  go, 
And  leave  us  fumbling  in  a  doubt 
Whether  within  us  or  without 
The  spell  of  this  illusion  be 
That  witches  us  to  hear  and  see 
As  in  a  twi-life  what  it  will, 
And  hath  such  wonder-working  skill 
That  what  we  deemed  most  solid-wrought 
Turns  a  mere  figment  of  our  thought, 
Which  when  we  grasp  at  in  despair 
Our  fingers  find  vain  semblance  there, 
For  Psyche  seeks  a  corner-stone 
Firmer  than  aught  to  matter  known. 

Is  it  illusion  ?     Dream-stuff  ?     Show 

Made  of  the  wish  to  have  it  so  ? 

'T  were  something,  even  though  this  were 

all: 

So  the  poor  prisoner,  on  his  wall 
Long  gazing,  from  the  chance  designs 
Of  crack,  mould,  weather-stain,  refines 
New  and  new  pictures  without  cease, 
Landscape,  or  saint,  or  altar-piece : 
But  these  are  Fancy's  common  brood 
Hatched  in  the  nest  of  solitude; 
This  is  Dame  Wish's  hourly  trade, 
By  our  rude  sires  a  goddess  made. 
Could  longing,  though  its  heart  broke,  give 
Trances  in  which  we  chiefly  live  ? 
Moments  that  darken  all  beside, 
Tearfully  radiant  as  a  bride  ? 
Beckonings  of  bright  escape,  of  wings 
Purchased  with  loss  of  baser  things  ? 
Blithe  truancies  from  all  control 
Of  Hyle,  outings  of  the  soul  ? 

The  worm,  by  trustful  instinct  led, 
Draws  from  its  womb  a  slender  thread, 
And  drops,  confiding  that  the  breeze 
Will  waft  it  to  unpastured  trees: 
So  the  brain  spins  itself,  and  so 
Swings  boldly  off  in  hope  to  blow 
Across  some  tree  of  knowledge,  fair 


With  fruitage  new,  none  else  shall  share: 

Sated  with  wavering  in  the  Void, 

It  backward  climbs,  so  best  employed, 

And,  where  no  proof  is  nor  can  be, 

Seeks  refuge  with  Analogy; 

Truth's  soft  half-sister,  she  may  tell 

Where  lurks,  seld-sought,  the  other's  welt 

With  metaphysic  midges  sore, 

My  Thought  seeks  comfort  at  her  door, 

And,  at  her  feet  a  suppliant  cast, 

Evokes  a  spectre  of  the  past. 

Not  such  as  shook  the  knees  of  Saul, 

But  winsome,  golden-gay  withal,  — 

Two  fishes  in  a  globe  of  glass, 

That  pass,  and  waver,  and  re-pass, 

And  lighten  that  way,  and  then  this, 

Silent  as  meditation  is. 

With  a  half-humorous  smile  I  see 

In  this  their  aimless  industry, 

These  errands  nowhere  and  returns 

Grave  as  a  pair  of  funeral  urns, 

This  ever-seek  and  never-find, 

A  mocking  image  of  my  mind. 

But  not  for  this  I  bade  you  climb 

Up  from  the  darkening  deeps  of  time: 

Help  me  to  tame  these  wild  day-marea 

That  sudden  on  me  unawares. 

Fish,  do  your  duty,  as  did  they 

Of  the  Black  Island  far  away 

In  life's  safe  places,  —  far  as  you 

From  all  that  now  I  see  or  do. 

You  come,  embodied  flames,  as  when 

I  knew  you  first,  nor  yet  knew  men; 

Your  gold  renews  my  golden  days, 

Your  splendor  all  my  loss  repays. 

'T  is  more  than  sixty  years  ago 
Since  first  I  watched  your  to-and-froj 
Two  generations  come  and  gone 
From  silence  to  oblivion, 
With  all  their  noisy  strife  and  stress 
Lulled  in  the  grave's  forgivingness, 
While  you  unquenchably  survive 
Immortal,  almost  more  alive. 
I  watched  you  then  a  curious  boy, 
Who  in  your  beauty  found  full  joy, 
And,  by  no  problem-debts  distrest, 
Sate  at  life's  board  a  welcome  guest. 
You  were  my  sister's  pets,  not  mine; 
But  Property's  dividing  line 
No  hint  of  dispossession  drew 
On  any  map  my  simplesse  knew; 
O  golden  age,  not  yet  dethroned! 
What  made  me  happy,  that  I  owned; 


THE  ORACLE  OF  THE  GOLDFISHES 


435 


You  were  my  wonders,  you  my  Lars, 

In  darkling  days  my  sun  and  stars, 

And  over  you  entranced  I  hung, 

Too  young  to  know  that  I  was  young. 

Gazing  with  still  unsated  bliss, 

My  fancies  took  some  shape  like  this: 

"  I  have  my  world,  and  so  have  you, 

A  tiny  universe  for  two, 

A  bubble  by  the  artist  blown, 

Scarcely  more  fragile  than  our  own, 

Where  you  have  all  a  whale  could  wish, 

Happy  as  Eden's  primal  fish. 

Manna  is  dropt  you  thrice  a  day 

From  some  kind  heaven  not  far  away, 

And  still  you  snatch  its  softening  crumbs, 

Nor,  more  than  we,  think  whence  it  comes. 

No  toil  seems  yours  but  to  explore 

Your  cloistered  realm  from  shore  to  shore; 

Sometimes  you  trace  its  limits  round, 

Sometimes  its  limpid  depths  you  sound, 

Or  hover  motionless  midway, 

Like  gold-red  clouds  at  set  of  day; 

Erelong  you  whirl  with  sudden  whim 

Off  to  your  globe's  most  distant  rim, 

Where,  greatened  by  the  watery  lens, 

Methinks  no  dragon  of  the  fens 

Flashed  huger  scales  against  the  sky, 

Roused  by  Sir  Bevis  or  Sir  Guy, 

And  the  one  eye  that  meets  my  view, 

Lidless  and  strangely  largening,  too, 

Like  that  of  conscience  in  the  dark, 

Seems  to  make  me  its  single  mark. 

What  a  benignant  lot  is  yours 

That  have  an  own  All-out-of-doors, 

No  words  to  spell,  no  sums  to  do, 

No  Nepos  and  no  parlyvoo  ! 

How  happy  you  without  a  thought 

Of  such  cross  things  as  Must  and  Ought, — 

I  too  the  happiest  of  boys 

To  see  and  share  your  golden  joys  ! " 

So  thought  the  child,  in  simpler  words, 
Of  you  his  finny  flocks  and  herds; 
Now,  an  old  man,  I  bid  you  rise 
To  the  fine  sight  behind  the  eyes, 
And,  lo,  you  float  and  flash  again 
In  the  dark  cistern  of  my  brain. 
But  o'er  your  visioned  flames  I  brood 
With  other  mien,  in  other  mood; 
You  are  no  longer  there  to  please, 
But  to  stir  argument,  and  tease 
My  thought  with  all  the  ghostly  shapes 
From,  which  no  moody  man  escapes. 


Diminished  creature,  I  no  more 
Find  Fairyland  beside  my  door, 
But  for  each  moment's  pleasure  pay 
With  the  quart  d'heure  of  Rabelais ! 

I  watch  you  in  your  crystal  sphere, 

And  wonder  if  you  see  and  hear 

Those  shapes  and  sounds  that  stir  the  wide 

Conjecture  of  the  world  outside; 

In  your  pent  lives,  as  we  in  ours, 

Have  you  surmises  dim  of  powers, 

Of  presences  obscurely  shown, 

Of  lives  a  riddle  to  your  own, 

Just  on  the  senses'  outer  verge, 

Where  sense-nerves  into  soul-nerves  merge, 

Where  we  conspire  our  own  deceit 

Confederate  in  deft  Fancy's  feat, 

And  the  fooled  brain  befools  the  eyes 

With  pageants  woven  of  its  own  lies  ? 

But  are  they  lies  ?     Why  more  than  those 

Phantoms  that  startle  your  repose, 

Half  seen,  half  heard,  then  flit  away, 

And  leave  you  your  prose-bounded  day  ? 

The  things  ye  see  as  shadows  I 

Know  to  be  substance;  tell  me  why 

My  visions,  like  those  haunting  you, 

May  not  be  as  substantial  too. 

Alas,  who  ever  answer  heard 

From  fish,  and  dream-fish  too  ?     Absurd  ! 

Your  consciousness  I  half  divine, 

But  you  are  wholly  deaf  to  mine. 

Go,  I  dismiss  you;  ye  have  done 

All  that  ye  could;  our  silk  is  spun: 

Dive  back  into  the  deep  of  dreams, 

Where  what  is  real  is  what  seems  ! 

Yet  I  shall  fancy  till  my  grave 

Your  lives  to  mine  a  lesson  gave; 

If  lesson  none,  an  image,  then, 

Impeaching  self-conceit  in  men 

Who  put  their  confidence  alone 

In  what  they  call  the  Seen  and  Known. 

How  seen  ?     How   known  ?     As  through 

your  glass 

Our  wavering  apparitions  pass 
Perplexingly,  then  subtly  wrought 
To  some  quite  other  thing  by  thought. 
Here  shall  my  resolution  be: 
The  shadow  of  the  mystery 
Is  haply  wholesomer  for  eyes 
That  cheat  us  to  be  overwise, 
And  I  am  happy  in  my  right 
To  love  God's  darkness  as  His  light. 


436 


LAST   POEMS 


TURNER'S    OLD 


UNDER    A    FIGURE    SYMBOLIZING    THE 
CHURCH 

THOU  wast  the  fairest  of  all  man-made 

things; 
The  breath  of  heaven  bore  up  thy  cloudy 

wings, 

And,  patient  in  their  triple  rank, 
The  thunders  crouched  about  thy  flank, 
Their  black  lips   silent  with  the  doom  of 

kings. 

The  storm-wind  loved  to  rock  him  in  thy 

pines, 
And  swell  thy  vans  with  breath  of  great 

designs  ; 

Long-wildered  pilgrims  of  the  main 
By  thee  relaid  their  course  again, 
Whose  prow  was  guided  by  celestial  signs. 

How  didst  thou   trample   on   tumultuous 

seas, 
Or,  like  some  basking  sea-beast  stretched 

at  ease, 

Let  the  bull-fronted  surges  glide 
Caressingly  along  thy  side, 
Like  glad  hounds  leaping  by  the  hunts 

man's  knees  ! 

Heroic  feet,  with  fire  of  genius  shod, 
In  battle's  ecstasy  thy  deck  have  trod, 
While  from  their  touch  a  f  ulgor  ran 
Through  plank   and   spar,   from   man  to 

man, 
Welding  thee  to  a  thunderbolt  of  God. 

Now   a  black   demon,    belching   fire   and 

steam, 
Drags    thee    away,    a    pale,    dismantled 

dream, 

And  all  thy  desecrated  bulk 
Must  landlocked  lie,  a  helpless  hulk, 
To  gather  weeds  in  the  regardless  stream. 

Woe  's   me,  from    Ocean's   sky-horizoned 

air 
To   this  !     Better,     the    flame-cross    still 

aflare, 

Shot-shattered  to  have  met  thy  doom 
Where   thy   last    lightnings   cheered    the 

gloom, 
Than  here  be  safe  in  dangerless  despair. 


Thy    drooping    symbol    to    the    flagstaff 

clings, 

Thy  rudder  soothes  the  tide  to  lazy  rings, 
Thy  thunders  now  but  birthdays  greet, 
Thy  planks  forget  the  martyrs'  feet, 
Thy  masts  what   challenges  the  sea-wind 

brings. 

Thou    a    mere    hospital,    where    human 

wrecks, 
Like    winter-flies,   crawl   those   renowned 

decks, 

Ne'er  trodden  save  by  captive  foes, 
And  wonted  sternly  to  impose 
God's  will  and  thine   on  bowed  imperial 

necks  ! 

Shall  nevermore,  engendered  of  thy  fame, 
A  new  sea-eagle  heir  thy  conqueror  name, 
And  with  commissioned  talons  wrench 
From  thy  supplanter's  grimy  clench 
His  sheath  of   steel,  his  wings  of  smoke 
and  flame  ? 

This  shall  the  pleased  eyes  of  our  children 

see; 
For  this  the  stars  of   God  long   even   as 

we; 

Earth  listens  for  his  wings;  the  Fates 
Expectant  lean;  Faith  cross-propt  waits, 
And  the  tired  waves  of  Thought's  insur 
gent  sea. 


ST.   MICHAEL  THE   WEIGHER 

STOOD  the  tall  Archangel  weighing 
All  man's  dreaming,  doing,  saying, 
All  the  failure  and  the  pain, 
All  the  triumph  and  the  gain, 
In  the  unimagined  years, 
Full  of  hopes,  more  full  of  tears, 
Since  old  Adam's  hopeless  eyes 
Backward  searched  for  Paradise, 
And,  instead,  the  flame-blade  saw 
Of  inexorable  Law. 

Waking,  I  beheld  him  there, 
With  his  fire-gold,  flickering  hair, 
In  his  blinding  armor  stand, 
And  the  scales  were  in  his  hand: 
Mighty  were  they,  and  full  well 
They  could  poise  both  heaven  and  hell 
"  Angel,"  asked  I  humbly  then, 
"  Weighest  thou  the  souls  of  men  ? 


AN   APRIL   BIRTHDAY  — AT   SEA 


437 


That  thine  office  is,  I  know." 
"  Nay,"  he  answered  me,  "  not  so; 
But  I  weigh  the  hope  of  Man 
Since  the  power  of  choice  began, 
In  the  world,  of  good  or  ill." 
Then  I  waited  and  was  still. 

In  one  scale  I  saw  him  place 
All  the  glories  of  our  race, 
Cups  that  lit  Belshazzar's  feast, 
Gems,  the  lightning  of  the  East, 
Kublai's  sceptre,  Caesar's  sword, 
Many  a  poet's  golden  word, 
Many  a  skill  of  science,  vain 
To  make  men  as  gods  again. 

In  the  other  scale  he  threw 

Things  regardless,  outcast,  few, 

Martyr-ash,  arena  sand, 

Of  St.  Francis'  cord  a  strand, 

Beechen  cups  of  men  whose  need 

Fasted  that  the  poor  might  feed, 

Disillusions  and  despairs 

Of  young  saints  with  grief-grayed  hairs, 

Broken  hearts  that  brake  for  Man. 

Marvel  through  my  pulses  ran 
Seeing  then  the  beam  divine 
Swiftly  on  this  hand  decline, 
While  Earth's  splendor  and  renown 
Mounted  light  as  thistle-down. 


A   VALENTINE 

LET  others  wonder  what  fair  face 

Upon  their  path  shall  shine, 
And,  fancying  half,  half  hoping,  trace 

Some  maiden  shape  of  tenderest  grace 
To  be  their  Valentine. 

Let  other  hearts  with  tremor  sweet 

One  secret  wish  enshrine 
That  Fate  may  lead  their  happy  feet 

Fair  Julia  in  the  lane  to  meet 
To  be  their  Valentine. 

But  I,  far  happier,  am  secure; 

I  know  the  eyes  benign, 
The  face  more  beautiful  and  pure 

Than  Fancy's  fairest  portraiture 
That  mark  my  Valentine. 

More  than  when  first  I  singled  thee, 
This  only  prayer  is  mine, — 


That,  in  the  years  I  yet  shall  see, 
As,  darling,  in  the  past,  thou  'It  be 
My  happy  Valentine. 


AN  APRIL  BIRTHDAY  — AT  SEA 

ON  this  wild  waste,  where  never  blossom 

came, 
Save  the  white  wind-flower  in  the  billow's 

cap, 

Or  those  pale  disks  of  momentary  flame, 
Loose  petals  dropped  from  Dian's  care 
less  lap, 
What  far  fetched  influence  all  my  fancy 

fills, 

With  singing  birds  and  dancing  daffo 
dils  ? 

Why,  't   is  her   day   whom   jocund  April 

brought, 
And  who  brings  April  with  her  in  her 

eyes; 

It  is  her  vision  lights  my  lonely  thought, 
Even  as  a  rose  that  opes  its  hushed  sur 
prise 

In  sick  men's  chambers,  with  its  glow 
ing  breath 

Plants   Summer  at  the  glacier  edge  of 
Death. 

Gray   sky,    sea  gray   as   mossy  stones  on 

graves; — 

Anon  comes  April  in  her  jollity; 
And  dancing  down  the  bleak  vales  'tween 

the  waves, 
Makes  them  green  glades   for   all  her 

flowers  and  me. 
The  gulls  turn  thrushes,  charmed  are 

sea  and  sky 

By  magic  of  my  thought,  and  know 
not  why. 

Ah,  but  I  know,  for  never  April's  shine, 
Nor  passion  gust  of  rain,  nor   all   her 

flowers 
Scattered   in   haste,  were  seen  so  sudden 

fine 
As  she  in  various  mood,  on  whom  the 

powers 
Of  happiest   stars  in  fair  conjunction 

smiled 

To  bless  the  birth  of  April's  darling 
child. 


43* 


LAST  POEMS 


LOVE  AND  THOUGHT 

WHAT  hath  Love  with  Thought  to  do  ? 
Still  at  variance  are  the  two. 
Love  is  sudden,  Love  is  rash, 
Love  is  like  the  levin  flash, 
Comes  as  swift,  as  swiftly  goes, 
And  his  mark  as  surely  knows. 

Thought  is  lumpish,  Thought  is  slow, 
Weighing  long  'tween  yes  and  no; 
When  dear  Love  is  dead  and  gone, 
Thought  comes  creeping  in  anon, 
And,  in  his  deserted  nest, 
Sits  to  hold  the  crowner's  quest. 

Since  we  love,  what  need  to  think  ? 
Happiness  stands  on  a  brink 
Whence  too  easy  't  is  to  fall 
Whither  's  no  return  at  all; 
Have  a  care,  half-hearted  lover, 
Thought  would  only  push  her  over  ! 


THE    NOBLER   LOVER 

IF  he  be  a  nobler  lover,  take  him  ! 

You  in  you  I  seek,  and  not  myself; 
Love  with  men  's  what  women  choose  to 
make  him, 

Seraph  strong  to  soar,  or  fawn-eyed  elf: 
All  I  am  or  can,  your  beauty  gave  it, 

Lifting  me  a  moment  nigh  to  you, 
And  my  bit  of  heaven,  I  fain  would  save 
it  — 

Mine  I  thought  it  was,  I  never  knew. 

What  you  take  of   me  is  yours  to   serve 

you, 

All  I  give,  you  gave  to  me  before ; 
Let  him  win  you  !     If  I  but  deserve  you, 
I  keep  all  you  grant  to  him  and  more: 
You  shall  make  me  dare  what  others  dare 

not, 

You  shall  keep  my  nature  pure  as  snow, 
And  a  light   from  you  that  others  share 

not 
Shall  transfigure  me  where'er  I  go. 

Let  me  be  your  thrall !     However  lowly 
Be  the  bondsman's  service  I  can  do, 

Loyalty  shall  make  it  high  and  holy; 
Naught  can  be  unworthy,  done  for  you. 


Men  shall  say,  "  A  lover  of  this  fashion 
Such  an  icy  mistress  well  beseems." 

Women  say,  "  Could  we  deserve  such  pas 
sion, 
We  might  be  the  marvel  that  he  dreams." 


ON  HEARING  A  SONATA  OF 
BEETHOVEN'S  PLAYED  IN 
THE  NEXT  ROOM 

UNSEEN  Musician,  thou  art  sure  to  please, 
For  those  same  notes  in  happier  days  I 

heard 
Poured  by  dear  hands  that  long  have  never 

stirred 

Yet  now  again  for  me  delight  the  keys: 
Ah  me,  to  strong  illusions  such  as  these 
What    are   Life's    solid    things?     The 

walls  that  gird 

Our  senses,  lo,  a  casual  scent  or  word 
Levels,  and  't  is  the  soul  that  hears  and 

sees  ! 

Play  on,  dear  girl,  and  many  be  the  years 
Ere  some  grayhaired  survivor  sit  like 

me 
And,  for  thy  largess  pay  a  meed  of  tears 

Unto  another  who,  beyond  the  sea 
Of   Time  and  Change,  perhaps  not  sadly 

hears 

A   music   in   this   verse   undreamed   by 
thee  ! 

VERSES 

INTENDED  TO  GO  WITH  A  POSSET  DISH 
TO  MY  DEAR  LITTLE  GODDAUGHTER, 
1882 

It  is  of  interest  to  know  that  the  goddaugh 
ter  was  a  child  of  Leslie  Stephen. 

IN  good  old  times,  which  means,  you  know, 
The  time  men  wasted  long  ago, 
And  we  must  blame  our  brains  or  mood 
If  that  we  squander  seems  less  good, 
In  those  blest  days  when  wish  was  act 
And  fancy  dreamed  itself  to  fact, 
Godfathers  used  to  fill  with  guineas 
The  cups  they  gave  their  pickaninnies, 
Performing  functions  at  the  chrism 
Not  mentioned  in  the  Catechism. 
No  millioner,  poor  I  fill  up 
With  wishes  my  more  modest  cup, 
Though  had  I  Amalthea's  horn 


ON   A   BUST   OF    GENERAL   GRANT 


439 


It  should  be  hers  the  newly  born. 
Nay,  shudder  not !     I  should  bestow  it 
So  brimming  full  she  could  n't  blow  it. 
Wishes  are  n't  horses:  true,  but  still 
There  are  worse  roadsters  than  goodwill. 
And  so  I  wish  my  darling  health, 
And  just  to  round  my  couplet,  wealth, 
With  faith  enough  to  bridge  the  chasm 
'Twixt  Genesis  and  Protoplasm, 
And  bear  her  o'er  life's  current  vext 
From  this  world  to  a  better  next, 
Where  the  full  glow  of  God  puts  out 
Poor  reason's  farthing  candle,  Doubt. 
I've  wished  her  healthy,  wealthy,  wise, 
What  more  can  godfather  devise  ? 
But  since  there 's  room  for  countless  wishes 
In  these  old-fashioned  posset  dishes, 
I  '11  wish  her  from  my  plenteous  store 
Of  those  commodities  two  more, 
Her    father's     wit,   veined    through    and 

through 

With  tenderness  that  Watts  (but  whew  ! 
Celia  's  aflame,  I  mean  no  stricture 
On  his  Sir  Josh-surpassing  picture)  — 
I  wish  her  next,  and  't  is  the  soul 
Of  all  I  've  dropt  into  the  bowl, 
Her  mother's  beauty  —  nay,  but  two 
So  fair  at  once  would  never  do. 
Then  let  her  but  the  half  possess, 
Troy  was  besieged  ten  years  for  less. 
Now  if  there  's  any  truth  in  Darwin, 
And  we  from  what  was,  all  we  are  win, 
I  simply  wish  the  child  to  be 
A  sample  of  Heredity, 
Enjoying  to  the  full  extent 
Life's  best,  the  Unearned  Increment 
Which  Fate  her  Godfather  to  flout 
Gave  him  in  legacies  of  gout. 
Thus,  then,  the  cup  is  duly  filled; 
Walk  steady,  dear,  lest  all  be  spilled. 

ON  A  BUST  OF  GENERAL  GRANT 

"  This  poem  is  the  last,  so  far  as  is  known, 
written  by  Mr.  Lowell.  He  laid  it  aside  for 
revision,  leaving  two  of  the  verses  incomplete. 
In  a  pencilled  fragment  of  the  poem  the  first 
verse  appears  as  follows  :  — 

'  Strong,  simple,  silent,  such  are  Nature's  Laws.' 

In  the  final  copy,  from  which  the  poem  is  now 
printed,  the  verse  originally  stood :  — 

'  Strong,  steadfast,  silent  are  the         laws.' 

but  '  steadfast '  ia  crossed  out,  and  '  simple  ' 
written  above. 


"A  similar  change  is  made  in  the  ninth 
verse  of  the  stanza,  where  '  simpleness '  is  sub 
stituted  for  '  steadfastness.'  The  change  from 
'  steadfast '  to  '  simple  '  was  not  made,  prob 
ably  through  oversight,  in  the  first  verse  of  the 
second  stanza.  There  is  nothing  to  indicate 
what  epithet  Mr.  Lowell  would  have  chosen 
to  complete  the  first  verse  of  the  third  stanza. 
C.  E.  N." 

STRONG,  simple,  silent  are  the  [steadfast] 

laws 

That  sway  this  universe,  of  none  withstood, 
Unconscious  of  man's  outcries  or  applause, 
Or  what  man  deems  his  evil  or  his  good; 
And  when  the  Fates  ally  them  with  a  cause 
That  wallows  in  the  sea-trough  and  seems 

lost, 

Drifting  in  danger  of  the  reefs  and  sands 
Of    shallow   counsels,  this  way,  that  way, 

tost, 
Strength,  silence,  simpleness,  of  these  three 

strands 
They  twist  the  cable  shall  the  world  hold 

fast 
To  where  its  anchors  clutch  the  bed-rock  of 

the  Past. 

Strong,  simple,  silent,  therefore  such  was 

he 

Who  helped  us  in  our  need;  the  eternal  law 
That  who  can  saddle  Opportunity 
Is  God's  elect,  though  many  a  mortal  flaw 
May  minish  him  in  eyes  that  closely  see, 
Was  verified  in  him:  what  need  we  say 
Of   one  who   made   success   where    others 

failed, 
Who,  with  no  light  save  that  of  common 

day, 

Struck  hard,  and  still  struck  on  till  For 
tune  quailed, 
But  that  (so  sift   the  Norns)  a  desperate 

van 

Ne'er  fell  at  last  to  one  who  was  not  wholly 
man. 

A  face  all  prose  where  Time's  [benignant] 

haze 

Softens  no  raw  edge  yet,  nor  makes  all  fair 
With  the  beguiling  light  of  vanished  days; 
This  is  relentless  granite,  bleak  and  bare, 
Roughhewn,    and     scornful    of    aesthetic 

phrase ; 
Nothing   is   here    for    fancy,    naught    for 

dreams, 
The  Present's  hard  uncompromising  light 


440 


LAST   POEMS 


Accents   all    vulgar    outlines,  flaws,   and 

seams, 

Yet  vindicates  some  pristine  natural  right 
O'ertopping  that  hereditary  grace 
Which  marks  the  gain  or  loss  of  some  time- 
fondled  race. 

So  Marius   looked,   methinks,  and  Crom 
well  so, 

Not  in  the  purple  born,  to  those  they  led 
Nearer  for  that  and  costlier  to  the  foe, 
New  moulders   of   old   forms,   by   nature 

bred 
The  exhaustless  life  of  manhood's  seeds  to 

show, 
Let   but   the    ploughshare   of    portentous 

times 
Strike  deep  enough  to   reach  them  where 

they  lie: 
Despair   and   danger    are   their   fostering 

climes, 
And  their  best  sun  bursts  from  a  stormy 

sky: 

He  was  our  man  of  men,  nor  would  abate 
The   utmost  due  manhood  could  claim  of 

fate. 

Nothing  ideal,  a  plain-people's  man 
At  the  first  glance,  a  more  deliberate  ken 
Finds  type  primeval,  theirs  in  whose  veins 
ran 


Such  blood  as  quelled  the  dragon  in  his 

den, 
Made  harmless  fields,  and  better  worlds 

began: 

He  came  grim-silent,  saw  and  did  the  deed 
That  was  to  do;  in  his  master-grip 
Our  sword  flashed  joy;  no  skill  of  words 

could  breed 
Such  sure  conviction  as  that  close-clamped 

lip; 
Ke  slew  our  dragon,   nor,  so   seemed   it, 

knew 
He  had  done  more  than  any  simplest  man 

might  do. 

Yet  did  this  man,  war-tempered,  stern  as 

steel 
Where  steel  opposed,  prove  soft  in  civil 

sway; 
The  hand  hilt-hardened  had  lost  tact   to 

feel 
The  world's  base  coin,  and  glozing  knaves 

made  prey 

Of  him  and  of  the  entrusted  Commonweal; 
So  Truth  insists  and  will  not  be  denied. 
We  turn  our  eyes  away,  and  so  will  Fame, 
As  if  in  his  last  battle  he  had  died 
Victor  for  us  and  spotless  of  all  blame, 
Doer  of  hopeless  tasks  which  praters  shirk, 
One  of  those  still  plain  men  that  do  the 

world's  rough  work. 


APPENDIX 


I.  INTRODUCTION  TO  THE  SECOND 
SERIES  OF  BIGLOW  PAPERS 

[Lowell  took  occasion,  when  collecting  in  a 
book  the  several  numbers  of  the  second  series 
of  "Biglow  Papers,"  which  had  appeared  in  the 
"AtlanticMonthly,"  to  prefix  an  essay  which  not 
only  gave  a  personal  narrative  of  the  origin  of 
the  whole  scheme,  but  particularly  dwelt  upon 
the  use  in  literature  of  the  homely  dialect  in 
which  the  poems  were  couched.  In  this  Cam 
bridge  Edition  it  has  seemed  expedient  to  print 
the  Introduction  here  rather  than  in  immediate 
connection  with  the  poems  themselves.] 

THOUGH  prefaces  seem  of  late  to  have  fallen 
under  some  reproach,  they  have  at  least  this 
advantage,  that  they  set  us  again  on  the  feet  of 
our  personal  consciousness  and  rescue  us  from 
the  gregarious  mock-modesty  or  cowardice  of 
that  we  which  shrills  feebly  throughput  modern 
literature  like  the  shrieking  of  mice  in  the  walls 
of  a  house  that  has  passed  its  prime.  Having 
a  few  words  to  say  to  the  many  friends  whom 
the  "  Biglow  Papers  "  have  won  me,  I  shall  ac 
cordingly  take  the  freedom  of  the  first  person 
singular  of  the  personal  pronoun.  Let  each  of 
the  good-natured  unknown  who  have  cheered 
me  by  the  written  communication  of  their  sym 
pathy  look  upon  this  Introduction  as  a  private 
letter  to  himself. 

When,  more  than  twenty  years  ago,  I  wrote 
the  first  of  the  series,  I  had  no  definite  plan  and 
no  intention  of  ever  writing  another.  Thinking 
the  Mexican  war,  as  I  think  it  still,  a  national 
crime  committed  in  behoof  of  Slavery,  our  com 
mon  sin,  and  wishing  to  put  the  feeling  of  those 
who  thought  as  I  did  in  a  way  that  would  tell, 
I  imagined  to  myself  such  an  upcountry  man 
as  I  had  often  seen  at  antislavery  gatherings, 
capable  of  district-school  English,  but  always 
instinctively  falling  back  into  the  natural 
stronghold  of  his  homely  dialect  when  heated 
to  the  point  of  self-forgetfulness.  When  I  be 
gan  to  carry  out  my  conception  and  to  write 
in  my  assumed  character,  I  found  myself  in  a 
strait  between  two  perils.  On  the  one  hand,  I 
was  in  danger  of  being  carried  beyond  the  limit 
of  my  own  opinions,  or  at  least  of  that  temper 
with  which  every  man  should  speak  his  mind 
in  print,  and  on  the  other  I  feared  the  risk  of 
seeming  to  vulgarize  a  deep  and  sacred  con 
viction.  I  needed  on  occasion  to  rise  above  the 
level  of  mere  patois,  and  for  this  purpose  con 
ceived  the  Rev.  Mr.  Wilbur,  who  should  ex 
press  the  more  cautious  element  of  the  New 
England  character  and  its  pedantry,  as  Mr. 


Biglow  should  serve  for  its  homely  common* 
sense  vivified  and  heated  by  conscience.  The 
parson  was  to  be  the  complement  rather  than 
the  antithesis  of  his  parishioner,  and  I  felt  or 
fancied  a  certain  humorous  element  in  the  real 
identity  of  the  two  under  a  seeming  incongruity. 
Mr.  Wilbur's  fondness  for  scraps  of  Latin, 
though  drawn  from  the  life,  I  adopted  de 
liberately  to  heighten  the  contrast.  Finding 
soon  after  that  I  needed  some  one  as  a  mouth 
piece  of  the  mere  drollery,  for  I  conceive  that 
true  humor  is  never  divorced  from  moral  con 
viction,  I  invented  Mr.  Sawin  for  the  clown  of 
my  little  puppet-show.  I  meant  to  embody  in 
him  that  half -conscious  unmorality  which  I  had 
noticed  as  the  recoil  in  gross  natures  from  a 
puritanism  that  still  strove  to  keep  in  its  creed 
the  intense  savor  which  had  long  gone  out  of  its 
faith  and  life.  In  the  three  I  thought  I  should 
find  room  enough  to  express,  as  it  was  my  plan 
to  do,  the  popular  feeling  and  opinion  of  the 
time.  For  the  names  of  two  of  my  characters, 
since  I  have  received  some  remonstrances  from 
very  worthy  persons  who  happen  to  bear  them, 
I  would  say  that  they  were  purely  fortuitous, 
probably  mere  unconscious  memories  of  sign 
boards  or  directories.  Mr.  Sawin's  sprang  from 
the  accident  of  a  rhyme  at  the  end  of  his  first 
epistle,  and  I  purposely  christened  him  by  the 
impossible  surname  of  Birdofredum  not  more 
to  stigmatize  him  as  the  incarnation  of  "Mani 
fest  Destiny,"  in  other  words,  of  national  reck 
lessness  as  to  right  and  wrong,  than  to  avoid  the 
chance  of  wounding  any  private  sensitiveness. 

The  success  of  my  experiment  soon  began  not 
only  to  astonish  me,  but  to  make  me  feel  the 
responsibility  of  knowing  that  I  held  in  my 
hand  a  weapon  instead  of  the  mere  fencing- 
stick  I  had  supposed.  Very  far  from  being  a 
popular  author  under  my  own  name,  so  far, 
indeed,  as  to  be  almost  unread,  I  found  the 
verses  of  my  pseudonym  copied  everywhere ; 
I  saw  them  pinned  up  in  workshops  ;  I  heard 
them  quoted  and  their  authorship  debated ;  I 
once  even,  when  rumor  had  at  length  caught 
up  my  name  in  one  of  its  eddies,  had  the  satis 
faction  of  overhearing  it  demonstrated,  in  the 
pauses  of  a  concert,  that  /  was  utterly  incpm- 

ftent  to  have  written  anything  of  the  kind, 
had  read  too  much  not  to  know  the  utter 
worthlessness  of  contemporary  reputation,  es 
pecially  as  regards  satire,  but  I  knew  also  that 
by  giving  a  certain  amount  of  influence  it  also 
had  its  worth,  if  that  influence  were  used  on 
the  right  side.  I  had  learned,  too,  that  the 
first  requisite  of  good  writing  is  to  have  an 
earnest  and  definite  purpose,  whether  aesthetic 


442 


APPENDIX 


or  moral,  and  that  even  good  writing,  to  please 
long,  must  have  more  than  an  average  amount 
either  of  imagination  or  common-sense.  The 
first  of  these  falls  to  the  lot  of  scarcely  one  in 
several  generations ;  the  last  is  within  the  reach 
of  many  in  every  one  that  passes ;  and  of  this 
an  author  may  fairly  hope  to  become  in  part 
the  mouthpiece.  If  I  put  on  the  cap  and  bells 
and  made  myself  one  of  the  court-fools  of  King 
Demos,  it  was  less  to  make  his  majesty  laugh 
than  to  win  a  passage  to  his  royal  ears  for  cer 
tain  serious  things  which  I  had  deeply  at  heart. 
I  say  this  because  there  is  no  imputation  that 
could  be  more  galling  to  any  man's  self-respect 
than  that  of  being  a  mere  jester.  I  endeavored, 
by  generalizing  my  satire,  to  give  it  what  value 
I  could  beyond  the  passing  moment  and  the  im 
mediate  application.  How  far  I  have  succeeded 
I  cannot  tell,  but  I  have  had  better  luck  than 
I  ever  looked  for  in  seeing  my  verses  survive  to 
pass  beyond  their  nonage. 

In  choosing  the  Yankee  dialect,  I  did  not  act 
without  forethought.  It  had  long  seemed  to 
me  that  the  great  vice  of  American  writing  and 
speaking  was  a  studied  want  of  simplicity,  that 
we  were  in  danger  of  coming  to  look  on  our 
mother-tongue  as  a  dead  language,  to  be  sought 
in  the  grammar  and  dictionary  rather  than  in 
the  heart,  and  that  our  only  chance  of  escape 
was  by  seeking  it  at  its  living  sources  among 
those  who  were,  as  Scottowe  says  of  Major- 
General  Gibbons,  "  divinely  illiterate."  Presi 
dent  Lincoln,  the  only  really  great  public  man 
whom  these  latter  days  have  seen,  was  great 
also  in  this,  that  he  was  master  —  witness  his 
speech  at  Gettysburg  —  of  a  truly  masculine 
English,  classic,  because  it  was  of  no  special 
period,  and  level  at  once  to  the  highest  and 
lowest  of  his  countrymen.  I  learn  from  the 
highest  authority  that  his  favorite  reading  was 
in  Shakespeare  and  Milton,  to  which,  of  course, 
the  Bible  should  be  added.  But  whoever 
should  read  the  debates  in  Congress  might  fancy 
himself  present  at  a  meeting  of  the  city  council 
of  some  city  of  Southern  Gaul  in  the  decline  of 
the  Empire,  where  barbarians  with  a  Latin 
varnish  emulated  each  other  in  being  more  than 
Ciceronian.  Whether  it  be  want  of  culture,  for 
the  highest  outcome  of  that  is  simplicity,  or  for 
whatever  reason,  it  is  certain  that  very  few 
American  writers  or  speakers  wield  their  native 
language  with  the  directness,  precision,  and 
force  that  are  common  as  the  day  in  the  mother 
country.  We  use  it  like  Scotsmen,  not  as  if  it 
belonged  to  us,  but  as  if  we  wished  to  prove 
that  we  belonged  to  it,  by  showing  our  inti 
macy  with  its  written  rather  than  with  its 
spoken  dialect.  And  yet  all  the  while  our 
popular  idiom  is  racy  with  life  and  vigor  and 
originality,  bucksome  (as  Milton  used  the  word) 
to  our  new  occasions,  and  proves  itself  no  mere 
graft  by  sending  up  new  suckers  from  the  old 
root  in  spite  of  us.  It  is  only  from  its  roots  in 
the  living  generations  of  men  that  a  language 
can  be  reinforced  with  fresh  vigor  for  its  needs  ; 
what  may  be  called  a  literate  dialect  grows  ever 
more  and  more  pedantic  and  foreign,  till  it  be 


comes  at  last  as  unfitting  a  vehicle  for  living 
thought  as  monkish  Lathi.  That  we  should  all 
be  made  to  talk  like  books  is  the  danger  with 
which  we  are  threatened  by  the  Universal 
Schoolmaster,  who  does  his  best  to  enslave  the 
minds  and  memories  of  his  victims  to  what  he 
esteems  the  best  models  of  English  composi 
tion,  that  is  to  say,  to  the  writers  whose  style 
is  faultily  correct  and  has  no  blood-warmth  in 
it.  No  language  after  it  has  faded  into  diction, 
none  that  cannot  suck  up  the  feeding  juices 
secreted  for  it  in  the  rich  mother-earth  of  com 
mon  folk,  can  bring  forth  a  sound  and  lusty 
book.  True  vigor  and  heartiness  of  phrase  do 
not  pass  from  page  to  page,  but  from  man  to 
man,  where  the  brain  is  kindled  and  the  lips 
suppled  by  downright  living  interests  and  by 
passion  in  its  very  throe.  Language  is  the  soil 
of  thought,  and  our  own  especially  is  a  rich 
leaf-mould,  the  slow  deposit  of  ages,  the  shed 
foliage  of  feeling,  fancy,  and  imagination,  which 
has  suffered  an  earth-change,  that  the  vocal  for 
est,  as  Howell  called  it,  may  clothe  itself  anew 
with  living  green.  There  is  death  in  the  diction 
ary  ;  and,  where  language  is  too  strictly  limited 
by  convention,  the  ground  for  expression  to  grow 
in  is  limited  also  ;  and  we  get  a  potted  literature* 
Chinese  dwarfs  instead  of  healthy  trees. 

But  while  the  schoolmaster  has  been  busy 
starching  our  language  and  smoothing  it  flat 
with  the  mangle  of  a  supposed  classical  author 
ity,  the  newspaper  reporter  has  been  doing  even 
more  harm  by  stretching  and  swelling  it  to  suit 
his  occasions.  A  dozen  years  ago  I  began  a  list, 
which  I  have  added  to  from  time  to  time,  of 
some  of  the  changes  which  may  be  fairly  laid 
at  his  door.  I  give  a  few  of  them  as  showing 
their  tendency,  all  the  more  dangerous  that 
their  effect,  like  that  of  some  poisons,  is  insen 
sibly  cumulative,  and  that  they  are  sure  at  last 
of  effect  among  a  people  whose  chief  reading  is 
the  daily  paper.  I  give  in  two  columns  the  old 
style  and  its  modern  equivalent. 


Old  Style. 
Was  hanged. 

When  the  halter  was  put 
round  his  neck. 


A  great  crowd  came  to  see. 

Great  fire. 
The  fire  spread. 

House  burned. 

The  fire  was  got  under. 

Man  fell. 

A  horse  and  wagon  ran 
against. 


The  frightened  horse. 
Sent  for  the  doctor. 


The  mayor  of  the  city  in  a 
short  speech  welcomed. 


New  Style. 

Was  launched  into  eternity. 

When  the  fatal  noose  was 
adjusted  about  the  neck 
of  the  unfortunate  victim 
of  his  own  unbridled  pas 
sions. 

A  vast  concourse  was  assem 
bled  to  witness. 

Disastrous  conflagration. 

The  conflagration  extended 
its  devastating  career. 

Edifice  consumed. 

The  progress  of  the  devour 
ing  element  was  arrested. 

Individual  was  precipitated. 

A  valuable  horse  attached 
to  a  vehicle  driven  by  J. 
S.,  in  the  employment  of 
J.  B.,  collided  with. 

The  infuriated  animal. 

Called  into  requisition  the 
services  of  the  family 
physician. 

The  chief  magistrate  of  the 
metropolis,  in  well-chosen 


INTRODUCTION   TO   THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


443 


and  eloquent  language, 
frequently  interrupted  by 
the  plaudits  of  the  surg 
ing  multitude,  officially 
tendered  the  hospitalities. 

I  shall  say  a  few  words.  I  shall,  with  your  permis 
sion,  beg  leave  to  offer 
some  brief  observations. 

Began  his  answer.  Commenced  his  rejoinder. 

Asked  him  to  dine.  Tendered  him  a  banquet. 

A  bystander  advised.  One  of  those  omnipresent 

characters  who,  as  if  in 
pursuance  of  some  pre 
vious  arrangement,  are 
certain  to  be  encountered 
in  the  vicinity  when  an 
accident  occurs,  ventured 
the  suggestion. 

He  died.  He  deceased,  he  passed  out 

of  existence,  his  spirit 
quitted  its  earthly  habita 
tion,  winged  its  way  to 
eternity,  shook  off  its 
burden,  etc. 

In  one  sense  this  is  nothing  new.  The  school 
of  Pope  in  verse  ended  by  wire-drawing  its 
phrase  to  such  thinness  that  it  could  bear  no 
weight  of  meaning  whatever.  Nor  is  fine  writ 
ing  by  any  means  confined  to  America.  All 
writers  without  imagination  fall  into  it  of  ne 
cessity  whenever  they  attempt  the  figurative. 
I  take  two  examples  from  Mr.  Merivale's 
"  History  of  the  Romans  under  the  Empire," 
which,  indeed,  is  full  of  such.  "  The  last  years 
of  the  age  familiarly  styled  the  Augustan  were 
singularly  barren  of  the  literary  glories  from 
which  its  celebrity  was  chiefly  derived.  One 
by  one  the  stars  in  its  firmament  had  been  lost 
to  the  world  ;  Virgil  and  Horace,  etc.,  had  long 
since  died ;  the  charm  which  the  imagination 
of  Livy  had  thrown  over  the  earlier  annals  of 
Rome  had  ceased  to  shine  on  the  details  of  al 
most  contemporary  history  ;  and  if  the  flood  of 
his  eloquence  still  continued  flowing,  we  can 
hardly  suppose  that  the  stream  was  r,s  rapid,  as 
fresh,  and  as  clear  as  ever."  I  will  not  waste 
time  in  criticising  the  bad  English  or  the  mix 
ture  of  metaphor  in  these  sentences,  but  will 
simply  cite  another  from  the  same  author  which 
is  even  worse.  "  The  shadowy  phantom  of  the 
Republic  continued  to  flit  before  the  eyes  of 
the  Caesar.  There  was  still,  he  apprehended,  a 
germ  of  sentiment  existing,  on  which  a  scion  of 
his  own  house,  or  even  a  stranger,  might  boldly 
throw  himself  and  raise  the  standard  of  patri 
cian  independence."  Now  a  ghost  may  haunt 
a  murderer,  but  hardly,  I  should  think,  to  scare 
him  with  the  threat  of  taking  a  new  lease  of  its 
old  tenement.  And  fancy  the  scion  of  a  house 
in  the  act  of  throwing  itself  upon  a  germ  of  senti 
ment  to  raise  a  standard  I  I  am  glad,  since  we 
have  so  much  in  the  same  kind  to  answer  for, 
that  this  bit  of  horticultural  rhetoric  is  from 
beyond  sea.  I  would  not  be  supposed  to  con 
demn  truly  imaginative  prose.  There  is  a 
simplicity  of  splendor,  no  less  than  of  plain 
ness,  and  prose  would  be  poor  indeed  if  it  could 
not  find  a  tongue  for  that  meaning  of  the  mind 
which  is  behind  the  meaning  of  the  words.  It 


has  sometimes  seemed  to  me  that  in  England 
there  was  a  growing  tendency  to  curtail  lan 
guage  into  a  mere  convenience,  and  to  defecate 
it  of  all  emotion  as  thoroughly  as  algebraic 
signs.  This  has  arisen,  no  doubt,  in  part  from 
that  healthy  national  contempt  of  humbug 
which  is  characteristic  of  Englishmen,  in  part 
from  that  sensitiveness  to  the  ludicrous  which 
makes  them  so  shy  of  expressing  feeling,  but  in 
part  also,  it  is  to  be  feared,  from  a  growing 
distrust,  one  might  almost  say  hatred,  of  what 
ever  is  super-material.  There  is  something  sad 
in  the  scorn  with  which  their  journalists  treat 
the  notion  of  there  being  such  a  thing  as  a 
national  ideal,  seeming  utterly  to  have  forgot 
ten  that  even  in  the  affairs  of  this  world  the 
imagination  is  as  much  matter-of-fact  as  the  un 
derstanding.  If  we  were  to  trust  the  impres 
sion  made  on  us  by  some  of  the  cleverest  and 
most  characteristic  of  their  periodical  literature, 
we  should  think  England  hopelessly  stranded  on 
the  good-humored  cynicism  of  well-to-do  middle- 
age,  and  should  fancy  it  an  enchanted  nation, 
doomed  to  sit  forever  with  its  feet  under  the 
mahogany  in  that  after-dinner  mood  which  fol 
lows  conscientious  repletion,  and  which  it  is 
ill-manners  to  disturb  with  any  topics  more 
exciting  than  the  quality  of  the  wines.  But 
there  are  already  symptoms  that  a  large  class 
of  Englishmen  are  getting  weary  of  the  domin 
ion  of  consols  and  divine  common-sense,  and  to 
believe  that  eternal  three  per  cent  is  not  the 
chief  end  of  man,  nor  the  highest  and  only 
kind  of  interest  to  which  the  powers  and  oppor 
tunities  of  England  are  entitled. 

The  quality  of  exaggeration  has  often  been 
remarked  on  as  typical  of  American  charac 
ter,  and  especially  of  American  humor.  In 
Dr.  Petri's  Gedrlngtes  Handbuch  der  Fremd- 
worter,  we  are  told  that  the  word  humbug  is 
commonly  used  for  the  exaggerations  of  the 
North-Americans.  To  be  sure,  one  would  be 
tempted  to  think  the  dream  of  Columbus  half 
fulfilled,  and  that  Europe  had  found  in  the 
West  a  nearer  way  to  Orientalism,  at  least  in 
diction.  But  it  seems  to  me  that  a  great  deal 
of  what  is  set  down  as  mere  extravagance  is 
more  fitly  to  be  called  intensity  and  pictur- 
esqueness,  symptoms  of  the  imaginative  faculty 
in  full  health  and  strength,  though  producing, 
as  yet,  only  the  raw  and  formless  material  in 
which  poetry  is  to  work.  By  and  by,  perhaps, 
the  world  will  see  it  fashioned  into  poem  and 
picture,  and  Europe,  which  will  be  hard  pushed 
for  originality  erelong,  may  have  to  thank  us 
for  a  new  sensation.  The  French  continue 
to  find  Shakespeare  exaggerated  because  he 
treated  English  just  as  our  country-folk  do 
when  they  speak  of  a  "steep  price,"  or  say 
that  they  '^freeze  to"  a  thing.  The  first 
postulate  of  an  original  literature  is  that  a 
people  should  use  their  language  instinctively 
and  unconsciously,  as  if  it  were  a  lively  part  of 
their  growth  and  personality,  not  as  the  mere 
torpid  boon  of  education  or  inheritance.  Even 
Burns  contrived  to  write  very  poor  verse  and 
prose  in  English.  Vulgarisms  are  often  only 


444 


APPENDIX 


poetry  in  the  egg.  The  late  Mr.  Horace  Mann, 
in  one  of  his  public  addresses,  commented  at 
some  length  on  the  beauty  and  moral  signi 
ficance  of  the  French  phrase  s'orienter,  and 
called  on  his  young  friends  to  practise  upon  it 
in  life.  There  was  not  a  Yankee  in  his  audi 
ence  whose  problem  had  not  always  been  to 
find  out  what  was  about  east,  and  to  shape  his 
course  accordingly.  This  charm  which  a  fa 
miliar  expression  gains  by  being  commented,  as 
it  were,  and  set  in  a  new  light  by  a  foreign 
language,  is  curious  and  instructive.  I  cannot 
help  thinking  that  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold  forgets 
this  a  little  too  much  sometimes  when  he  writes 
of  the  beauties  of  French  style.  It  would 
not  be  hard  to  find  in  the  works  of  French 
Academicians  phrases  as  coarse  as  those  he 
cites  from  Burke,  only  they  are  veiled  by  the 
unfamiliarity  of  the  language.  But,  however 
this  may  be,  it  is  certain  that  poets  and  peas 
ants  please  us  in  the  same  way  by  translating 
words  back  again  to  their  primal  freshness, 
and  infusing  them  with  a  delightful  strange 
ness  which  is  anything  but  alienation.  What, 
for  example,  is  Milton's  "edge  of  battle"  but 
a  doing  into  English  of  the  Latin  acies  ?  Was 
die  Gans  gedacht  das  der  Schwan  vollbracht, 
what  the  goose  but  thought,  that  the  swan  full 
brought  (or,  to  de-Saxonize  it  a  little,  what  the 
goose  conceived,  that  the  swan  achieved),  and 
it  may  well  be  that  the  life,  invention,  and 
vigor  shown  by  our  popular  speech,  and  the 
freedom  with  which  it  is  shaped  to  the  instant 
want  of  those  who  use  it,  are  of  the  best  omen 
for  our  having  a  swan  at  last.  The  part  I  have 
taken  on  myself  is  that  of  the  humbler  bird. 

But  it  is  affirmed  that  there  is  something 
innately  vulgar  in  the  Yankee  dialect.  M. 
Sainte-Beuve  says,  with  his  usual  neatness : 
"  Je  dejinis  un  patois  une  ancienne  langue  qui  a 
eu  des  malheurs,  ou  encore  une  langue  toute  jeune 
et  qui  n'a  pas  fait  fortune."  The  first  part  of 
his  definition  applies  to  a  dialect  like  the  Pro- 
vengal,  the  last  to  the  Tuscan  before  Dante 
had  lifted  it  into  a  classic,  and  neither,  it  seems 
to  me,  will  quite  fit  a  patois,  which  is  not 
properly  a  dialect,  but  rather  certain  archaisms, 
proverbial  phrases,  and  modes  of  pronuncia 
tion,  which  maintain  themselves  among  the 
uneducated  side  by  side  with  the  finished 
and  universally  accepted  language.  Norman 
French,  for  example,  or  Scotch  down  to  the 
time  of  James  VI.,  could  hardly  be  called 
patois,  while  I  should  be  half  inclined  to  name 
the  Yankee  a  lingo  rather  than  a  dialect.  It 
has  retained  a  few  words  now  fallen  into  disuse 
in  the  mother  country,  like  to  tarry,  to  progress, 
fleshy,  fall,  and  some  others ,  it  has  changed 
the  meaning  of  some,  as  in  freshet ;  and  it  has 
clung  to  what  I  suspect  to  have  been  the  broad 
Norman  pronunciation  of  e  (which  Moliere  puts 
into  the  mouth  of  his  rustics)  in  such  words  as 
sarvant,  parfect,  vartoo,  and  the  like.  It  main 
tains  something  of  the  French  sound  of  a  also 
in  words  like  chamber,  danger  (though  the  lat 
ter  had  certainly  begun  to  take  its  present 
sound  so  early  as  1636,  when  I  find  it  sometimes 


spelt  dainger).  But  in  general  it  may  be  said 
that  nothing  can  be  found  in  it  which  does  not 
still  survive  in  some  one  or  other  of  the  English 
provincial  dialects.  There  is,  perhaps,  a  single 
exception  in  the  verb  to  sleeve.  To  sleeve  silk 
means  to  divide  or  ravel  out  a  thread  of  silk 
with  the  point  of  a  needle  till  it  becomes/?oss. 
(A.-S.  sUfan,  to  cleave  —  divide.)  This,  I  think, 
explains  the  '''sleeveless  errand"  in  "Troilus 
and  Cressida"  so  inadequately,  sometimes  so 
ludicrously  darkened  by  the  commentators.  Is 
not  a  "sleeveless  errand"  one  that  cannot 
be  unravelled,  incomprehensible,  and  therefore 
bootless  ? 

I  am  not  speaking  now  of  Americanisms 
properly  so  called,  that  is,  of  words  or  phrases 
which  have  grown  into  use  here  either  through 
necessity,  invention,  or  accident,  such  as  a 
carry,  a  one-horse  affair,  a  prairie,  to  vamose. 
Even  these  are  fewer  than  is  sometimes  taken 
for  granted.  But  I  think  some  fair  defence 
may  be  made  against  the  charge  of  vulgarity. 
Properly  speaking,  vulgarity  is  in  the  thought, 
and  not  in  the  word  or  the  way  of  pronouncing 
it.  Modern  French,  the  most  polite  of  lan 
guages,  is  barbarously  vulgar  if  compared  with 
the  Latin  put  of  which  it  has  been  corrupted, 
or  even  with  Italian.  There  is  a  wider  gap, 
and  one  implying  greater  boorishness,  between 
ministerium  and  mttier,  or  sapiens  and  sachant, 
than  between  druv  and  drove  or  agin  and 
against,  which  last  is  plainly  an  arrant  superla 
tive.  Our  rustic  coverlid  is  nearer  its  French 
original  than  the  diminutive  coverlet,  into 
which  it  has  been  ignorantly  corrupted  in  po 
liter  speech.  I  obtained  from  three  cultivated 
Englishmen  at  different  times  three  diverse  pro 
nunciations  of  a  single  word,  —  cowcumber,  coo- 
cumber,  and  cucumber.  Of  these  the  first,  which 
is  Yankee  also,  comes  nearest  to  the  nasality 
of  concombre.  Lord  Osspry  assures  us  that 
Voltaire  saw  the  best  society  in  England,  and 
Voltaire  tells  his  countrymen  that  handkerchief 
was  pronounced  hankercher.  I  find  it  so  spelt 
in  Hakluyt  and  elsewhere.  This  enormity  the 
Yankee  still  persists  in,  and  as  there  is  always 
a  reason  for  such  deviations  from  the  sound  as 
represented  by  the  spelling,  may  we  not  suspect 
two  sources  of  derivation,  and  find  an  ancestor 
for  kercher  in  couverture  rather  than  in  cou- 
vrechef?  And  what  greater  phonetic  vagary 
(which  Dry  den,  by  the  way,  called  fegary)  in 
our  lingua,  rustica  than  this  ker  for  couvre  ?  I 
copy  from  the  fly-leaves  of  my  books,  where  I 
have  noted  them  from  time  to  time,  a  few  ex 
amples  of  pronunciation  and  phrase  which  will 
show  that  the  Yankee  often  has  antiquity  and 
very  respectable  literary  authority  on  his  side. 
My  list  might  be  largely  increased  by  referring 
to  glossaries,  but  to  them  every  one  can  go  for 
himself,  and  I  have  gathered  enough  for  my 
purpose. 

I  will  take  first  those  cases  in  which  some 
thing  like  the  French  sound  has  been  preserved 
in  certain  single  letters  and  diphthongs.  And 
this  opens  a  curious  question  as  to  how  long 
this  Gallicism  maintained  itself  in  England. 


INTRODUCTION   TO   THE   B1GLOW   PAPERS 


445 


Sometimes  a  divergence  in  pronunciation  has 
given  us  two  words  with  different  meanings,  as 
in  genteel  and  jaunty,  which  I  find  coming  in 
toward  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
and  wavering  between  genteel  and  jantee.  It  is 
usual  in  America  to  drop  the  u  in  words  end 
ing  in  our  —  a  very  proper  change  recommended 
by  Ho  well  two  centuries  ago,  and  carried  out 
by  him  so  far  as  his  printers  would  allow.  This 
and  the  corresponding  changes  in  musique,  mu- 
sick,  and  the  like,  which  he  also  advocated, 
show  that  in  his  time  the  French  accent  indi 
cated  by  the  superfluous  letters  (for  French  had 
once  nearly  as  strong  an  accent  as  Italian)  had 
gone  out  of  use.  There  is  plenty  of  French 
accent  down  to  the  end  of  Elizabeth's  reign.  In 
Daniel  we  have  riches'  and  counsel' ,  in  Bishop 
Hall  comet',  chapelain,  in  Donne  pictures',  vir 
tue',  presence',  mortal' ,  merit' ,  hainous  ,  giant' , 
with  many  more,  and  Marston's  satires  are  full 
of  them.  The  two  latter,  however,  are  not  to 
be  relied  on,  as  they  may  be  suspected  of 
Chaucerizing.  Herrick  writes  baptime.  The 
tendency  to  throw  the  accent  backward  began 
early.  But  the  incongruities  are  perplexing, 
and  perhaps  mark  the  period  of  transition.  In 
Warner's  "  Albion's  England  "  we  have  creator' 
and  creature'  side  by  side  with  the  modern 
creator  and  creature.  E'nvy  and  envying  occur 
in  Campion  (1602),  and  yet  envy'  survived  Mil 
ton.  In  some  cases  we  have  gone  back  again 
nearer  to  the  French,  as  in  rev  enue  iorreven'ue. 
I  had  been  so  used  to  hearing  imbecile  pro 
nounced  with  the  accent  on  the  first  syllable, 
which  is  in  accordance  with  the  general  ten 
dency  in  such  matters,  that  I  was  surprised  to 
find  imbecile  in  a  verse  of  Wordsworth.  The 
dictionaries  all  give  it  so.  I  asked  a  highly 
cultivated  Englishman,  and  he  declared  for  im- 
beceel'.  In  general  it  may  be  assumed  that 
accent  will  finally  settle  on  the  syllable  dictated 
by  greater  ease  and  therefore  quickness  of  ut 
terance.  Blas'phemous,  for  example,  is  more 
rapidly  pronounced  than  blasphem'ous,  to  which 
our  Yankee  clings,  following  in  this  the  usage 
of  many  of  the  older  poets.  American  is  easier 
than  American,  and  therefore  the  false  quan 
tity  has  carried  the  day,  though  the  true  one 
may  be  found  in  George  Herbert,  and  even  so 
late  as  Cowley. 

To  come  back  to  the  matter  in  hand.  Our 
' '  uplandish  man ' '  retains  the  soft  or  thin 
sound  of  the  u  in  some  words,  such  as  rule, 
truth  (sometimes  also  pronounced  truth,  not 
trooth),  while  he  says  noo  for  new,  and  gives  to 
view  and  few  so  indescribable  a  mixture  of  the 
two  sounds  with  a  slight  nasal  tincture  that  it 
may  be  called  the  Yankee  shibboleth.  Voltaire 
says  that  the  English  pronounce  true  as  if  it 
rhymed  with  view,  and  this  is  the  sound  our 
rustics  give  to  it.  Spenser  writes  deow  (dew) 
which  can  only  be  pronounced  with  the  Yankee 
nasality.  In  rule  the  least  sound  of  a  precedes 
the  u.  I  find  reule  in  Pecock's  "  Represser." 
He  probably  pronounced  it  rayoole,  as  the  old 
French  word  from  which  it  is  derived  was  very 
likely  to  be  sounded  at  first,  with  a  reminiscence 


of  its  original  regula.  Tindal  has  rueler,  and 
the  Coventry  Plays  have  preudent.  In  the 
"  Parlyament  of  Byrdes  "  I  find  reule.  As  for 
noo,  may  it  not  claim  some  sanction  in  its  de 
rivation,  whether  from  nouveau  or  neuf,  the 
ancient  sound  of  which  may  very  well  have 
been  noof,  as  nearer  novus  ?  Beef  would  seem 
more  like  to  have  come  from  buffe  than  from 
bctuf,  unless  the  two  were  mere  varieties  of 
spelling.  The  Saxon  few  may  have  caught 
enough  from  its  French  cousin  peu  to  claim  the 
benefit  of  the  same  doubt  as  to  sound  ;  and  our 
slang  phrase  a  few  (as  "I  licked  him  a  few  ") 
may  well  appeal  to  un  peu  for  sense  and  author 
ity.  Nay,  might  not  lick  itself  turn  out  to  be 
the  good  old  word  lam  in  an  English  disguise,  if 
the  latter  should  claim  descent  as,  perhaps,  he 
fairly  might,  from  the  Latin  lambere  ?  The 
New  England  ferce  for  fierce,  and  perce  for 
pierce  (sometimes  heard  as  fairce  and  pairce), 
are  also  Norman.  For  its  antiquity  I  cite  the 
rhyme  of  verse  and  pierce  in  Chapman  and 
Donne,  and  in  some  commendatory  verses  by  a 
Mr.  Berkenhead  before  the  poems  of  Francis 
Beaumont.  Our  pairlous  for  perilous  is  of  the 
same  kind,  and  is  nearer  Shakespeare's  parlous 
than  the  modern  pronunciation.  One  other 
Gallicism  survives  in  our  pronunciation.  Per 
haps  I  should  rather  call  it  a  semi-Gallicism, 
for  it  is  the  result  of  a  futile  effort  to  repro 
duce  a  French  sound  with  English  lips.  Thus 
for  joint,  employ,  royal,  we  have  jynt,  emply, 
ryle,  the  last  differing  only  from  rile  (roil)  in 
a  prolongation  of  the  y  sound.  I  find  royal 
so  pronounced  in  the  "  Mirror  for  Magistrates." 
In  Walter  de  Biblesworth  I  find  solives  Eng 
lished  by  gistes.  This,  it  is  true,  may  have 
been  pronounced  jeests,  but  the  pronunciation 
jystes  must  have  preceded  the  present  spelling, 
which  was  no  doubt  adopted  after  the  radical 
meaning  was  forgotten,  as  analogical  with  other 
words  in  oi.  In  the  same  way  after  Norman- 
French  influence  had  softened  the  I  out  of 
would  (we  already  find  woud  for  veut  in  N.  F. 
poems),  should  followed  the  example,  and  then 
an  /  was  foisted  into  could,  where  it  does  not 
belong,  to  satisfy  the  logic  of  the  eye,  which  has 
affected  the  pronunciation  and  even  the  spelling1 
of  English  more  than  is  commonly  supposed.  I 
meet  with  eyster  for  oyster  as  early  as  the  four 
teenth  century.  I  find  viage  in  Bishop  Hall  and 
Midclleton  the  dramatist,  bile  for  boil  in  Donne 
and  Chrononhotonthologos,  line  for  loin  in 
Hall,  ryall  and  chyse  (for  choice),  dystrye  for 
destroy,  in  the  Coventry  Plays.  In  Chapman's 
"All  Fools'^  is  the  misprint  of  employ  for 
imply,  fairly  inferring  an  identity  of  sound  in 
the  last  syllable.  Indeed,  this  pronunciation 
was  habitual  till  after  Pope,  and  Rogers  tells  us 
that  the  elegant  Gray  said  naisefor  noise  just  as 
our  rustics  still  do.  Our  cornish  (which  I  find 
also  in  Herrick)  remembers  the  French  better 
than  cornice  does.  While  clinging  more  closely 
to  the  Anglo-Saxon  in  dropping  the  g  from  the 
end  of  the  present  participle,  the  Yankee  now 
and  then  pleases  himself  with  an  experiment  in 
French  nasality  in  words  ending  in  n.  It  is  not. 


446 


APPENDIX 


so  far  as  my  experience  goes,  very  common, 
though  it  may  formerly  have  been  more  so. 
Capting,  for  instance,  I  never  heard  save  in 
jest,  the  habitual  form  being  kepp'n.  But  at 
any  rate  it  is  no  invention  of  ours.  In  that  de 
lightful  old  volume,  "  Aiie  Compendious  Buke 
of  Godly  and  Spirituall  Songs,"  in  which  I 
know  not  whether  the  piety  itself  or  the  sim 
plicity  of  its  expression  be  more  charming,  I 
find  burding,  garding,  and  causing,  and  in  the 
State  Trials  uncerting  used  by  a  gentleman.  I 
confess  that  I  like  the  n  better  than  the  ng. 

Of  Yankee  preterites  I  find  risse  and  rize  for 
rose  in  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  Middleton  and 
Dryden,  dim  in  Spenser,  chees  (chose)  in  Sir 
John  Mandevil,  give  (gave)  in  the  Coventry 
Plays,  shet  (shut)  in  Golding's  Ovid,  het  in 
Chapman  and  inWeever's  Epitaphs,  thriv  and 
smit  in  Dray  ton,  quit  in  Ben  Jonson  and  Henry 
More,  and  pled  in  the  Paston  Letters,  nay,  even 
in  the  fastidious  Landor.  Hid  for  rode  was 
anciently  common.  So  likewise  was  see  for 
saw,  but  I  find  it  in  no  writer  of  authority  (ex 
cept  Golding),  unless  Chaucer's  seie  and  Gow- 
er's  sigh  were,  as  I  am  inclined  to  think,  so 
sounded.  Shew  is  used  by  Hector  Boece,  Giles 
Fletcher,  Drummond  of  Hawthornden,  and  in 
the  Paston  Letters.  Similar  strong  preterites, 
like  snew,  thew,  and  even  mew,  are  not  with 
out  example.  I  find  sew  for  sewed  in  "  Piers 
Ploughman. "  Indeed,  the  anomalies  in  English 
preterites  are  perplexing.  We  have  probably 
transf  erred  flew  from  flow  (as  the  preterite  of 
which  I  have  heard  it)  to  fly  because  we  had 
another  preterite  in  fled.  Of  weak  preterites 
the  Yankee  retains  growed,  blowed,  for  which 
he  has  good  authority,  and  less  often  knowed. 
His  sot  is  merely  a  broad  sounding  of  sat,  no 
more  inelegant  than  the  common  got  for  gat, 
which  he  further  degrades  into  gut.  When  he 
says  darst,  he  uses  a  form  as  old  as  Chaucer. 

The  Yankee  has  retained  something  of  the 
long  sound  of  the  a  in  such  words  as  axe,  wax, 
pronouncing  them  exe,  wex  (shortened  from  aix, 
waix).  He  also  says  hev  and  hed  (have,  had)  for 
have  and  had.  In  most  cases  he  follows  an  An 
glo-Saxon  usage.  In  aix  for  axle  he  certainly 
does.  I  find  wex  and  aisches  (ashes)  in  Pecock, 
and  exe  in  the  Paston  Letters.  Golding  rhymes 
wax  with  wexe  and  spells  challenge  chelenge. 
Chaucer  wrote  hendy.  Dryden  rhymes  can 
with  men,  as  Mr.  Biglow  would.  Alexander 
Gill,  Milton's  teacher,  in  his  "  Lpgonomia  " 
cites  hez  iov  hath  as  peculiar  to  Lincolnshire. 
I  find  hayth  in  Collier's  "  Bibliographical  Ac 
count  of  Early  English  Literature"  under  the 
date  1584,  and  Lord  Cromwell  so  wrote  it.  Sir 
Christopher  Wren  wrote  belcony.  Our  feet  is 
only  the  O.  F.  faict.  Thaim  for  them  was  com 
mon  in  the  sixteenth  century.  We  have  an 
example  of  the  same  thing  in  the  double  form 
of  the  verb  thrash,  thresh.  While  the  New- 
Englander  cannot  be  brought  to  say  instead  for 
instid  (commonly  'stid  where  not  the  last  word 
in  a  sentence),  he  changes  the  i  into  e  in  red  for 
rid,  tell  for  till,  hender  for  hinder,  rense  for 
rinse.  I  find  red  in  the  old  interlude  of  "  Ther- 


sytes,"  tell  in  a  letter  of  Daborne  to  Henslowe, 
and  also,  I  shudder  to  mention  it,  in  a  letter  of 
the  great  Duchess  of  Marlborough,  Atossa  her 
self  !  It  occurs  twice  in  a  single  verse  of  the 
Chester  Plays, 

"  Tell  the  day  of  dome,  tell  the  beames  blow." 

From  the  word  blow  (in  another  sense)  is  formed 
blowth,  which  I  heard  again  this  summer  after 
a  long  interval.  Mr.  Wright1  explains  it  as 
meaning  "a  blossom."  With  us  a  single  blos 
som  is  a  blow,  while  blowth  means  the  blossom 
ing  in  general.  A  farmer  would  say  that  there 
was  a  good  blowth  on  his  fruit-trees.  The 
word  retreats  farther  inland  and  away  from 
the  railways,  year  by  year.  Wither  rhymes 
hinder  with  slender,  and  Shakespeare  and  Love 
lace  have  renched  for  rinsed.  In  "  Gammer 
Gurton  "  and  "  Mirror  for  Magistrates  "  is 
sence  for  since ;  Marlborough 's  Duchess  so 
writes  it,  and  Donne  rhymes  since  with  Amiens 
and  patience,  Bishop  Hall  and  Otway  with 
pretence,  Chapman  with  citizens,  Dryden  with 
providence.  Indeed,  why  should  not  sithence 
take  that  form  ?  Dry  den's  wife  (an  earl's 
daughter)  has  tell  for  till,  Margaret,  mother  of 
Henry  VII.,  writes  seche  for  such,  and  our  ef 
finds  authority  in  the  old  form  ytffe. 

E  sometimes  takes  the  place  of  u,  as  jedge, 
tredge,  bresh.  I  find  tredge  in  the  interlude  of 
"Jack  Jugler,"  bresh  in  a  citation  by  Collier 
from  "London  Cries"  of  the  middle  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  and  resche  for  rush  (fif 
teenth  century)  in  the  very  valuable  "  Volume 
of  Vocabularies  "  edited  by  Mr.  Wright.  Hesce 
is  one  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  forms  of  the  word  in 
Bosworth's  A.-S.  Dictionary.  Golding  has  shet. 
The  Yankee  always  shortens  the  u  in  the  ending 
ture,  making  ventur,  natur,  pictur,  and  so  on. 
This  was  common,  also,  among  the  educated  of 
the  last  generation.  I  am  inclined  to  think  it 
may  have  been  once  universal,  and  I  certainly 
think  it  more  elegant  than  the  vile  vencher, 
naycher,  pickcher,  that  have  taken  its  place, 
sounding  like  the  invention  of  a  lexicographer 
to  mitigate  a  sneeze.  Nash  in  his  "  Pierce 
Penniless"  has  ventur,  and  so  spells  it,  and  I 
meet  it  also  in  Spenser,  Drayton,  Ben  Jonson, 
Herrick,  and  Prior.  Spenser  has  torCrest,  which 
can  be  contracted  only  from  tortur  and  not  from 
torcher.  Quarles  rhymes  nature  with  creator, 
and  Dryden  with  satire,  which  he  doubtless 
pronounced  according  to  its  older  form  of  satyr. 
Quarles  has  also  torture  and  mortar.  Mary 
Boleyn  writes  kreatur.  I  find  pikter  in  Izaak 
Walton's  autograph  will. 

I  shall  now  give  some  examples  which  cannot 
so  easily  be  ranked  under  any  special  head. 
Gill  charges  the  Eastern  counties  with  kiver  for 
cover,  and  ta  for  to.  The  Yankee  pronounces 
both  too  and  to  like  ta  (like  the  tou  in  touch) 
where  they  are  not  emphatic.  When  they  are, 
both  become  tu.  In  old  spelling,  to  is  the  com 
mon  (and  indeed  correct)  form  of  too,  which  is 
only  to  with  the  sense  of  in  addition.  I  suspect 
that  the  sound  of  our  too  has  caught  something 

1  Dictionary  of  Obsolete  and  Provincial  English. 


INTRODUCTION   TO   THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


447 


from  the  French  tout ,  and  it  is  possible  that  the 
old  too  too  is  not  a  reduplication,  but  a  reminis 
cence  of  the  feminine  form  of  the  same  word 
(toute)  as  anciently  pronounced,  with  the  e  not 
yet  silenced.  Gill  gives  a  Northern  origin  to 
geaun  for  gown  and  waund  for  wound  (vulnus). 
Lovelace  has  waund,,  but  there  is  something  too 
dreadful  in  suspecting  Spenser  (who  borealized 
in  his  pastorals)  of  having  ever  been  guilty  of 
geaun !  And  yet  some  delicate  mouths  even 
now  are  careful  to  observe  the  Hibernicism  of 
ge-ard  for  guard,  and  qe-url  for  girl.  Sir  Philip 
Sidney  (credite  posteri  !)  wrote  furr  for  far.  I 
would  hardly  have  believed  it  had  I  not  seen 
it  in  fac-simile.  As  some  consolation,  I  find 
furder  in  Lord  Bacon  and  Donne,  and  Wither 
rhymes  far  with  cur.  The  Yankee,  who  omits 
the  final  d  in  many  words,  as  do  the  Scotch, 
makes  up  for  it  by  adding  one  in  geound.  The 
purist  does  not  feel  the  loss  of  the  d  sensibly  in 
lawn  and  yon,  from  the  former  of  which  it  has 
dropped  again  after  a  wrongful  adoption  (re 
tained  in  laundry),  while  it  properly  belongs  to 
the  latter.  But  what  shall  we  make  of  git,  yit, 
and  yis  ?  I  find  yis  and  git  in  Warner's  "  Albi 
on's  England,"  yet  rhyming  with  wit,  admit, 
and./z£  in  Donne,  with  wit  in  the  "  Revenger's 
Tragedy,"  Beaumont,  and  Suckling,  with  writ 
in  Dry  den,  and  latest  of  all  with  wit  in  Sir 
Hanbury  Williams.  Prior  rhymes  fitting  and 
begetting.  Worse  is  to  come.  Among  others, 
Donne  rhymes  again  with  sin,  and  Quarles 
repeatedly  with  in.  Ben  for  been,  of  which  our 
dear  Whittier  is  so  fond,  has  the  authority  of 
Sackville,  "Gammer  Gurton"  (the  work  of  a 
bishop),  Chapman,  Dryden,  and  many  more, 
though  bin  seems  to  have  been  the  common 
form.  Whittier's  accenting  the  first  syllable  of 
rom'ance  finds  an  accomplice  in  Drayton  among 
others,  and,  though  manifestly  wrong,  is  anal 
ogous  with  Rom'ans.  Of  other  Yankeeisms, 
whether  of  form  or  pronunciation,  which  I 
liaye  met  with  I  add  a  few  at  random.  Pecock 
writes  sowdiers  (sogers,  soudoyers),  and  Chap 
man  and  Gill  sodder.  This  absorption  of  the  / 
is  common  in  various  dialects,  especially  in  the 
Scottish.  Pecock  writes  also  biyende,  and  the 
authors  of  "  Jack  Jugler  "  and  '*  Gammer  Gur 
ton  "  yender.  The  Yankee  includes  "yon"  in 
the  same  category,  and  says  "hither  an'  yen," 
for  "  to  and  fro."  (Cf.  German  jenseits.) 
Pecock  and  plenty  more  have  wrastle.  Tindal 
has  agynste,  gretter,  shett,  ondone,  debyte,  and 
scace.  "  Jack  Jugler "  has  scacely  (which  I 
have  often  heard,  though  skurce  is  the  common 
form),  and  Donne  and  Dryden  make  great 
rhyme  with  set.  In  the  inscription  on  Caxton's 
tomb  I  find  ynd  for  end,  which  the  Yankee 
more  often  makes  eend,  still  vising  familiarly 
the  old  phrase  "right  anend"  for  "continu 
ously."  His  "  stret  (straight)  along"  in  the 
same  sense,  which  I  thought  peculiar  to  him,  I 
find  in  Pecock.  Tindal's  debyte  for  deputy  is  so 
perfectly  Yankee  that  I  could  almost  fancy  the 
brave  martyr  to  have  been  deacon  of  the  First 
Parish  at  Jaalam  Centre.  "  Jack  Jugler  " 
further  gives  us  playsent  and  sartayne.  Dry 


den  rhymes  certain  with  parting,  and  Chapman 
and  Ben  Jonson  use  certain,  as  the  Yankee 
always  does,  for  certainly.  The  "  Coventry 
Mysteries"  have  occupied,  massage,  nateralle^ 
mater -al  (material),  and  meracles,  —  all  excellent 
Yankeeisms.  In  the  "  Quatre  fils,  Aymon  " 
(1504),1  is  vertus  for  virtuous.  Thomas  Fuller 
called  volume  vollum,  I  suspect,  for  he  spells  it 
volumne.  However,  per  contra,  Yankees  habit 
ually  say  colume  for  column.  Indeed,  to  prove 
that  our  ancestors  brought  their  pronunciation 
with  them  from  the  Old  Country,  and  have  not 
wantonly  debased  their  mother  tongue,  I  need 
only  to  cite  the  words  scriptur,  Israll,  athists, 
and  cherfulness  from  Governor  Bradford's  "  His 
tory."  So  the  good  man  wrote  them,  awl  so 
the  good  descendants  of  his  fellow-exiles  still 
pronounce  them.  Brampton  Gurdon  writes  shet 
in  a  letter  to  Winthrop.  Purtend  (pretend)  has 
crept  like  a  serpent  into  the  "  Paradise  of 
Dainty  Devices  ;  "  purvide,  which  is  not  so  bad, 
is  in  Chaucer.  These,  of  course,  are  universal 
vulgarisms,  and  not  peculiar  to  the  Yankee. 
Butler  has  a  Yankee  phrase,  and  pronunciation 
too,  in  "To  which  these  carryings-on  did  tend." 
Langham  or  Laneham,  who  wrote  an  account 
of  the  festivities  at  Kenilworth  in  honor  of 
Queen  Bess,  and  who  evidently  tried  to  spell 
phonetically,  makes  sorrows  into  sororz.  Her- 
rick  writes  hollow  for  halloo,  and  perhaps  pro 
nounced  it  (horresco  suggerens  !)  hollti,  as  Yankees 
do.  Why  not,  when  it  comes  from  hola  ?  I 
find  ffelaschyppe  (fellowship)  in  the  Coventry 
Plays.  Spenser  and  his  queen  neither  of  them 
scrupled  to  write  afore,  and  the  former  feels 
no  inelegance  even  in  chaw  and  idee.  ''Fore 
was  common  till  after  Herrick.  Dryden  has 
do's  for  does,  and  his  wife  spells  worse  wosce. 
Afeared  was  once  universal.  Warner  has  ery 
for  ever  a ;  nay,  he  also  has  illy,  with  which 
we  were  once  ignorantly  reproached  by  persons 
more  familiar  with  Murray's  Grammar  than 
with  English  literature.  And  why  not  illy? 
Mr.  Bartlett  says  it  is  "a  word  used  by  writ 
ers  of  an  inferior  class,  who  do  not  seem  to 
perceive  that  ill  is  itself  an  adverb,  without 
the  termination  /?/,"  and  quotes  Dr.  Messer, 
President  of  Brown  University,  as  asking  tri 
umphantly,  "Why  don't  you  say  welly?"  I 
should  like  to  have  had  Dr.  Messer  answer  his 
own  question.  It  would  be  truer  to  say  that  it 
was  used  by  people  who  still  remembered  that 
ill  was  an  adjective,  the  shortened  form  of  evil, 
out  of  which  Shakespeare  and  the  translators 
of  the  Bible  ventured  to  make  evilly.  This 
slurred  evil  is  "the  dram  of  eale"  in  "Ham 
let."  I  find  illy  in  Warner.  The  objection  to 
illy  is  not  an  etymological  one,  but  simply  that 
it  is  contrary  to  good  usage,  —  a  very  sufficient 
reason.  ///  as  an  adverb  was  at  first  a  vulgar 
ism,  precisely  like  the  rustic's  when  he  says, 
"  I  was  treated  bad."  May  not  the  reason  of 
this  exceptional  form  be  looked  for  in  that 
tendency  to  dodge  what  is  hard  to  pronounce, 
to  which  I  have  already  alluded  ?  If  the 
1  Cited  in  Collier.  (I  pive  my  authority  where  I  do 
not  quote  from  the  original  book.1* 


APPENDIX 


letters  were  distinctly  uttered,  as  they  should 
be,  it  would  take  too  much  time  to  say  ill-ly, 
well-ly,  and  it  is  to  be  observed  that  we  have 
avoided  smally1  and  tally  in  the  same  way, 
though  we  add  ish  to  them  without  hesitation 
in  smallish  and  tallish.  We  have,  to  be  sure, 
dully  and  fully,  but  for  the  one  we  prefer  stu 
pidly,  and  tlie  other  (though  this  may  have 
come  from  eliding  the  y  before  as)  is  giving 
way  to  full.  The  uneducated,  whose  utterance 
is  slower,  still  make  adverbs  when  they  will  by 
adding  like  to  all  manner  of  adjectives.  We 
have  had  big  charged  upon  us,  because  we  use 
it  where  an  Englishman  would  now  use  great. 
I  fully  admit  that  it  were  better  to  distinguish 
between  them,  allowing  to  big  a  certain  con 
temptuous  quality  ;  but  as  for  authority,  I 
want  none  better  than  that  of  Jeremy  Taylor, 
who,  in  his  noble  sermon  "On  the  Return  of 
Prayer,"  speaks  of  "Jesus,  whose  spirit  was 
meek  and  gentle  up  to  the  greatness  of  the 
biggest  example."  As  for  our  double  negative, 
I  shall  waste  no  time  in  quoting  instances  of  it, 
because  it  was  once  as  universal  in  English  as 
it  still  is  in  the  neo-Latin  languages,  where  it 
does  not  strike  us  as  vulgar.  I  am  not  sure 
that  the  loss  of  it  is  not  to  be  regretted.  But 
surely  I  shall  admit  the  vulgarity  of  slurring  or 
altogether  eliding  certain  terminal  consonants  ? 
I  admit  that  a  clear  and  sharp-cut  enunciation 
is  one  of  the  crowning  charms  and  elegancies  of 
speech.  Words  so  uttered  are  like  coins  fresh 
from  the  mint,  compared  with  the  worn  and 
dingy  drudges  of  long  service,  —  I  do  not  mean 
American  coins,  for  those  look  less  badly  the 
more  they  lose  of  their  original  ugliness.  No 
one  is  more  painfully  conscious  than  I  of  the 
contrast  between  the  rifle-crack  of  an  English 
man's  yes  and  no,  and  the  wet-fuse  drawl  of 
the  same  monosyllables  in  the  mouths  of  my 
countrymen.  But  I  do  not  find  the  dropping 
of  final  consonants  disagreeable  in  Allan  Ram 
say  or  Burns,  nor  do  I  believe  that  our  literary 
ancestors  were  sensible  of  that  inelegance  in 
the  fusing  them  together  of  which  we  are  con 
scious.  How  many  educated  men  pronounce 
the  t  in  chestnut  ?  how  many  say  pentise  for 
penthouse,  as  they  should.  When  a  Yankee 
skipper  says  that  he  is  "  boun'  for  Glpster" 
(not  Gloucester,  with  the  leave  of  the  Universal 
Schoolmaster),2  he  but  speaks  like  Chaucer  or 
an  old  ballad-singer,  though  they  would  have 
pronounced  it  boon.  This  is  one  of  the  cases 
where  the  d  is  surreptitious,  and  has  been 
added  in  compliment  to  the  verb  bind,  with 
which  it  has  nothing  to  do.  If  we  consider  the 
root  of  the  word  (though  of  course  I  grant  that 
every  race  has  a  right  to  do  what  it  will  with 
what  is  so  peculiarly  its  own  as  its  speech),  the 
d  has  no  more  right  there  than  at  the  end  of 
gone,  where  it  is  often  put  by  children,  who  are 
our  best  guides  to  the  sources  of  linguistic  cor 
ruption,  and  the  best  teachers  of  its  processes. 
Cromwell,  minister  of  Henry  VIII.,  writes  worle 

1  The  word  occurs  in  a  letter  of  Mary  Boleyn,  in 
Golding,  and  Warner.  Milton  also  was  fond  of  the 
word. 


for  world.  Chapman  has  wan  for  wand,  and 
lawn  has  rightfully  displaced  laund,  though 
with  no  thought,  I  suspect,  of  etymology. 
Rogers  tells  us  that  Lady  Bathurst  sent  him 
some  letters  written  to  William  III.  by  Queen 
Mary,  in  which  she  addresses  him  as  "Dear 
Husban"  The  old  form  expoun\  which  our 
farmers  use,  is  more  correct  than  the  form  with 
a  barbarous  d  tacked  on  which  has  taken  its 
place.  Of  the  kind  opposite  to  this,  like  our 
gownd  for  gown,  and  the  London  cockney's 
wind  for  wine,  I  find  drownd  for  drown  in  the 
"  Misfortunes  of  Arthur  "  (1584),  and  in  Swift. 
And,  by  the  way,  whence  came  the  long  sound 
of  wind  which  pur  poets  still  retain,  and  which 
survives  in  "  winding  "  a  horn,  a  totally  differ 
ent  word  from  "  winding  "  a  kite-string  ?  We 
say  behind  and  hinder  (comparative)  and  yet  to 
hinder.  Shakespeare  pronounced  kind  kind,  or 
what  becomes  of  his  play  on  that  word  and  kin 
in  "  Hamlet  "  ?  Nay,  did  he  not  even  (shall  I 
dare  to  hint  it  ?)  drop  the  final  d  as  the  Yankee 
still  does  ?  John  Lilly  plays  in  the  same  way 
on  kindred  and  kindness. 

But  to  come  to  some  other  ancient  instances. 
Warner  rhymes  bounds  with  crowns,  grounds 
with  towns,  text  with  sex,  worst  with  crust,  inter 
rupts  with  cups;  Drayton,  defects  with  sex; 
Chapman,  amends  with  cleanse;  Webster,  de 
fects  with  checks  ;  Ben  Jonson,  minds  with  com 
bines;  Marston,  trust  and  obsequious,  clothes  and 
shows  ;  Dryden  gives  the  same  sound  to  clothes, 
and  has  also  '.rinds  with  designs.  Of  course,  I 
do  not  affirm  that  their  ears  may  not  have  told 
them  that  these  were  imperfect  rhymes  (though 
I  am  by  no  means  sure  even  of  that),  but  they 
surely  would  never  have  tolerated  any  such  had 
they  suspected  the  least  vulgarity  in  them. 
Prior  has  the  rhyme  first  and  trust,  but  puts  it 
into  the  mouth  of  a  landladjr.  Swift  has  stunted 
and  burnt  it,  an  intentionally  imperfect  rhyme, 
no  doubt,  but  which  I  cite  as  giving  precisely 
the  Yankee  pronunciation  of  burned.  Donne 
couples  in  unhallowed  wedlock  after  and  matter, 
thus  seeming  to  give  to  both  the  true  Yankee 
sound  ;  and  it  is  not  uncommon  to  find  after  and 
daughter.  Worse  than  all,  in  one  of  Dodsley's 
Old  Plays  we  have  onions  rhyming  with  min 
ions,  —  I  have  tears  in  my  eyes  while  I  record  it. 
And  yet  what  is  viler  than  the  univeral  Misses 
(Mrs.)  for  Mistress  ?  This  was  once  a  vulgar 
ism,  and  in  "The  Miseries  of  Inforced  Mar 
riage  "  the  rhyme  (printed  as  prose  in  Dodsley's 
Old  Plays  by  Collier), 

"  To  make  my  young  mistress 
Delighting  in  kisses," 

is  put  into  the  mouth  of  the  clown.  Our  people 
say  Injun  for  Indian.  The  tendency  to  make 
this  change  where  i  follows  d  is  common.  The 
Italian  giorno  and  French  jour  from  diurnus 
are  familiar  examples.  And  yet  Injun  is  one  of 
those  depravations  which  the  taste  challenges 
peremptorily,  though  it  have  the  authority 

2  Though  I  find  Worcester  in  the  Mirror  for  Magis 
trates. 


INTRODUCTION   TO   THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


449 


of  Charles  Cotton  — who  rhymes  "Indies" 
with  "  cringes  "  —  and  four  English  lexicogra 
phers,  beginning  with  Dr.  Sheridan,  bid  us  say 
invidgeous.  Yet  after  all  it  is  no  worse  than 
the  debasement  which  all  our  terminations  in 
tion  and  tience  have  undergone,  which  yet  we 
hear  with  resignashun  and  payshunce,  though  it 
might  have  aroused  both  impat-i-ence  and  indig- 
na-ti-on  in  Shakespeare's  time.  When  George 
Herbert  tells  us  that  if  the  sermon  be  dull, 

"  God  takes  a  text  and  preacheth  pati-ence," 
the  prolongation  of  the  word  seems  to  convey 
some  hint  at  the  longanimity  of  the  virtue. 
Consider  what  a  poor  curtal  we  have  made  of 
Ocean.  There  was  something  of  his  heave  and 
expanse  in  o-ce-an,  and  Fletcher  knew  how  to 
use  it  when  he  wrote  so  fine  a  verse  as  the  sec 
ond  of  these,  the  best  deep-sea  verse  I  know,  — 

"  In  desperate  storms  stem  with  a  little  rudder 
The  tumbling  ruins  of  the  ocean." 

Oceanus  was  not  then  wholly  shorn  of  his  di 
vine  proportions,  and  our  modern  oshun  sounds 
like  the  gush  of  small -beer  in  comparison. 
Some  other  contractions  of  ours  have  a  vulgar 
air  about  them.  More  'n  for  more  than,  as  one 
of  the  worst,  may  stand  for  a  type  of  such. 
Yet  our  old  dramatists  are  full  of  such  obscura 
tions  (elisions  they  can  hardly  be  called)  of  the 
th,  making  whe'r  of  whether,  where  of  whither, 
here  of  hither,  bro'r  of  brother,  swio'r  of  smother, 
/wo'r  of  mother,  and  so  on.  And  dear  Brer  Rab 
bit,  can  I  forget  him  ?  Indeed,  it  is  this  that 
explains  the  word  rare  (which  has  Dryden's 
support),  and  which  we  say  of  meat  where  an 
Englishman  would  use  underdone.  I  do  not 
believe,  with  the  dictionaries,  that  it  had  ever 
anything  to  do  with  the  Icelandic  hrar  (raw),  as  it 
plainly  has  not  in  rareripe,  which  means  earlier 
ripe,  —  President  Lincoln  said  of  a  precocious 
boy  that  "  he  was  a  rareripe.'1''  And  I  do  not 
believe  it,  for  this  reason,  that  the  earliest 
form  of  the  word  with  us  was,  and  the  common 
er  now  in  the  inland  parts  still  is,  so  far  as  I 
can  discover,  raredone.  Goldinghas  "  egs  reere- 
rosted,"  which,  whatever  else  it  mean,  cannot 
mean  raw-roasted.  I  find  rather  as  a  monosyl 
lable  in  Donne,  and  still  better,  as  giving  the 
sound,  rhyming  with  fair  in  Warner.  There  is 
an  epigram  of  Sir  Thomas  Browne  in  which  the 
words  rather  than  make  a  monosyllable :  — 

"  What  furie  is  't  to  take  Death's  part 
And  rather  than  by  Nature,  die  by  Art !  " 

The  contraction  more  'n  I  find  in  the  old  play 
"  Fuimus  Troes,"  in  a  verse  where  the  measure 
is  so  strongly  accented  as  to  leave  it  beyond 
doubt,  — 

"  A  golden  crown  whose  heirs 
More  than  half  the  world  subdue." 

It  may  be,  however,  that  the  contraction  is  in 
"  th'  orld."  It  is  unmistakable  in  the  "Second 
Maiden's  Tragedy  :  "  — 

"  It  were  but  folly, 
Dear  soul,  to  boast  of  more  than  I  can  perform." 

Is  our  gin  for  given  more  violent  than  mar"1!  for 


marvel,  which  was  once  common,  and  which  I 
find  as  late  as  Herrick  ?  Nay,  Herrick  has  gin 
(spelling  it  gen),  top,  as  do  the  Scotch,  who 
agree  with  us  likewise  in  preferring  chimly  to 
chimney. 

I  will  now  leave  pronunciation  and  turn  to 
words  or  phrases  which  have  been  supposed 
peculiar  to  us,  only  pausing  to  pick  up  a  sin 
gle  dropped  stitch,  in  the  pronunciation  of  the 
word  supreme,  which  I  had  thought  native  till 
I  found  it  in  the  well-languaged  Daniel.  I  will 
begin  with  a  word  of  which  I  have  never  met 
with  any  example  in  any  English  writer  of  au 
thority.  We  express  the  first  stage  of  wither 
ing  in  a  green  plant  suddenly  cut  down  by  the 
verb  to  wilt.  It  is,  of  course,  own  cousin  of  the 
German  welken,  but  I  have  never  come  upon  it 
in  literary  use,  and  my  own  books  of  reference 
give  me  faint  help.  Graff  gives  welhen,  marces- 
cere,  and  refers  to  weih  (weak),  and  conjecturally 
to  A.-S.  hvelan.  The  A.-S.  wealwian  (to  wither) 
is  nearer,  but  not  so  near  as  two  words  in  the 
Icelandic,  which  perhaps  put  us  on  the  track  of 
its  ancestry,  —  velgi,  tepefacere  (and  velki,  with 
the  derivative),  meaning  contaminare.  Wilt,  at 
any  rate,  is  a  good  word,  filling,  as  it  does,  a  sen 
sible  gap  between  drooping  and  withering,  and 
the  imaginative  phrase  "  he  wilted  right  down," 
like  "  he  caved  right  in,"  is  a  true  American 
ism.  Wilt  occurs  in  English  provincial  glos 
saries,  but  is  explained  by  wither,  which  with  us 
it  does  not  mean.  We  have  a  few  words  such  as 
cache,  cohog,  carry  (portage),  shoot  (chute),  timber 
(forest),  bushwhack  (to  pull  a  boat  along  by  the 
bushes  on  the  edge  of  a  stream),  buckeye  (a  pic 
turesque  word  for  the  horse-chestnut) ;  but  how 
many  can  we  be  said  to  have  fairly  brought  into 
the  language,  as  Alexander  Gill,  who  first  men 
tions  Americanisms,  meant  it  when  he  said, 
"  Sed  et  ab  Americanis  nonnulla  mutuamur  ut 
MAIZ  et  CANOA  "  ?  Very  few,  I  suspect,  and 
those  mostly  by  borrowing  from  the  French, 
•German,  Spanish,  or  Indian.1  "  The  Dipper  " 
for  the  "  Great  Bear  "  strikes  me  as  having  a 
native  air.  Bogus,  in  the  sense  of  worthless,  is 
undoubtedly  ours,  but  is,  I  more  than  suspect, 
a  corruption  of  the  French  bagasse  (from  low 
Latin  bagasea),  which  travelled  up  the  Missis 
sippi  from  New  Orleans,  where  it  was  used  for 
the  refuse  of  the  sugar-cane.  It  is  true,  we 
have  modified  the  meaning  of  some  words.  We 
use  freshet  in  the  sense  of  flood,  for  which  I 
have  not  chanced  upon  any  authority.  Our  New 
England  cross  between  Ancient  Pistol  and  Du- 
gald  Dalgetty,  Captain  Underbill,  uses  the  word 
(1638)  to  mean  a  current,  and  I  do  not  recollect 
it  elsewhere  in  that  sense.  I  therefore  leave 
it  with  a  ?  for  future  explorers.  Crick  for 
creek  I  find  in  Captain  John  Smith  and  in  the 
dedication  of  Fuller's  "  Holy  Warre,"  and  run, 
meaning  a  small  stream,  in  Waymouth's  u  Voy 
age  "  (1605).  Humans  for  men,  which  Mr. 
Bartlett  includes  in  his  "  Dictionary  of  Ameri 
canisms,  '  is  Chapman's  habitual  phrase  in  his 

1  This  was  written  twenty  years  ago,  and  now  (1890) 
I  cannot  open  an  English  journal  without  coming  upon 
an  Americanism. 


45° 


APPENDIX 


translation  of  Homer.  I  find  it  also  in  the  old 
play  of  kk  The  Hog  hath  lost  his  Pearl."  Dogs 
for  andirons  is  still  current  in  New  England,  and 
in  Walter  de  Biblesworth  I  find  chiens  glossed 
in  the  margin  by  andirons.  Gunning  for  shoot 
ing  is  in  Drayton.  We  once  got  credit  for  the 
poetical  word  fall  for  autumn,  but  Mr.  Bartlett 
and  the  last  edition  of  Webster's  Dictionary  re 
fer  us  to  Dryden.  It  is  even  older,  for  I  find  it 
in  Drayton,  and  Bishop  Hall  has  autumn  fall. 
Middleton  plays  upon  the  word  :  "  May'st  thou 
have  a  reasonable  good  spring,  for  thou  art  like 
to  have  many  dangerous  foul  falls."  Daniel 
does  the  same,  and  Coleridge  uses  it  as  we  do. 
Gray  uses  the  archaism  picked  for  peaked,  and 
the  word  smudge  (as  our  backwoodsmen  do) 
for  a  smothered  fire.  Lord  Herbert  of  Cher- 
bury  (more  properly  perhaps  than  even  Sidney, 
the  last  preux  chevalier)  has  "the  Emperor's 
folks  ' '  just  as  a  Yankee  would  say  it.  Loan  for 
lend,  with  which  v/e  have  hitherto  been  black 
ened,  I  must  retort  upon  the  mother  island, 
for  it  appears  so  long  ago  as  in  "  Albion's 
England."  Fleshy,  in  the  sense  of  stout,  may 
claim  Ben  Jonson's  warrant,  and  I  find  it  also 
so  lately  as  in  Francklin's  "  Lucian."  Chore  is 
also  Jonson's  word,  and  I  am  inclined  to  prefer 
it  to  chare  and  char,  because  I  think  that  I  see 
a  more  natural  origin  for  it  in  the  French  jour 
—  whence  it  might  come  to  mean  a  day's  work, 
and  thence  a  job  —  than  anywhere  else.1  At  onst 
for  at  once  I  thought  a  corruption  of  our  own, 
till  I  found  it  in  the  Chester  Plays.  I  am  now 
inclined  to  suspect  it  no  corruption  at  all,  but 
only  an  erratic  and  obsolete  superlative  at  onest. 
To  progress'  was  flung  in  our  teetli  till  Mr.  Pick 
ering  retorted  with  Shakespeare's  "  doth  pro'- 
gress  down  thy  cheeks."  I  confess  that  I  was 
never  satisfied  with  this  answer,  because  the 
accent  was  different,  and  because  the  word 
might  here  be  reckoned  a  substantive  quite  as 
well  as  a  verb.  Mr.  Bartlett  (in  his  dictionary 
above  cited)  adds  a  surrebutter  in  a  verse  from 
Ford's  "  Broken  Heart."  Here  the  word  is 
clearly  a  verb,  but  with  the  accent  unhappily 
still  on  the  first  syllable.  Mr.  Bartlett  says  that 
he  "  cannot  say  whether  the  word  was  used  in 
Bacon's  time  or  not."  It  certainly  was,  and 
with  the  accent  we  give  to  it.  Ben  Jonson,  in 
the  "  Alchemist,"  has  this  verse, 

"  Progress'  so  from  extreme  unto  extreme," 
and  Sir  Philip  Sidney, 
"  Progressing  then  from  fair  Turias'  golden  place." 

Surely  we  may  now  sleep  in  peace,  and  our 
English  cousins  will  forgive  us,  since  we  have 
cleared  ourselves  from  any  suspicion  of  origi 
nality  in  the  matter!  Even  after  I  had  con 
vinced  myself  that  the  chances  were  desperately 
against  our  having  invented  any  of  the  Ameri- 
cam.sros_with  which  we  are  faulted  and  which 
we  are  in  the  habit  of  voicing,  there  were  one 
or  two  which  had  so  prevailingly  indigenous  an 
accent  as  to  stagger  me  a  little.  One  of  these 

1  The  Rev.  A.  L.  Mayhew  of  Wadham  College,  Ox 
ford,  has  convinced  me  that  I  was  astray  in  this. 


was  uthe  biggest  thing  out."     Alas,  even  this 
slender  comfort  is  denied  me.    Old  Gower  has 


and 


"  So  harde  an  herte  was  none  oute," 
"  That  such  merveile  was  none  oute." 


He  also,  by  the  way,  says  "  a  sighte  of  flowres" 
as  naturally  as  our  up-country  folk  would  say 
it.  Poor  for  lean,  thirds  for  dower,  and  dry  for 
thirsty  I  find  in  Middleton's  plays.  Dry  is  also 
in  Skelton  and  in  the  "World"  (1754).  In  a 
note  on  Middleton,  Mr.  Dyce  thinks  it  needful 
to  explain  the  phrase  I  can't  tell  (universal  in 
America)  by  the  gloss  I  could  not  say.  Middle- 
ton  also  uses  snecked,  which  I  had  believed 
an  Americanism  till  I  saw  it  there.  It  is,  of 
course,  only  another  form  of  snatch,  analogous 
to  theek  and  thatch  (cf .  the  proper  names  Dek~ 
ker  and  Thacher),  break  (brack)  and  breach, 
make  (still  common  with  us)  and  match. 
''Long  on  for  occasioned  by  ("  who  is  this  'long 
on  ?  ")  occurs  constantly  in  Gower  and  like 
wise  in  Middleton.  '  Cause  why  is  in  Chaucer. 
Raising  (an  English  version  of  the  French 
leaven^  for  yeast  is  employed  by  Gayton  in  his 
"  Festivous  Notes  on  Don  Quixote."  I  have 
never  seen  an  instance  of  our  New  England 
word  emptins  in  the  same  sense,  nor  can  I  divine 
its  original.  Gayton  has  limekill ;  also  shuts 
for  shutters,  and  the  latter  is  used  by  Mrs. 
Hutchinson  in  her  "Life  of  Colonel  Hutchin- 
son."  Bishop  Hall,  and  Purchas  in  his  "Pil 
grims,"  have  chist  for  chest,  and  it  is  certainly 
nearer  cista,  as  well  as  to  its  form  in  the  Teu 
tonic  languages,  whence  probably  we  got  it. 
We  retain  the  old  sound  from  cist,  but  chest 
is  as  old  as  Chaucer.  Lovelace  says  wropt  for 
wrapt.  "  Musicianer  "  I  had  always  associated 
with  the  militia-musters  of  my  boyhood,  and 
too  hastily  concluded  it  an  abomination  of  our 
own,  but  Mr.  Wright  calls  it  a  Norfolk  word, 
and  I  find  it  to  be  as  old  as  1642  by  an  extract 
in  Collier.  "  Not  worth  the  time  of  day,''  had 
passed  with  me  for  native  till  I  saw  it  in 
Shakespeare's  "  Pericles."  For  slick  (which  is 
only  a  shorter  sound  of  sleek,  like  crick  and  the 
now  universal  britches  for  breeches)  I  will  only 
call  Chapman  and  Jonson.  "That's  a  sure 
card!"  and  "That's  a  stinger!"  both  sound 
like  modern  slang,  but  you  will  find  the  one  in 
the  old  interlude  of  "Thersytes"  (1537),  and 
the  other  in  Middleton.  "Right  here,"  a  fa 
vorite  phrase  with  our  orators  and  with  a  cer 
tain  class  of  our  editors,  turns  up  passim  in 
the  Chester  and  Coventry  plays.  Mr.  Dickens 
found  something  very  ludicrous  in  what  he  con 
sidered  our  neologism  right  away.  But  I  find 
a  phrase  very  like  it,  and  which  1  would  gladly 
suspect  to  be  a  misprint  for  it,  in  "  Gammer 
Gurton  :  "  — 

"  Lyght  it  and  bring  it  tite  away." 

But  tite  is  the  true  word  in  this  case.  After 
all,  what  is  it  but  another  form  of  straightway  ? 
Cussedness,  meaning  wickedness,  malignity,  and 
cuss,  a  sneaking,  ill-natured  fellow,  in  such 
phrases  as  "  He  done  it  out  o'  pure  cussedness," 


INTRODUCTION   TO   THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


45 1 


and  "He  is  a  nateral  cuss,"  have  been  com 
monly  thought  Yankeeisms.  To  vent  certain 
contemptuously  indignant  moods  they  are  ad 
mirable  in  their  rough-and-ready  way.  But 
neither  is  our  own.  Cursydnesse,  in  the  same 
sense  of  malignant  wickedness,  occurs  in  the 
Coventry  Plays,  and  cuss  may  perhaps  claim  to 
have  come  in  with  the  Conqueror.  At  least 
the  term  is  also  French.  Saint  Simon  uses  it 
and  confesses  its  usefulness.  Speaking  of  the 
Abbe"  Dubois,  he  says,  "  Qui  e"toit  en  pleiu  ce 
qu'un  mauvais  frangois  appelle  un  sacre,  mais 
qui  ne  se  peut  guere  exprimer  autrement." 
"Not  worth  a  cuss,"  though  supported  by 
"not  worth  a  damn,"  may  be  a  mere  corrup 
tion,  since  "  not  worth  a  cress  "  is  in  "  Piers 
Ploughman."  "I  don't  see  it,"  was  the  pop 
ular  slang  a  year  or  two  ago,  and  seemed  to 
spring  from  the  soil ;  but  no,  it  is  in  Gibber's 
4  f  Careless  Husband."  Green  sauce  for  vege 
tables  I  meet  in  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  Gay- 
ton,  and  elsewhere.  Our  rustic  pronunciation 
sahce  (for  either  the  diphthong  au  was  anciently 
pronounced  ah,  or  else  we  have  followed  abun 
dant  analogy  in  changing  it  to  the  latter  sound, 
as  we  have  in  chance,  dance,  and  so  many  more) 
may  be  the  older  one,  and  at  least  gives  some 
hint  at  its  ancestor  salsa.  Warn,  in  the  sense 
of  notify,  is,  I  believe,  now  peculiar  to  us,  but 
Pecock  so  employs  it.  I  find  primmer  ( primer, 
as  we  pronounce  it)  in  Beaumont  and  Fletcher, 
and  a  "  square  eater  "  too  (compare  our  "  square 
meal "),  heft  for  weight,  and  "  muchness  "  in  the 
"Mirror  for  Magistrates,"  bankbill  in  Swift 
and  Fielding,  and  as  for  that  I  might  say  pas 
sim.  To  cotton  to  is,  I  rather  think,  an  Ameri 
canism.  The  nearest  approach  to  it  I  have 
found  is  cotton  together,  in  Congreve's  "Love 
for  Love."  To  cotton  or  cotten,  in  another 
sense,  is  old  and  common.  Our  word  means  to 
cling,  and  its  origin,  possibly,  is  to  be  sought  in 
another  direction,  perhaps  in  A.-S.  cvead,  which 
means  mud,  clay  (both  proverbially  clinging), 
or  better  yet,  in  the  Icelandic  qvoda  (otherwise 
kdd),  meaning  resin  and  glue,  which  are  xar' 
efox'ii',  sticky  substances.  To  spit  cotton  is,  I 
think,  American,  and  also,  perhaps,  to  flax  for 
to  beat.  To  the  halves  still  survives  among  us, 
though  apparently  obsolete  in  England.  It 
means  either  to  let  or  to  hire  a  piece  of  land, 
receiving  half  the  profit  in  money  or  in  kind 
(partibus  locare).  I  mention  it  because  in  a 
note  by  some  English  editor,  to  which  I  have 
lost  my  reference,  I  have  seen  it  wrongly  ex 
plained.  The  editors  of  Nares  cite  Burton. 
To  put,  in  the  sense  of  to  go,  as  Put !  for  Be 
gone  !  would  seem  our  own,  and  yet  it  is  strictly 
analogous  to  the  French  se  mettre  a  la  vote,  and 
the  Italian  mettersi  in  via.  Indeed,  Dante  has 
a  verse, 

"  To  sarei  [for  mi  sarei~\  gih  messo  per  lo  sentiero," 

which,  but  for  the  indignity,  might  be  trans 
lated, 

"  I  should,  ere  this,  have  put  along  the  way." 
I  deprecate  in  advance  any  share  in  General 


Banks's  notions  of  international  law,  but  we 
may  all  take  a  just  pride  in  his  exuberant 
eloquence  as  something  distinctively  American. 
When  he  spoke  a  few  years  ago  of  "  letting  the 
Union  slide,"  even  those  who,  for  political  pur 
poses,  reproached  him  with  the  sentiment,  ad 
mired  the  indigenous  virtue  of  his  phrase.  Yet 
I  find  "  let  the  world  slide  "  in  Hey  wood's 
"Edward  IV. ;  "  and  in  Beaumont  and  Fletch 
er's  "  Wit  without  Money,"  Valentine  says, 

"  Will  you  go  drink, 
And  let  the  world  slide  ?  " 

So  also  in  Sidney's  "  Arcadia," 

"  Let  his  dominion  slide." 

In  the  one  case  it  is  put  into  the  mouth  of  a 
clown,  in  the  other,  of  a  gentleman,  and  was 
evidently  proverbial.  It  has  even  higher  sanc 
tion,  for  Chaucer  writes, 

"  Well  nigh  all  other  cures  let  he  slide." 

Mr.  Bartlett  gives  "above  one's  bend"  as  an 
Americanism ;  but  compare  Hamlet's  "  to  the 
top  of  my  bent."  In  his  tracks  for  immediately 
has  acquired  an  American  accent,  and  passes 
where  he  can  for  a  native,  but  is  an  importation 
nevertheless ;  for  what  is  he  but  the  Latin  e 
vestigio,  or  at  best  the  Norman  French  enes- 
lespas,  both  which  have  the  same  meaning? 
Hotfoot  (provincial  also  in  England),  I  find  in 
the  old  romance  of  "  Tristan," 

"  Si  s^en  parti  CHAUT  PAS." 

Like  for  as  is  never  used  in  New  England,  but 
is  universal  in  the  South  and  West.  It  has  on 
its  side  the  authority  of  two  kings  (ego  sum 
rex  Romanorum  et  supra  grammaticam),  Henry 
VIII.  and  Charles  I.  This  were  ample,  with 
out  throwing  into  the  scale  the  scholar  and  poet 
Daniel.  Them  was  used  as  a  nominative  by 
the  majesty  of  Edward  VI.,  by  Sir  P.  Hoby, 
and  by  Lord  Paget  (in  Froude's  "History"). 
I  have  never  seen  any  passage  adduced  where 
guess  was  used  as  the  Yankee  uses  it.  The 
word  was  familiar  in  the  mouths  of  our  ances 
tors,  but  with  a  different  shade  of  meaning 
from  that  we  have  given  it,  which  is  something 
like  rather  think,  though  the  Yankee  implies 
a  confident  certainty  by  it  when  he  says,  "  I 
guess  I  du ! ' '  There  are  two  examples  in  Ot- 
way,  one  of  which  ("  So  in  the  struggle,  I  guess 
the  note  was  lost")  perhaps  might  serve  our 
purpose,  and  Coleridge's 

"  I  guess  't  was  fearful  there  to  see  " 

certainly  comes  very  near.  But  I  have  a  higher 
authority  than  either  in  Selden,  who,  in  one  of 
his  notes  to  the  "  Polyolbion,"  writes,  "  The 
first  inventor  of  them  (I  guess  you  dislike  not 
the  addition)  was  one  Berthold  Swartz."  Here 
he  must  mean  by  it,  "I  take  it  for  granted." 
Robert  Greene,  in  his  "Quip  for  an  Upstart 
Courtier,"  makes  Cloth-breeches  say,  "but  I 
gesse  your  maistership  never  tried  what  true 
honor  meant."  In  this  case  the  word  seems  to 
be  used  with  a  meaning  precisely  like  that 


45  2 


APPENDIX 


which  we  give  it.  Another  peculiarity  almost 
as  prominent  is  the  beginning  sentences,  espe 
cially  in  answer  to  questions,  with  "well." 
Put  before  such  a  phrase  as  "  How  d'e  do?  " 
it  is  commonly  short,  and  has  the  sound  of  wul, 
but  in  reply  it  is  deliberative,  and  the  various 
shades  of  meaning  which  can  be  conveyed  by 
difference  of  intonation,  and  by  prolonging  or 
abbreviating,  I  should  vainly  attempt  to  de 
scribe.  I  have  heard  ooa-ahl,  wahl,  ahl,  wal, 
and  something  nearly  approaching  the  sound  of 
the  le  in  able.  Sometimes  before  "  I  "  it  dwin 
dles  to  a  mere  /,  as  "  '1 1  clunno."  A  friend  of 
mine  (why  should  I  not  please  myself,  though 
I  displease  him,  by  brightening  my  page  with 
the  initials  of  the  most  exquisite  of  humor 
ists,  J.  H.  ?)  told  me  that  he  once  heard  five 
"wells,"  like  pioneers,  precede  the  answer  to 
:>ut  the  price  of  land.  The  first 


was  the  ordinary  wul,  in  deference  to  custom  ; 
the  second,  the  long,  perpending  ooahl,  with  a 
falling  inflection  of  the  voice  ;  the  third,  the 
same,  but  with  the  voice  rising,  as  if  in  despair 
of  a  conclusion,  into  a  plaintively  nasal  whine  ; 
the  fourth,  wulh,  ending  in  the  aspirate  of  a 
sigh  ;  and  then,  fifth,  came  a  short,  sharp  wal, 
showing  that  a  conclusion  had  been  reached. 
I  have  used  this  latter  form  in  the  "Biglow 
Papers,"  because,  if  enough  nasality  be  added, 
it  represents  most  nearly  the  average  sound  of 
what  I  may  call  the  interjection. 

A  locution  prevails  in  the  Southern  and  Mid 
dle  States  which  is  so  curious  that,  though 
never  heard  in  New  England,  I  will  give  a  few 
lines  to  its  discussion,  the  more  readily  because 
it  is  extinct  elsewhere.  I  mean  the  use  of  allow 
in  the  sense  of  affirm,  as  "  1  allow  that 's  a  good 
horse."  I  find  the  word  so  used  in  1558  by 
Anthony  Jenkinson  in  Hakluyt:  "  Corne  they 
sowe  not,  neither  doe  eate  any  bread,  mocking 
the  Christians  for  the  same,  and  disabling  our 
strengthe,  saying  we  live  by  eating  the  toppe  of 
a  weede,  and  drinke  a  drinke  made  of  the  same, 
allowing  theyr  great  devouring  of  flesh  and 
drinking  of  milke  to  be  the  increase  of  theyr 
strength."  That  is,  they  undervalued  our 
strength,  and  affirmed  their  own  to  be  the  re 
sult  of  a  certain  diet.  In  another  passage  of 
the  same  narrative  the  word  has  its  more  com 
mon  meaning  of  approving  or  praising  :  "  The 
said  king,  much  allowing  this  declaration,  said." 
Ducange  quotes  Bracton  sub  voce  ADLOCARE  for 
the  meaning  "to  admit  as  proved,"  and  the 
transition  from  this  to  "  affirm  "  is  by  no  means 
violent.  Izaak  Walton  has  "  Lebault  allows 
waterfrogs  to  be  good  meat,"  and  here  the 
word  is  equivalent  to  affirms.  At  the  same 
time,  when  we  consider  some  of  the  meanings 
of  allow  in  old  English,  and  of  allouer  in  old 
French,  and  also  remember  that  the  verbs  prize 
and  praise  are  from  one  root,  I  think  we  must 
admit  allaudare  to  a  share  in  the  paternity  of 
allow.  The  sentence  from  Hakluyt  would  read 
equally  well,  "  contemning  our  strengthe,  .  .  . 
and  praising  (or  valuing)  their  great  eating  of 
flesh  as  the  cause  of  their  increase  in  strength." 
After  all,  if  we  confine  ourselves  to  allocare,  it 


may  turn  out  that  the  word  was  somewhere 
and  somewhen  used  for  to  bet,  analogously  to 
put  up,  put  down,  post  (cf.  Spanish  apostar), 
and  the  like.  I  hear  boys  in  the  street  contin 
ually  saying,  "I  bet  that's  a  good  horse,"  or 
what  not,  meaning  by  no  means  to  risk  any 
thing  beyond  their  opinion  in  the  matter. 

The  word  improve,  in  the  sense  of  to  "oc 
cupy,  make  use  of,  employ,"  as  Dr.  Pickering 
defines  it,  he  long  ago  proved  to  be  no  neolo 
gism.  He  would  have  done  better,  I  think, 
had  he  substituted  profit  by  for  employ.  He 
cites  Dr.  Franklin  as  saying  that  the  word  had 
never,  so  far  as  he  knew,  been  used  in  New 
England  before  he  left  it  in  1723,  except  in  Dr. 
Mather's  "Remarkable  Providences,"  which 
he  oddly  calls  a  "very  old  book."  Franklin, 
as  Dr.  Pickering  goes  on  to  show,  was  mis 
taken.  Mr.  Bartlett  in  his  "Dictionary" 
merely  abridges  Pickering.  Both  of  them 
should  have  confined  the  application  of  the 
word  to  material  things,  its  extension  to  which 
is  all  that  is  peculiar  in  the  supposed  Ameri 
can  use  of  it.  For  surely  "  Complete  Letter- 
Writers  "  have  been  "  improving  this  oppor 
tunity  "  time  out  of  mind.  I  will  illustrate 
the  word  a  little  further,  because  Pickering 
cites  no  English  authorities.  Skelton  has  a 
passage  in  his  "  Phyllyp  Sparowe,"  which  I 
quote  the  rather  as  it  contains  also  the  word 
allowed,  and  as  it  distinguishes  improve  from 
employ :  — 

"His  [Chaucer's]  Englysh  well  alowed, 

So  as  it  is  emprowed, 

For  as  it  is  employd, 

There  is  no  English  voyd." 

Here  the  meaning  is  to  profit  by.  In  Fuller's 
"  Holy  Warre  "  (1647),  we  have  "  The  Egyptians 
standing  on  the  firm  ground,  were  thereby  en 
abled  to  improve  and  enforce  their  darts  to  the 
utmost."  Here  the  word  might  certainly  mean 
to  make  use  of.  Mrs.  Hutchinson  (Life  of  Colo 
nel  H.)  uses  the  word  in  the  same  way :  "  And 
therefore  did  not  emproove  his  interest  to  en 
gage  the  country  in  the  quarrell."  Swift  in 
one  of  his  letters  says :  "  There  is  not  an  acre 
of  land  in  Ireland  turned  to  half  its  advantage  ; 
yet  it  is  better  improved  than  the  people."  I 
find  it  also  in  "Strength  out  of  Weakness" 
(1052),  and  Plutarch's  " Morals'^'  (1714),_but  I 
know  of  only  one  example  of  its  use  in  the 
purely  American  sense,  and  that  is  "a  very 
good  improvement  for  a  mill "  in  the  "  State 
Trials  "  (Speech  of  the  Attorney-General  in  the 
Lady  Ivy's  case,  1684).  In  the  sense  of  employ, 
I  could  cite  a  dozen  old  English  authorities. 

In  running  over  the  fly-leaves  of  those  de 
lightful  folios  for  this  reference,  I  find  a  note 
which  reminds  me  of  another  word,  for  pur 
abuse  of  which  we  have  been  deservedly  ridi 
culed.  I  mean  lady.  It  is  true  I  might  cite 
the  example  of  the  Italian  donna  l  (domino), 
which  has  been  treated  in  the  same  way  by  a 
whole  nation,  and  not,  as  lady  among  us,  by  the 
uncultivated  only.  It  perhaps  grew  into  use  in 
1  Dame,  in  English,  is  a  decayed  gentlewoman  of  the 
same  family. 


INTRODUCTION   TO   THE   BIGLOW  PAPERS 


453 


the  half-democratic  republics  of  Italy  in  the 
same  way  and  for  the  same  reasons  as  with  us. 
But  I  admit  that  our  abuse  of  the  word  is  vil- 
lanous.  I  know  of  an  orator  who  once  said 
in  a  public  meeting  where  bonnets  preponder 
ated,  that  "  the  ladies  were  last  at  the  cross  and 
first  at  the  tomb"!  But  similar  sins  were 
committed  before  our  day  and  in  the  mother 
country.  In  the  "  Harleian  Miscellany"  (vol. 
v.  p.  455)  I  find  "  this  lady  is  my  servant ; 
the  hedger's  daughter  loan."  In  the  "State 
Trials"  1  learn  of  "  a  gentlewoman  that  lives 
cook  with  "  such  a  one,  and  I  hear  the  Lord 
High  Steward  speaking  of  the  wife  of  a  waiter 
at  a  bagnio  as  a  gentlewoman  !  From  the  same 
authority,  by  the  way,  I  can  state  that  our  vile 
habit  of  chewing  tobacco  had  the  somewhat  un 
savory  example  of  Titus  Gates,  and  I  know  by 
tradition  from  an  eye-witness  that  the  elegant 
General  Burgoyne  partook  of  the  same  vice. 
Howell,  in  one  of  his  letters  (dated  26  August, 
1623),  speaks  thus  of  another  "  institution " 
which  many  have  thought  American  :  "  They 
speak  much  of  that  boisterous  Bishop  of  Halver- 
stadt  (for  so  they  term  him  here),  that,  having 
taken  a  place  wher  ther  were  two  Monasteries 
of  Nuns  and  Friers,  he  caus'd  divers  feather-, 
beds  to  be  rip'd,  and  all  the  feathers  to  be 
thrown  in  a  great  Hall,  whither  the  Nuns  and 
Friers  were  thrust  naked  with  their  bodies 
oil'd  and  pitch'd,  and  to  tumble  among  the 
feathers."  Howell  speaks  as  if  the  thing  were 
new  to  him,  and  I  know  not  if  the  "  boister 
ous  "  Bishop  was  the  inventer  of  it,  but  I  find 
it  practised  in  England  before  our  Revolution. 
Before  leaving  the  subject,  I  will  add  a  few 
comments  made  from  time  to  time  on  the  mar 
gin  of  Mr.  Bartlett's  excellent  "  Dictionary," 
to  which  I  am  glad  thus  publicly  to  acknow 
ledge  my  many  obligations.  "  Avails  "  is  good 
old  English,  and  the  vails  of  Sir  Joshua  Rey- 
nolds's  porter  are  famous.  Averse /row,  averse 
to,  and  in  connection  with  them  the  English 
vulgarism  "different  to:"  the  corrupt  use  of 
to  in  these  cases,  as  well  as  in  the  Yankee  "  he 
lives  to  Salem,"  "to  home,"  and  others,  must 
be  a  very  old  one,  for  in  the  one  case  it  plainly 
arose  from  confounding  the  two  French  prepo 
sitions  a  (from  Latin  ad  and  ao),  and  in  the 
other  from  translating  the  first  of  them.  I 
once  thought  "  different  to  "  a  modern  vulgar 
ism,  and  Mr.  Thackeray,  on  my  pointing  it  out  to 
him  in  "  Henry  Esmond,"  confessed  it  to  be  an 
anachronism.  Mr.  Bartlett  refers  to  "  the  old 
writers  quoted  in  Richardson's  Dictionary  "  for 
"different  to,"  though  in  my  edition  of  that 
work  all  the  examples  are  with  from.  But  I 
find  to  used  invariably  by  Sir  R.  Hawkins  in 
Hakluyt.  Banjo  is  a  negro  corruption  of  O.  E. 
bandore.  Bind-weed  can  hardly  be  modern, 
for  wood-bind  is  old  and  radically  right,  inter 
twining  itself  through  bindan  and  windan  with 
classic  stems.  Bobolink :  is  this  a  contraction 
for  Bob  o'  Lincoln  ?  I  find  bobolynes,  in  one  of 
the  poems  attributed  to  Skelton,  where  it  may 
be  rendered  giddy-pate,  a  term  very  fit  for  the 
bird  in  his  ecstasies.  Cruel  for  great  is  in  Hak 


luyt.  Bowling-alley  is  in  Nash's  "  Pierce  Pen- 
nilesse."  Curious,  meaning  nice,  occurs  con 
tinually  in  old  writers,  and  is  as  old  as  Pecock's 
"  Represser."  Droger  is  0.  E.  drugger.  Edu 
cational  is  in  Burke.  Feeze  is  only  a  form  of 
fizz.  To  fix,  in  the  American  sense,  I  find 
used  by  the  Commissioners  of  the  United  Colo 
nies  so  early  as  1675,  "  their  arms  well  fixed 
and  fit  for  service."  To  take  the  foot  in  the  hand 
is  German  ;  so  is  to  go  under.  Gundalow  is  old  ; 
I  find  gundelo  in  Hakluyt,  and  gundello  in 
Booth's  reprint  of  the  folio  Shakespeare  of 
1623.  Gonoff  is  0.  E.  gnojfe.  Heap  is  in 
"  Piers  Ploughman "  ("  and  other  names  an 
heep"),  and  in  Hakluyt  ("seeing  such  a  heap 
of  their  enemies  ready  to  devour  them  ").  To 
liquor  is  in  the  "Puritan"  ("call  'em  in,  and 
liquor  'em  a  little  ").  To  loaf:  this,  I  think, 
is  unquestionably  German.  Laufen  is  pro 
nounced  lofen  in  some  parts  of  Germany,  and  I 
once  heard  one  German  student  say  to  another, 
Ich  lauf  (lofe)  hier  bis  du  wiederkehrest,  and  he 
began  accordingly  to  saunter  up  and  down,  in. 
short,  to  loaf.  To  mull,  Mr.  Bartlett  says, 
means  "  to  soften,  to  dispirit,"  and  quotes  from 
"  Margaret,"  —  "  There  has  been  a  pretty  con 
siderable  mullin  going  on  among  the  doctors," 
—  where  it  surely  cannot  mean  what  he  says  it 
does.  We  have  always  heard  mulling  used  for 
stirring,  bustling,  sometimes  in  an  underhand 
way.  It  is  a  metaphor  derived  probably  from 
mulling  wine,  and  the  word  itself  must  be  a  cor 
ruption  of  mell,  from  O.  F.  mesler.  Pair  of 
stairs  is  in  Hakluyt.  To  pull  up  stakes  is  in 
Curwen's  Journal,  and  therefore  pre-Revolu- 
tionary.  I  think  I  have  met  with  it  earlier. 
Raise:  under  this  word  Mr.  Bartlett  omits  "to 
raise  a  house,"  that  is,  the  frame  of  a  wooden 
one,  and  also  the  substantive  formed  from  it,  a 
ramV.  Retire  for  go  to  bed  is  in  Fielding's 
"Amelia."  Setting-poles  cannot  be  new,  for  I 
find"  some  set  [the  boats]  with  longpo/es"  in 
Hakluyt.  Shoulder-hitters :  I  find  that  shoulder- 
striker  is  old,  though  I  have  lost  the  reference 
to  my  authority.  Snag  is  no  new  word,  though 
perhaps  the  Western  application  of  it  is  so  ;  but 
I  find  in  Gill  the  proverb,  "  A  bird  in  the  bag 
is  worth  two  on  the  snag."  Dryden  has  swop 
and  to  rights.  Trail^:  Hakluyt  has  "many 
waves  traled  by  the  wilde  beastes." 

I  subjoin  a  few  phrases  not  in  Mr.  Bartlett's 
book  which  I  have  heard.  Bald-headed:  "to 
go  it  bald-headed  ;  "  in  great  haste,  as  where 
one  rushes  out  without  his  hat.  Bogue:  "I 
don't  git  much  done  'thout  I  bogue  right  in 
along  'th  my  men."  Carry:  a  portage.  Cat 
nap:  a  short  doze.  Cat-stick:  a  small  stick. 
Chowder-head :  a  muddle-brain.  Cling-john :  a 
soft  cake  of  rye.  Cocoa-nut :  the  head.  Cohees': 
applied  to  the  people  of  certain  settlements 
in  Western  Pennsylvania,  from  their  use  of 
the  archaic  form  Quo'  he.  Dunnow'z  I  know : 
the  nearest  your  true  Yankee  ever  comes  to 
acknowledging  ignorance.  Essence-pedler :  a 
skunk.  First-rate  and  a  half.  Fish-flakes,  for 
drying  fish:  O.  E.  fleck  (cratis).  Gander-party: 
a  social  gathering  of  men  only.  Gawmcus :  a 


454 


APPENDIX 


dolt.  Hawkins's  whetstone :  rum ;  in  derision 
of  one  Hawkins,  a  well-known  temperance-lec 
turer.  Hyper:  to  bustle:  "  I  mus'  hyper  about 
an' git  tea."  Keelcr-tub:  one  in  which  dishes 
are  washed.  ("  And  Greasy  Joan  doth  keel  the 
pot.")  Lap-tea :  where  the  guests  are  too  many 
to  sit  at  table.  Last  of  pea-time :  to  be  hard-up. 
Lose-laid  (loose-laidj :  a  weaver's  term,  and 
probably  English  ;  weak-willed.  Malahack :  to 
cut  up  hastily  or  awkwardly.  ~M.oongla.de :  a 
beautiful  word  :  for  the  track  of  moonlight  on 
the  water.  Off-ox:  an  unmanageable,  cross- 
grauied  fellow.  Old  Driver,  Old  Splitfoot :  the 
Devil.  Onhitch :  to  pull  trigger  (cf .  Spanish 
disparar).  Popular:  conceited.  Rote:  sound 
of  surf  before  a  storm.  Bot-gut :  cheap  whis 
key  ;  the  word  occurs  in  Hey  wood's  "  English 
Traveller  "  and  Addison's  "  Drummer,"  for  a 
poor  kind  of  drink.  Seem :  it  is  habitual  with 
the  New-Englander  to  put  this  verb  to  strange 
uses,  as  "  I  can't  seem  to  be  suited."  "I 
could  n't  seem  to  know  him."  Sidehill,  for 
hillside.  State-house :  this  seems  an  American 
ism,  whether  invented  or  derived  from  the 
Dutch  Stadhuys,  I  know  not.  Strike  and  stri ng : 
from  the  game  of  ninepins  ;  to  make  a  strike  is 
to  knock  down  all  the  pins  with  one  ball,  hence 
it  has  come  to  mean  fortunate,  successful. 
Swampers:  men  who  break  out  loads  for  lum 
berers.  Tormented:  euphemism  for  damned, 
as,  "not  a  tormented  cent."  Virginia  fence,  to 
make  a :  to  walk  like  a  drunken  man. 

It  is  always  worth  while  to  note  down  the 
erratic  words  or  phrases  which  one  meets  with 
in  any  dialect.  They  may  throw  light  on  the 
meaning  of  other  words,  on  the  relationship  of 
languages,  or  even  on  history  itself.  In  so 
composite  a  language  as  ours  they  often  supply 
a  different  form  to  express  a  different  shade  of 
meaning,  as  in  viol  and.  fiddle,  thrid  and  thread, 
smother  and  smoulder,  where  the  /  has  crept  in 
by  a  false  analogy  vith  would.  We  have  given 
back  to  England  the  excellent  adjective  lengthy, 
formed  honestly  I'ke  earthy,  drouthy,  and  others, 
thus  enabling  their  journalists  to  characterize 
our  President's  messages  by  a  word  civilly 
compromising  between  long  and  tedious,  so  as 
not  to  endanger  the  peace  of  the  two  countries 
by  wounding  our  national  sensitiveness  to  Brit 
ish  criticism.  Let  me  give  two  curious  ex 
amples  of  the  antiseptic  property  of  dialects 
at  which  I  have  already  glanced.  Dante  has 
dindi  as  a  childish  or  low  word  for  danari 
(money),  and  in  Shropshire  small  Roman  coins 
are  still  dug  up  which  the  peasants  call  dinders. 
This  can  hardly  be  a  chance  coincidence,  but 
seems  rather  to  carry  the  word  back  to  the 
Roman  soldiery.  So  our  farmers  say  chuk, 
chuk,  to  their  pigs,  and  ciacco  is  one  of  the 
Italian  words  for  hog.  When  a  countryman 
tells  us  that  he  "fell  all  of  a  heap,"  I  cannot 
help  thinking  that  he  unconsciously  points  to 
an  affinity  between  our  word  tumble,  and  the 
Latin  tumulus,  that  is  older  than  most  others. 

1  Which,  whether  in  that  form,  or  under  its  aliases 
witch-grass  and  coocA-grass,  points  us  back  to  its  origi 
nal  Saxon  quick. 


I  believe  that  words,  or  even  the  mere  into 
nation  of  them,  have  an  astonishing  vitality 
and  power  of  propagation  by  the  root,  like  the 
gardener's  pest,  quitch-grass,1  while  tne  appli 
cation  or  combination  of  them  may  be  new.  It 
is  in  these  last  that  my  countrymen  seem  to  me 
full  of  humor,  invention,  quickness  of  wit,  and 
that  sense  of  subtle  analogy  which  needs  only 
refining  to  become  fancy  and  imagination. 
Prosaic  as  American  life  seems  in  many  of  its 
aspects  to  a  European,  bleak  and  bare  as  it  is 
on  the  side  of  tradition,  and  utterly  orphaned 
of  the  solemn  inspiration  of  antiquity,  I  cannot 
help  thinking  that  the  ordinary  talk  of  unlet 
tered  men  among  us  is  fuller  of  metaphor  and 
of  phrases  that  suggest  lively  images  than  that 
of  any  other  people  I  have  seen.  Very  many 
such  will  be  found  in  Mr.  Bartlett's  book, 
though  his  short  list  of  proverbs  at  the  end 
seem  to  me,  with  one  or  two  exceptions,  as  un- 
American  as  possible.  Most  of  them  have  no 
character  at  all  but  coarseness,  and  are  quite 
too  long-skirted  for  working  proverbs,  in  which 
language  always  "takes  off  its  coat  to  it,"  as 
a  Yankee  would  say.  There  are  plenty  that 
have  a  more  native  and  puckery  flavor,  seed 
lings  from  the  old  stock  often,  and  yet  new 
varieties.  One  hears  such  not  seldom  among 
us  Easterners,  and  the  West  would  yield  many 
more.  "  Mean  enough  to  steal  acorns  from  a 
blind  hog;"  "Cold  as  the  north  side  of  a 
Jenooary  gravestone  by  starlight;"  "Hungry 
as  a  graven  image  ;  "  "  Pop'lar  as  a  hen  with 
one  chicken;"  "  A  hen's  time  ain't  much;" 
"  Quicker  'n  greased  lightnin' ;  "  '  Ther  's 
sech  a  thing  ez  bein'  tu "  (our  Yankee 
paraphrase  of  /u.^Se*'  ayav)  ;  hence  the  phrase 
tooin'1  round,  meaning  a  supererogatory  ac 
tivity  like  that  of  flies;  "Stingy  enough  to 
skim  his  milk  at  both  eends"  ;  "Hot  as  the 
Devil's  kitchen  ;  "  "  Handy  as  a  pocket  in  a 
shirt ;  "  "  He  's  a  whole  team  and  the  dog  un 
der  the  wagon  ;  "  "  All  deacons  are  good,  but 
there  's  odds  in  deacons  "  (to  deacon  berries  is 
to  put  the  largest  atop);  "So  thievish  they 
hev  to  take  in  their  stone  walls  nights  ;  "  2  may 
serve  as  specimens.  "  I  take  my  tea  barfoot" 
said  a  backwoodsman  when  asked  if  he  would 
have  cream  and  sugar.  (I  find  barfoot,  by  the 
way,  in  the  Coventry  Plays.)  A  man  speak 
ing  to  me  once  of  a  very  rocky  clearing  said, 
"  Stone  's  got  a  pretty  heavy  mortgage  on  that 
land,"  and  I  overheard  a  guide  in  the  woods, 
say  to  his  companions  who  were  urging  him  to 
sing,  "  Wai,  I  did  sing  once,  but  toons  gut 
invented,  an'  thet  spilt  my  trade."  Whoever 
has  driven  over  a  stream  by  a  bridge  made  of 
slabs  will  feel  the  picturesque  force  of  the  epi 
thet  slab-bridged  applied  to  a  fellow  of  shaky 
character.  Almost  every  county  has  some  good 
die-sinker  in  phrase,  whose  mintage  passes  into 
the  currency  of  the  whole  neighborhood.  Such 
a  one  described  the  county  jail  (the  one  stone 
building  where  all  the  dwellings  are  of  wood) 
2  And,  by  the  way,  the  Yankee  never  says  "  o» 
nights,"  but  uses  the  older  adverbial  form,  analogous 
to  the  German  uachts. 


INTRODUCTION   TO   THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


455 


as  "  the  house  whose  underpinnin'  come  up  to 
the  eaves,"  and  called  hell  "  the  place  where 
they  did  n't  rake  up  their  fires  nights."  I  once 
asked  a  stage-driver  if  the  other  side  of  a  hill 
were  as  steep  as  the  one  we  were  climbing: 
"  Steep  ?  chain  lightnin'  could  n'  go  down  it 
'thout  puttin'  the  shoe  on  !  "  And  this  brings 
me  back  to  the  exaggeration  of  which  I  spoke 
before.  To  me  there  is  something  very  taking 
in  the  negro  "so  black  that  charcoal  made  a 
chalk-mark  on  him,"  and  the  wooden  shingle 
"painted  so  like  marble  that  it  sank  in  wa 
ter,"  as  if  its  very  consciousness  or  its  vanity 
had  been  overpersuaded  by  the  cunning  of  the 
painter.  I  heard  a  man,  in  order  to  give  a 
notion  of  some  very  cold  weather,  say  to  an 
other  that  a  certain  Joe,  who  had  been  taking 
mercury,  found  a  lump  of  quicksilver  in  each 
boot,  when  he  went  home  to  dinner.  This 
power  of  rapidly  dramatizing  a  dry  fact  into 
flesh  and  blood  and  the  vivid  conception  of  Joe 
as  a  human  thermometer  strike  me  as  showing 
a  poetic  sense  that  may  be  refined  into  fac 
ulty.  At  any  rate  there  is  humor  here,  and  not 
mere  quickness  of  wit,  —  the  deeper  and  not 
the  shallower  quality.  The  tendency  of  humor 
is  always  towards  overplus  of  expression,  while 
the  very  essence  of  wit  is  its  logical  precision. 
Captain  Basil  Hall  denied  that  our  people  had 
any  humor,  deceived,  perhaps,  by  their  gravity 
of  manner.  But  this  very  seriousness  is  often 
the  outward  sign  of  that  humorous  quality  of 
the  mind  which  delights  in  finding  an  element 
of  identity  in  things  seemingly  the  most  incon 
gruous,  and  then  again  in  forcing  an  incongruity 
upon  things  idantical.  Perhaps  Captain  Hall 
had  no  humor  himself,  and  if  so  he  would 
never  find  it.  Did  he  always  feel  the  point 
of  what  was  said  to  himself  ?  I  doubt  it,  be 
cause  I  happen  to  know  a  chance  he  once  had 
given  him  in  vain.  The  Captain  was  walking  up 
and  down  the  veranda  of  a  country  tavern  in 
Massachusetts  while  the  coach  changed  horses. 
A  thundar-storm  was  going  on,  and,  with  that 
pleasant  European  air  of  indirect  self-compli 
ment  in  condescending  to  be  surprised  by 
American  merit,  which  we  find  so  conciliating, 
he  said  to  a  countryman  lounging  against  the 
door,  "  Pratty  heavy  thunder  you  have  here." 
The  other,  who  had  divined  at  a  glance  his 
feeling  of  generous  concession  to  a  new  country, 
drawled  gravely,  "  Waal,  we  e?u,  considerin' 
the  number  of  inhabitants."  This,  the  more  I 
analyze  it,  the  more  humorous  does  it  seem. 
The  same  man  was  capable  of  wit  also,  when 
he  would.  He  was  a  cabinet-maker,  and  was 
once  employed  to  make  some  commandment- 
tables  for  the  parish  meeting-house.  The  par 
son,  a  very  old  man,  annoyed  him  by  looking 
into  his  workshop  every  morning,  and  caution 
ing  him  to  be  very  sure  to  pick  out  ' '  clear 
mahogany  without  any  knots  in  it."  At  last, 
wearied  out,  he  retorted  one  day  :  "  Wai,  Dr. 
B.,  I  guess  ef  I  was  to  leave  the  nots  out  o' 
some  o'  the  c'man'ments,  't  'ould  soot  you  full 
ez  wal !  " 
If  I  had  taken  the  pains  to  write  down  the 


froverbial  or  pithy  phrases  I  have  heard,  or  if 
had  sooner  thought  of  noting  the  Yankeeisms 
I  met  with  in  my  reading,  I  might  have  been 
able  to  do  more  justice  to  my  theme.  But  I 
have  done  all  I  wished  in  respect  to  pronuncia 
tion,  if  I  have  proved  that  where  we  are  vulgar, 
we  have  the  countenance  of  very  good  company. 
For,  as  to  the  jus  et  norma  loquendi,  I  agree 
with  Horace  and  those  who  have  paraphrased 
or  commented  him,  from  Boileau  to  Gray.  I 
think  that  a  good  rule  for  style  is  Galiani's  defi 
nition  of  sublime  oratory,  —  "  1'art  de  tout  dire 
sans  etre  mis  k  la  Bastille  dans  un  pays  ou  il 
est  cle^fendu  de  rien  dire."  I  profess  myself  a 
fanatical  purist,  but  with  a  hearty  contempt 
for  the  speech-gilders  who  affect  purism  with 
out  any  thorough,  or  even  pedagogic,  know 
ledge  of  the  engendure,  growth,  and  affinities 
of  the  noble  language  about  whose  mesalliances 
they  profess  (like  Dean  Alf ord)  to  be  so  solici 
tous.  If  they  had  their  way  —  !  "  Doch  es  sey, ' ' 
says  Lessing,  "  dass  jene  gothische  Hoflichkeit 
eine  unentbehrliche  Tugend  des  heutigen  Um- 
ganges  ist.  Soil  sie  darum  unsere  Schriften 
eben  so  schaal  und  falsch  machen  als  unsern 
Umgang  ?  "  And  Dray  ton  was  not  far  wrong 
in  affirming  that 

"  'T  is  possible  to  climb, 
To  kindle,  or  to  slake, 

Although  in  Skelton's  rhyme." 

Cumberland  in  his  Memoirs  tells  us  that 
when,  in  the  midst  of  Admiral  Rodney's  great 
sea-fight,  Sir  Charles  Douglas  said  to  him,  "  Be 
hold,  Sir  George,  the  Greeks  and  Trojans  con 
tending  for  the  body  of  Patroclus  !  "  the  Ad 
miral  answered,  peevishly,  "Damn  the  Greeks 
and  damn  the  Trojans  !  I  have  other  things  to 
think  of."  After  the  battle  was  won,  Rodney 
thus  to  Sir  Charles,  "  Now,  my  dear  friend,  I 
am  at  the  service  of  your  Greeks  and  Trojans, 
and  the  whole  of  Homer's  Iliad,  or  as  much  of 
it  as  you  please  !  "  I  had  some  such  feeling 
of  the  impertinence  of  our  pseudo-classicality 
when  I  chose  our  homely  dialect  to  work  in. 
Should  we  be  nothing,  because  somebody  had 
contrived  to  be  something  (and  that  perhaps  in 
a  provincial  dialect)  ages  ago  ?  and  to  be  no 
thing  by  our  very  attempt  to  be  that  something, 
which  they  had  already  been,  and  which  there 
fore  nobody  could  be  again  without  being  a 
bore  ?  Is  there  no  way  left,  then,  I  thought, 
of  being  natural,  of  being  naif,  which  means 
nothing  more  than  native,  of  belonging  to  the 
age  and  country  in  which  you  are  born  ?  The 
Yankee,  at  least,  is  a  new  phenomenon  ;  let  us 
try  to  be  that.  It  is  perhaps  a  pis  alter,  but  is 
not  No  Thoroughfare  written  up  everywhere 
else  ?  In  the  literary  world,  things  seemed  to 
me  very  much  as  they  were  in  the  latter  half 
of  the  last  century.  Pope,  skimming  the  cream 
of  good  sense  and  expression  wherever  he  could 
find  it,  had  made,  not  exactly  poetry,  but  an 
honest,  salable  butter  of  worldly  wisdom  which 
pleasantly  lubricated  some  of  the  drier  morsels 
of  life's  daily  bread,  and,  seeing  this,  scores  of 
harmlessly  insane  people  went  on  for  the  next 


456 


APPENDIX 


fifty  years  coaxing  his  buttermilk  with  the  reg 
ular  up  and  down  of  the  pentameter  churn. 
And  in  our  day  do  we  not  scent  everywhere, 
and  even  carry  away  in  our  clothes  against  our 
will,  that  faint  perfume  of  musk  which  Mr. 
Tennyson  has  left  behind  him,  or  worse,  of 
Heine's  patchouli  f  And  might  it  not  be  pos 
sible  to  escape  them  by  turning  into  one  of  our 
narrow  New  England  lanes,  shut  in  though  it 
were  by  bleak  stone  walls  on  either  hand,  and 
where  no  better  flowers  were  to  be  gathered 
than  goldenrod  and  hardhack  ? 

Beside  the  advantage  of  getting  out  of  the 
beaten  track,  our  dialect  offered  others  hardly 
inferior.  As  I  was  about  to  make  an  endeavor 
to  state  them,  I  remembered  something  that 
the  clear-sighted  Goethe  had  said  about  Hebel's 
"  Allemannische  Gedichte,"  which,  making 
proper  deduction  for  special  reference  to  the 
book  under  review,  expresses  what  I  would  have 
said  far  better  than  I  could  hope  to  do :  "Allen 
diesen  innern  guten  Eigenschaften  kommt  die 
behagliche  naive  Sprache  sehr  zu  statten.  Man 
findet  mehrere  sinnlich  bedeutende  und  wohl- 
klingende  Worte  .  .  .  von  einem,  zwei  Buch- 
staben,  Abbreviationen,  Contractionen,  viele 
kurze,  leichte  Sylben,  neue  Reime,  welches, 
mehr  als  man  glaubt,  ein  Vortheil  fur  den 
Dichter  ist.  Diese  Elemente  werden  durch 
gliickliche  Constructionen  und  lebhafte  Formen 
zu  einem  Styl  zusammengedrangt  der  zu  diesem 
Zwecke  vor  unserer  Biichersprache  grosse  Vor- 
ziige  hat."  Of  course  I  do  not  mean  to  imply 
that  I  have  come  near  achieving  any  such  suc 
cess  as  the  great  critic  here  indicates,  but  I 
think  the  success  is  there,  and  to  be  plucked  by 
some  more  fortunate  hand. 

Nevertheless,  I  was  encouraged  by  the  ap 
proval  of  many  whose  opinions  I  valued.  With 
a  feeling  too  tender  and  grateful  to  be  mixed 
with  any  vanity,  I  mention  as  one  of  these  the 
late  A.  H.  Clough,  who  more  than  any  one  of 
those  I  have  known  (no  longer  living),  except 
Hawthorne,  impressed  me  with  the  constant 
presence  of  that  indefinable  thing  we  call 
genius.  He  often  suggested  that  1  should  try 
my  hand  at  some  Yankee  Pastorals,  which 
would  admit  of  more  sentiment  and  a  higher 
tone  without  foregoing  the  advantage  offered 
by  the  dialect.  I  have  never  completed  any 
thing  of  the  kind,  but,  in  this  Second  Series, 
both  my  remembrance  of  his  counsel  and  the 
deeper  feeling  called  up  by  the  great  interests 
at  stake,  led  me  to  venture  some  passages 
nearer  to  what  is  called  poetical  than  could 
have  been  admitted  without  incongruity  into 
the  former  series.  The  time  seemed  calling  to 
me,  with  the  old  poet,  — 

"  Leave,  then,  your  wonted  prattle, 

The  oaten  reed  forbear  ; 
For  I  hear  a  sound  of  battle, 
And  trumpets  rend  the  air  !" 

The  only  attempt  I  had  ever  made  at  any 
thing  like  a  pastoral  (if  that  may  be  called  an 
attempt  which  was  the  result  almost  of  pure 
accident)  was  in  "The  Courtin'."  While  the 
introduction  to  the  First  Series  was  going 


through  the  press,  I  received  word  from  the 
printer  that  there  was  a  blank  page  left  which 
must  be  filled.  I  sat  down  at  once  and  impro 
vised  another  fictitious  "  notice  of  the  press," 
in  which,  because  verse  would  fill  up  space 
more  cheaply  than  prose,  I  inserted  an  extract 
from  a  supposed  ballad  of  Mr.  Biglow.  I  kept 
no  copy  of  it,  and  the  printer,  as  directed,  cut 
it  off  when  the  gap  was  filled.  Presently  I 
began  to  receive  letters  asking  for  the  rest  of 
it,  sometimes  for  the  balance  of  it.  I  had  none, 
but  to  answer  such  demands,  I  patched  a  con 
clusion  upon  it  in  a  later  edition.  Those  who 
had  only  the  first  continued  to  importune  me. 
Afterward,  being  asked  to  write  it  out  as  an 
autograph  for  the  Baltimore  Sanitary  Commis 
sion  Fair,  I  added  other  verses,  into  some  of 
which  I  infused  a  little  more  sentiment  in  a 
homely  way,  and  after  a  fashion  completed  it 
by  sketching  iu  the  characters  and  making  a 
connected  story.  Most  likely  I  have  spoiled 
it,  but  I  shall  put  it  at  the  end  of  this  Intro 
duction,  to  answer  once  for  all  those  kindly 
importunings. 

As  I  have  seen  extracts  from  what  purported 
to  be  writings  of  Mr.  Biglow,  which  were  not 
genuine,  I  may  properly  take  this  opportunity 
to  say.  that  the  two  volumes  now  published 
contain  every  line  I  ever  printed  under  that 
pseudonyme,  and  that  I  have  never,  so  far  as 
I  can  remember,  written  an  anonymous  arti 
cle  (elsewhere  than  in  the  "  North  American 
Review"  and  the  "Atlantic  Monthly,"  dur 
ing  my  editorship  of  it)  except  a  review  of 
Mrs.  Stowe's  "Minister's  Wooing,"  and,  some 
twenty  years  ago,  a  sketch  of  the  antislavery 
movement  in  America  for  an  English  journal. 

A  word  more  on  pronunciation.  I  have  en 
deavored  to  express  this  so  far  as  I  could  by 
the  types,  taking  such  pains  as,  I  fear,  may 
sometimes  make  the  reading  harder  than  need 
be.  At  the  same  time,  by  studying  uniform 
ity  I  have  sometimes  been  obliged  to  sacrifice 
minute  exactness.  The  emphasis  often  modi 
fies  the  habitual  sound.  For  example,  for  is 
commonly  fer  (a  shorter  sound  than  fur  for  far\ 
but  when  emphatic  it  always  becomes  for,  as 
"  wut  for  !  "  So  too  is  pronounced  like  to  (as  it 
was  anciently  spelt),  and  to  like  ta  (the  sound 
as  in  the  ton  of  touch),  but  too,  when  emphatic, 
changes  into  tue,  and  to,  sometimes,  in  similar 
cases,  into  toe,  as,  "  I  did  n'  hardly  know  wut 
toe  du  !  "  Where  vowels  come  together,  or  one 
precedes  another  following  an  aspirate,  the  two 
melt  together,  as  was  common  with  the  older 
poets  who  formed  their  versification  on  French 
or  Italian  models.  Dray  ton  is  thoroughly  Yan 
kee  when  he  says  "  I  'xpect,"  and  Pope  when 
he  says,  "  t'  inspire."  With  becomes  sometimes 
'ith,  'wfA,  or  'th,  or  even  disappears  wholly 
where  it  comes  before  the,  as,  "I  went  along 
th'  Square"  (along  with  the  Squire),  the  are 
sound  being  an  archaism  which  I  have  noticed 
also  in  choir,  like  the  old  Scottish  quhairJ- 
1  Greene  in  his  Quip  for  an  Upstart  Courtier  says, 
"to  square  it  up  and  downe  the  streetes  before  his 
mistresse." 


INTRODUCTION  TO   THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


457 


(Herrick  has,  "  Of  flowers  ne'er  sucked  by  th' 
theeving  bee.")  Without  becomes  athout  and 
'thout.  Afterwards  always  retains  its  locative  s, 
and  is  pronounced  always  ahterwurds' ,  with  a 
strong  accent  on  the  last  syllable.  This  oddity 
has  some  support  in  the  erratic  towards'  instead 
of  towards,  which  we  find  in  the  poets  and 
sometimes  hear.  The  sound  given  to  the  first 
syllable  of  tc/ wards,  I  may  remark,  sustains  the 
Yankee  lengthening  of  the  o  in  to.  At  the  be 
ginning  of  a  sentence,  ahterwurds  has  the  accent 
on  the  first  syllable  ;  at  the  end  of  one,  on  the 
last;  as,  " ah'terwurds  he  tol'  me,"  "he  tol' 
me  ahterwurds'."  The  Yankee  never  makes  a 
mistake  in  his  aspirates.  U  changes  in  many 
words  to  e,  always  in  such,  brush,  tush,  hush, 
rush,  blush,  seldom  in  much,  oftencr  in  trust  and 
crust,  never  in  musk,  gust,  bust,  tumble,  or  (?) 
*/?us/i,  in  the  latter  case  probably  to  avoid  con 
fusion  with  .flesh.  I  have  heard;7/7usA  with  the 
&  sound,  however.  For  the  same  reason,  I 
suspect,  never  in  gush  (at  least,  I  never  heard 
it),  because  we  have  already  one  gesh  for  gash. 
A.  and  i  short  frequently  become  e  short.  U 
always  becomes  o  in  the  prefix  un  (except  unto), 
and  o  in  return  changes  to  u  short  in  uv  for  of, 
and  in  some  words  beginning  with  om.  T  and 
d,  b  and  p,  v  and  w,  remain  intact.  So  much 
occurs  to  me  in  addition  to  what  I  said  on  this 
head  in  the  preface  to  the  former  volume. 

Of  course  in  what  I  have  said  I  wish  to  be 
understood  as  keeping  in  mind  the  difference 
between  provincialisms  properly  so  called  and 
slang.  Slang  is  always  vulgar,  because  it  is 
not  a  natural  but  an  affected  way  of  talking, 
and  all  mere  tricks  of  speech  or  writing  are 
offensive.  I  do  not  think  that  Mr.  Biglow  can 
be  fairly  charged  with  vulgarity,  and  I  should 
have  entirely  failed  in  my  design,  if  I  had  not 
made  it  appear  that  high  and  even  refined 
sentiment  may  coexist  with  the  shrewder  and 
more  comic  elements  of  the  Yankee  character. 
I  believe  that  what  is  essentially  vulgar  and 
mean-spirited  in  politics  seldom  has  its  source 
in  the  body  of  the  people,  but  much  rather 
among  those  who  are  made  timid  by  their 
wealth  or  selfish  by  their  love  of  power.  A 
democracy  can  afford  much  better  than  an 
aristocracy  to  follow  out  its  convictions,  and  is 
perhaps  better  qualified  to  build  those  convic 
tions  on  plain  principles  of  right  and  wrong, 
rather  than  on  the  shifting  sands  of  expediency. 
I  had  always  thought  "Sam  Slick"  a  libel  on 
the  Yankee  character,  and  a  complete  falsifica 
tion  of  Yankee  modes  of  speech,  though,  for 
aught  I  know,  it  may  be  true  in  both  respects 
so  far  as  the  British  provinces  are  concerned. 
To  me  the  dialect  was  native,  was  spoken  all 
about  me  when  a  boy,  at  a  time  when  an  Irish 
day-laborer  was  as  rare  as  an  American  one 
now.  Since  then  I  have  made  a  study  of  it  so 
far  as  opportunity  allowed.  But  when  I  write 
in  it,  it  is  as  in  a  mother  tongue,  and  I  am 
carried  back  far  beyond  any  studies  of  it  to 
long-ago  noonings  in  my  father's  hay-fields, 
and  to  the  talk  of  Sam  and  Job  over  their  jug 
»f  blackstrap  under  the  shadow  of  the  ash-tree 


which  still  dapples  the  grass  whence  they  have 
been  gone  so  long. 

But  life  is  short,  and  prefaces  should  be. 
And  so,  my  good  friends,  to  whom  this  intro 
ductory  epistle  is  addressed,  farewell.  Though 
some  of  you  have  remonstrated  with  me,  I  shall 
never  write  any  more  "  Biglow  Papers,"  how 
ever  great  the  temptation,  —  great  especially 
at  the  present  time,  —  unless  it  be  to  complete 
the  original  plan  of  this  Series  by  bringing  out 
Mr.  Sawin  as  an  "original  Union  man."  The 
very  favor  with  which  they  have  been  received 
is  a  hindrance  to  me,  by  forcing  on  me  a  self- 
consciousness  from  which  I  was  entirely  free 
when  I  wrote  the  First  Series.  Moreover,  I  am 
no  longer  the  same  careless  youth,  with  nothing 
to  do  but  live  to  myself,  my  books,  and  my 
friends,  that  I  was  then.  I  always  hated  poli 
tics,  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word,  and  I 
am  not  likely  to  grow  fonder  of  them,  now  that 
I  have  learned  how  rare  it  is  to  find  a  man  who 
can  keep  principle  clear  from  party  and  per 
sonal  prejiidice,  or  can  conceive  the  possibility 
of  another's  doing  so.  I  feel  as  if  I  could  in 
some  sort  claim  to  be  an  emeritus,  and  I  am 
sure  that  political  satire  will  have  full  justice 
done  it  by  that  genuine  and  delightful  humorist, 
the  Rev.  Petroleum  V.  Nasby.  I  regret  that 
I  killed  off  Mr.  Wilbur  so  soon,  for  he  would 
have  enabled  roe  to  bring  into  this  preface  a 
number  of  learned  quotations,  which  must  now 
go  a-begging,  and  also  enabled  me  to  disperson- 
alize  myself  into  a  vicarious  egotism.  He  would 
have  helped  me  likewise  in  clearing  myself 
from  a  charge  which  I  shall  briefly  touch  on, 
because  my  friend  Mr.  Hughes  has  found  it 
needful  to  defend  me  in  his  preface  to  one  of 
the  English  editions  of  the  "  Biglow  Papers." 
I  thank  Mr.  Hughes  heartily  for  his  friendly 
care  of  my  good  name,  and  were  his  Preface 
accessible  to  my  readers  here  (as  I  am  glad  it  is 
not,  for  its  partiality  makes  me  blush),  I  should 
leave  the  matter  where  he  left  it.  The  charge 
is  of  profanity,  brought  in  by  persons  who  pro 
claimed  African  slavery  of  Divine  institution, 
and  is  based  (so  far  as  I  have  heard)  on  two 
passages  in  the  First  Series  — 


and, 


"  An'  you  've  gut  to  git  up  airly, 
Ef  you  want  to  take  in  God," 

"  God  '11  send  the  bill  to  you," 


and  on  some   Scriptural  illustrations  by  Mr. 
Sawin. 

Now,  in  the  first  place,  I  was  writing  under 
an  assumed  character,  and  must  talk  as  the 
person  would  whose  mouthpiece  I  made  myself. 
Will  any  one  familiar  with  the  New  England 
countryman  venture  to  tell  me  that  he  does  not 
speak  of  sacred  things  familiarly  ?  that  Biblical 
allusions  (allusions,  that  is,  to  the  single  book 
with  whose  language,  from  his  church-going 
habits,  he  is  intimate)  are  not  frequent  on  his 
lips  ?  If  so,  he  cannot  have  pursued  his  studies 
of  the  character  on  so  many  long-ago  muster- 
fields  and  at  so  many  cattle-shows  as  I.  But  I 
scorn  any  such  line  of  defence,  and  will  confess 


158 


APPENDIX 


at  once  that  one  of  the  things  I  am  proud  of  in 
my  countrymen  is  (I  am  not  speaking  now  of 
such  persons  as  I  have  assumed  Mr.  Sawin  to 
be)  that  they  do  not  put  their  Maker  away  far 
from  them,  or  interpret  the  fear  of  God  into 
being  afraid  of  Him.  The  Talmudists  had 
conceived  a  deep  truth  when  they  said,  that 
"  all  things  were  in  the  power  of  God,  save  the 
fear  of  God  ;  "  and  when  people  stand  in  great 
dread  of  an  invisible  power,  I  suspect  they 
mistake  quite  another  personage  for  the  Deity. 
I  might  justify  myself  for  the  passages  criti 
cised  by  many  parallel  ones  from  Scripture, 
but  I  need  not.  The  Reverend  Homer  Wil 
bur's  note-books  supply  me  with  three  apposite 
quotations.  The  first  is  from  a  Father  of  the 
Roman  Church,  the  second  from  a  Father  of 
the  Anglican,  and  the  third  from  a  Father  of 
Modern  English  poetry.  The  Puritan  divines 
would  furnish  me  with  many  more  such.  St. 
Bernard  says,  Sapiens  nummularius  est  Deus : 
minimum  Return  non  recipiet ;  "A  cunning 
money-changer  is  God :  he  will  take  in  no  base 
coin."  Latimer  says,  "  You  shall  perceive  that 
God,  by  this  example,  shaketh  us  by  the  noses 
and  taketh  iis  by  the  ears."  Familiar  enough, 
both  of  them,  one  would  say  !  But  I  should 
think  Mr.  Biglow  had  verily  stolen  the  last 
of  the  two  maligned  passages  from  Dryden's 
"  Don  Sebastian,"  where  I  find 

"  And  beg  of  Heaven  to  charge  the  bill  on  me  !  " 

And  there  I  leave  the  matter,  being  willing  to 
believe  that  the  Saint,  the  Martyr,  and  even 
the  Poet,  were  as  careful  of  God's  honor  as  my 
critics  are  ever  likely  to  be. 


II.   GLOSSARY  TO  THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS 

Act'lly,  actually. 
Air,  are. 
Airth,  earth. 
Airy,  area. 
Aree,  area. 
Arter,  after. 
Ax,  ask. 

Beller,  bellow. 
Bellowses,  lungs. 
Ben,  been. 
Bile,  boil. 
Bimeby,  by  and  by. 
Blurt  out,  to  speak  bluntly. 
Bust,  burst. 

Buster,  a  roistering  blade  ;  used  also  as  a  gen 
eral  superlative. 

Caird,  carried. 
Cairn,  carrying. 
Caleb,  a  turncoat. 
Cal'late,  calculate. 
Cass,  a  person  with  two  lives. 
Close,  clothes. 
Cockerel,  a  young  cock. 

Cocktail,  a  kind  of  drink ;  also,  an  ornament 
peculiar  to  soldiers. 


Convention,  a  place  where  people  are  imposed 
on ;  a  jugglers  show. 

Coons,  a  cant  term  for  a  now  defunct  party ;  de 
rived,  perhaps,  from  the  fact  of  their  being 
commonly  up  a  tree. 

Cornwallis,  a  sort  of  muster^  in  masquerade ; 
supposed  to  have  had  its  origin  soon  after  the 
Revolution,  and  to  commemorate  the  surren 
der  of  Lord  Cornwallis.  It  took  the  place  of 
the  old  Guy  Fawkes  procession. 

Crooked  stick,  a  perverse,  froward  person. 

Cunnle,  a  colonel. 

Cus,  a  curse;  also,  a  pitiful  fellow. 

Darsn't,  used  indiscriminately,  either  in  singu 
lar  or  plural  number,  for  dare  not,  dares  not, 
and  dared  not. 

Deacon  off,  to  give  the  cue  to;  derived  from  a 
custom,  once  universal,  but  now  extinct,  in 
our  New  England  Congregational  churches. 
An  important  part  of  the  office  of  deacon 
was  to  read  aloud  the  hymns  given  out  by  the 
minister,  one  line  at  a  time,  the  congregation 
singing  each  line  as  soon  as  read. 

Demmercrat,  leadin',  one  in  favor  of  extending 
slavery;  a  free-trade  lecturer  maintained  in 
the  custom-house. 

Desput,  desperate. 

Do',  don't. 

Doos,  does. 

Doughface,  a  contented  lick-spittle;  a  common 
variety  of  Northern  politician. 

Dror,  draw. 

Du,  do. 

Dunno,  dno,  do  not  or  does  not  know. 

Dut,  dirt. 

Eend,  end. 

Ef ,  if. 

Emptins,  yeast. 

Env'y,  envoy. 

Everlasting,  an  intensive,  without  reference  to 

duration. 
Ev'y,  every. 
Ez,  as. 

Fence,  on  the ;  said  of  one  who  halts  between 
two  opinions  ;  a  trimmer. 

Fer,/or. 

Ferfle,  f erf ul,  fearful ;  also  an  intensive. 

Fiu',  find. 

Fish -skin,  used  in  New  England  to  clarify 
coffee. 

Fix,  a  difficulty,  a  nonplus. 

Foller,  folly,  to  follow. 

Forrerd,  forward. 

Frum,  from. 

Fur,  far. 

Fnrder,  farther. 

Furrer,  furrow.  Metaphorically,  to  draw  a 
straight  furrow  is  to  live  uprightly  or  deco 
rously. 

Fust,  first. 

Gin,  gave. 
Git,  get. 
Gret,  great. 


GLOSSARY   TO   THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


459 


Grit,  spirit,  energy,  pluck. 

Grout,  to  sulk. 

Grouty,  crabbed,  surly. 

Gum,  to  impose  on. 

Gump,  a  foolish  fellow,  a  dullard. 

Gut,  got. 

Hed,  had. 

Heern,  heard. 

Helium,  helm. 

Bendy,  handy. 

Het,  heated. 

Hev,  have. 

Hez,  has. 

Holl,  whole. 

Holt,  hold. 

Huf,  hoof. 

Hull,  whole. 

Hum,  home. 

Humbug-,  General  Taylor's  antislavery. 

Hut,  hurt. 

Idno,  I  do  not  know. 

In' my,  enemy. 

Insines,  ensigns ;  used  to  designate  both  the  of 
ficer  who  carries  the  standard,  and  the  stand 
ard  itself. 

Inter,  intu,  into. 

Jedge,  judge. 

Jest,  just. 

Jine,  join. 

Jint,  joint. 

Junk,  a  fragment  of  any  solid  substance. 

Keer,  care. 

Kep',  kept. 

Killock,  a  small  anchor.^ 

Kin',  kin'  o',  kinder,  kind,  kind  of. 

Lawth,  loath. 

Less,  let 's,  let  us. 

Let  daylight  into,  to  shoot. 

Let  on,  to  hint,  to  confess,  to  own. 

Lick,  to  beat,  to  overcome. 

Lights,  the  bowels. 

Lily-pads,  leaves  of  the  water-lily. 

Long-sweetening,  molasses. 

Mash,  marsh. 

Mean,  stingy,  ill-natured. 

Min',  mind. 

Nimepunce,  ninepence,  twelve  and  a  half  cents. 
Nowers,  nowhere. 

Offen,  often. 

Ole,  old. 

Oilers,  olluz,  always. 

On,  of;  used  before  it  or  them,  or  at  the  end  of 

a  sentence,  as  on  'f,  on  'em,  nut  ez  ever  I  heerd 

on. 

On'y,  only. 
Ossifer,  officer  (seldom  heard). 

Peaked,  pointed. 
Peek,  to  peep. 


Pickerel,  the  pike,  a  fish. 

Pint,  point. 

Pocket  full  of  rocks,  plenty  of  money. 

Pooty,  pretty. 

Pop'ler,  conceited,  popular. 

Pus,  purse. 

Put  out,  troubled,  vexed. 

Quarter,  a  quarter-dollar. 
Queen's-arm,  a  musket. 

Resh,  rush. 

Revelee,  the  reveille. 

Rile,  to  trouble. 

Riled,  angry  ;  disturbed,  as  the  sediment  in  any 

liquid. 
Riz,  risen. 

Row,  a  long  row  to  hoe,  a  difficult  task. 
Rugged,  robust. 

Sarse,  abuse,  impertinence. 

Sartin,  certain. 

Saxon,  sacristan,  sexton. 

Scaliest,  worst. 

Scringe,  cringe. 

Scrouge,  to  crowd. 

Sech,  such. 

Set  by,  valued. 

Shakes,  great,  of  considerable  consequence. 

Shappoes,  chapeaux,  cocked-hats. 

Sheer,  share. 

Shet,  shut. 

Shut,  shirt. 

Skeered,  scared. 

Skeeter,  mosquito. 

Skooting,  running,  or  moving  swiftly. 

Slarterin' ,  slaughtering. 

Slim,  contemptible. 

Snake,  crawled  like  a  snake ;  but  to  snake  any 
one  out  is  to  track  him  to  his  hiding-place  ;  to 
snake  a  thing  out  is  to  snatch  it  out. 

O       fV>  *• 

homes,  sofas. 

Sogerin',  soldiering;  a  barbarous  amusement 
common  among  men  in  the  savage  state. 

Som'ers,  somewhere. 

So  'st,  so  as  that. 

Sot,  set,  obstinate,  resolute. 

Spiles,  spoil* ;  objects  of  political  ambition. 

Spry,  active. 

Steddles,  stout  stakes  driven  into  the  salt 
marshes,  on  which  the  hay-ricks  are  set,  and 
thus  raised  out  of  the  reach  of  high  tides. 

Streaked,  uncomfortable,  discomfited. 

Suckle,  circle. 

Sutthin',  something. 

Suttin,  certain. 

Take  on,  to  sorrow. 

Talents,  talons. 

Taters,  potatoes. 

Tell,  till. 

Tetch,  touch. 

Tetch  tu,  to  be  able ;  used  always  after  a  nega 
tive  in  this  sense. 

Tollable,  tolerable. 

Toot,  used  derisively  for  playing  on  any  wind 
instrument. 


460 


APPENDIX 


Thru,  through. 

Thundering,  a  euphemism  common  in  New 
England  for  the  profane  English  expression 
devilish.  Perhaps  derived  from  the  belief, 
common  formerly,  that  thunder  was  caused 
by  the  Prince  of  the  Air,  for  some  of  whose 
accomplishments  consult  Cotton  Mather. 

Tu,  to,  too  ;  commonly  has  this  sound  when  used 
emphatically,  or  at  the  end  of  a  sentence. 
At  other  times  it  has  the  sound  of  t  in  tough, 
as,  Ware  ye  gain*  tu  ?  Goiri1  ta  Boston. 

Ugly,  ill-tempered,  intractable. 

Uncle  Sam,  United  States ;  the  largest  boaster 

of  liberty  and  owner  of  slaves. 
Unrizzest,  applied  to  dough  or  bread ;  heavy, 

most  unrisen,  or  most  incapable  of  rising. 

V-spot,  a  five-dollar  bill. 
Vally,  value. 

Wake  snakes,  to  get  into  trouble. 

Wai,  well ;  spoken  with  great  deliberation,  and 

sometimes  with  the  a  very  much  flattened, 

sometimes    (but    more    seldom)  very    much 

broadened. 

Wannut,  walnut  (hickory). 
Ware,  where. 
Ware,  were. 
Whopper,   an  uncommonly  large  lie;  as,  that 

General  Taylor  is  in  favor  of  the  Wilmot 

Proviso. 

Wig,  Whig  ;  a  party  now  dissolved. 
Wunt,  wilt  not. 
Wus,  worse. 
Wut,  what. 
Wuth,  worth ;  as,  Antislavery  perfessions  ''fore, 

''lection  aint  ivuth  a  Bungtown  copper. 
Wuz,  was,  sometimes  were. 

Yaller,  yellow. 
Yeller,  yellow. 
Yellers,  a  disease  of  peach-trees. 

Zack,  Ole,  a  second  Washington,  an  antislavery 
slaveholder  ;  a  humane  buyer  and  seller  of  men 
and  women,  a  Christian  hero  generally. 


III.    INDEX  TO   THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 

A.  wants  his  axe  ground,  247. 

A.  B.,  information  wanted  concerning,  203. 

Abraham  (Lincoln),  his  constitutional  scruples, 

247. 

Abuse,  an,  its  usefulness,  259. 
Adam,  eldest  son  of,  respected,  183  — his  fall, 

264  — how  if  he  had  bitten  a  sweet  apple? 

267. 

Adam,  Grandfather,  forged  will  of,  236. 
^Eneas  goes  to  hell,  211. 
^Eolus,  a  seller  of  money,  as  is  supposed  by 

some,  211. 

^Eschylns,  a  saying  of,  196,  note. 
Alligator,  a  decent  one  conjectured  to  be,  in 

some  sort,  humane,  216. 
AUsmash,  the  eternal,  251. 


Alphonso  the  Sixth  of  Portugal,  tyrannical  act 
of,  217. 

Ambrose,  Saint,  excellent  (but  rationalistic) 
sentiment  of,  190. 

"  American  Citizen,"  new  compost  so  called, 
211. 

American  Eagle,  a  source  of  inspiration,  193  — 
hitherto  wrongly  classed,  196  —  long  bill  of, 
ib. 

Americans  bebrothered,  231. 

Amos  cited,  190. 

Anakim,  that  they  formerly  existed,  shown, 
217. 

Angels  providentially  speak  French,  186,  — 
conjectured  to  be  skilled  in  all  tongues,  ib. 

Anglo-Saxondom,  its  idea,  what,  186. 

Anglo-Saxon  mask,  186. 

Anglo-Saxon  race,  185. 

Anglo-Saxon  verse,  by  whom  carried  to  perfec 
tion,  183. 

Anthony  of  Padua,  Saint,  happy  in  his  hearers, 
240. 

Antiquaries,  Royal  Society  of  Northern,  254. 

Antonius,  a  speech  of,  192  —  by  whom  best  re 
ported,  ib. 

Apocalypse,  Beast  in,  magnetic  to  theologians, 
205. 

Apollo,  confessed  mortal  by  his  own  oracle, 
205. 

Apollyon,  his  tragedies  popular,  202. 

Appian,  an  Alexandrian,  not  equal  to  Shake 
speare  as  an  orator,  192. 

Applause,  popular,  the  summum  bonum,  255. 

Ararat,  ignorance  of  foreign  tongues  is  an,  196. 

Arcadian  background,  212. 

Ar  c'houskezik,  an  evil  spirit,  240. 

Ardennes,  Wild  Boar  of,  an  ancestor  of  Rev. 
Mr.  Wilbur,  221. 

Aristocracy,  British,  their  natural  sympathies, 
245. 

Aristophanes,  190. 

Arms,  profession  of,  once  esteemed  especially 
that  of  gentlemen,  183. 

Arnold,  192. 

Ashland,  212. 

Astor,  Jacob,  a  rich  man,  208. 

Astrsea,  nineteenth  century  forsaken  by,  211. 

Athenians,  ancient,  an  institution  of,  192. 

Atherton,  Senator,  envies  the  loon,  199. 

u  Atlantic,"  editors  of.    See  Neptune. 

Atropos,  a  lady  skilful  with  the  scissors,  266. 

Austin,  Saint,  prayer  of,  221. 

Austrian  eagle  split,  259. 

Aye-aye,  the,  an  African  animal,  America  sup 
posed  to  be  settled  by,  187. 

B.,  a  Congressman,  vide  A. 

Babel,    probably  the  first    Congress,  196  —  a 

gabble-mill,  ib. 
Baby,  a  low-priced  one,  210. 
Bacon,  his  rebellion,  241. 
Bacon,  Lord,  quoted,  240,  241. 
Bagowind,  Hon.  Mr.,  whether  to  be  damned, 

200. 
Balcom,  Elder  Joash  Q.,  2d,  founds  a  Baptist 

society  in  Jaalam,  A.  D.  1830,  273. 
Baldwin  apples,  217. 


INDEX   TO   THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


461 


Baratarias,  real  or  imaginary,  which  most 
pleasant,  211. 

Barnum,  a  great  natural  curiosity  recommended 
to,  195. 

Barrels,  an  inference  from  seeing,  217. 

Bartlett,  Mr.,  mistaken,  229. 

Baton  Rouge,  212  —  strange  peculiarities  of  la 
borers  at,  ib. 

Baxter,  R.,  a  saying  of,  190. 

Bay,  Mattysqumscot,  216. 

Bay  State,  singular  effect  produced  on  military 
officers  by  leaving  it,  186. 

Beast,  in  Apocalypse,  a  loadstone  for  whom, 
205  —  tenth  horn  of,  applied  to  recent  events, 
265. 

Beaufort,  252. 

Beauregard  (real  name  Toutant),  233,  246. 

Beaver  brook,  276. 

Beelzebub,  his  rigadoon,  199. 

Behmen,  his  letters  not  letters,  203. 

Behn,  Mrs.  Aplira,  quoted,  241. 

Bellers,  a  saloon-keeper,  214  —  inhumanly  re 
fuses  credit  to  a  presidential  candidate,  ib. 

Belmont.    See  Woods. 

Bentley,  his  heroic  method  with  Milton,  254. 

Bible,  not  composed  for  use  of  colored  persons, 
243. 

Biglow,  Ezekiel,  his  letter  to  Hon.  J.  T.  Buck 
ingham,  181  —  never  heard  of  any  one  named 
Mundishes,  ib. — nearly  fourscore  years  old,  ib. 

—  his  aunt  Keziah,  a  notable  saying  of,  ib. 
Biglow,  Hosea,  Esquire,  excited  by  composition, 

181  —  a  poem  by,  ib.,  201  — his  opinion  of  war, 
181  —  wanted  at  home  by  Nancy,  182  —  rec 
ommends  a  forcible  enlistment  of  warlike  ed 
itors,  ib.  —  would  not  wonder,  if  generally 
agreed  with,  183  —  versifies  letter  of  Mr. 
Sawin,  ib.  —  a  letter  from,  184, 194  —  his  opin 
ion  of  Mr.  Sawin,  184  —  does  not  deny  fun 
at  Cornwallis,  184,  note  —  his  idea  of  militia 
glory,  185,  note  —  a  pun  of,  ib.  —  is  uncertain 
in  regard  to  people  of  Boston,  ib.  —  had  never 
heard  of  Mr.  John  P.  Robinson,  188  —  aliquid 
sufflaminandus,  ib.  —  his  poems  attributed  to 
a  Mr.  Lowell,  189  —  is  unskilled  in  Latin,  190 

—  his  poetry  maligned  by  some,  ib.  —  his  dis- 
interestednsss,  ib. — his  deep  share  in  common 
weal,  ib.  —  his  claim  to  the  presidency,  ib.  — 
his  mowing,  ib.  —  resents  being  called  Whig, 
ib.  —  opposed  to  tariff,  ib.  —  obstinate,  ib.  — 
infected  with  peculiar  notions,  ib.  —  reports  a 
speech,  191  —  emulates  historians  of  antiquity, 
192  —  his  character  sketched  from  a  hostile 
point  of  view,  196  —  a  request  of  his  complied 
with,  200  —  appointed  at  a  public  meeting  in 
Jaalam,   204  —  confesses    ignorance,   in    one 
minute    particular,    of    propriety,    ib.  —  his 
opinion  of  cocked  hats,  ib.  —  letter  to,  ib.  — 
called  u  Dear  Sir,"  by  a  general,  ib. — prob 
ably  receives  same  compliment  from  two  hun 
dred  and  nine,  ib.  —  picks  his  apples,  217  — 
his  crop  of  Baldwins  conjecturally  large,  ib. 

—  his  labors  in  writing  autographs,  221  —  vis 
its  the  Judge  and  has  a  pleasant  time,  229  — 
born  in  Middlesex  County,  232  —  his  favorite 
walks,  ib. — his  gifted  pen,  249  —  born  and 
bred  in  the  country,  261  —  feels  his  sap  start 


in  spring,  262  —  is  at  times  unsocial,  ib.  —  the 
school-house  where  he  learned  his  a  b  c,  ib.  — 
falls  asleep,  263  —  his  ancestor  a  Cromwelliau 
colonel,  ib.  —  finds  it  harder  to  make  up  his. 
mind  as  he  grows  older,  264  —  wishes  he  could 
write  a  song  or  two,  267  —  liable  to  moods, 
275  —  loves  nature  and  is  loved  in  return,  ib. 

—  describes  some  favorite  haunts  of  his,  276 

—  his  slain  kindred,  ib.  —  his  speech  in  March 
meeting,  277  —  does  not  reckon  on  being  sent 
to  Congress,  278  —  has  no  eloquence,  ib.  —  his 
own  reporter,  279  —  never  abused  the  South, 
280  —  advises  Uncle  Sam,  ib.  —  is  not  Boston- 
mad,  ib.  — bids  farewell,  284. 

Billings,  Dea.  Cephas,  184. 

Billy,  Extra,  demagogus,  271. 

Birch,  virtue  of,  in  instilling  certain  of  the 
dead  languages,  210. 

Bird  of  our  country  sings  hosanna,  185. 

Bjarna  Grimolfsson  invents  smoking,  254. 

Blind,  to  go  it,  209. 

Blitz  pulls  ribbons  from  his  mouth,  185. 

Bluenose  potatoes,  smell  of,  eagerly  desired,, 
185. 

Bobolink,  the,  262. 

Bobtail  obtains  a  cardinal's  bat,  187. 

Boggs,  a  Norman  name,  244. 

Bogus  Four-Corners  Weekly  Meridian,  255. 

Bolles,  Mr.  Secondary,  author  of  prize  peace 
essay,  184 — presents  sword  to  Lieutenant- 
Colonel,  ib.  —  a  fluent  orator,  185  —  found  to 
be  in  error,  ib. 

Bonaparte,  N.,  a  usurper,  205. 

Bonds,  Confederate,  their  specie  basis  cutlery, 
226  —  when  payable  (attention,  British  stock 
holders  !),  251. 

Boot-trees,  productive,  where,  210. 

Boston,  people  of,  supposed  educated,  185,  note 

—  has  a  good  opinion  of  itself,  234. 
Bowers,   Mr.   Arphaxad,   an  ingenious  photo 
graphic  artist,  254. 

Brahmins,  navel-contemplating,  203. 

Brains,  poor  substitute  for,  234. 

Bread-trees,  210. 

Bream,  their  only  business,  229. 

Brigadier-Generals  in  militia,  devotion  of,  191. 

Brigadiers,  nursing  ones,  tendency  in,  to  liter 
ary  composition,  223. 

Brigitta,  viridis,  270. 

Britannia,  her  trident,  238. 

Brotherhood,  subsides  after  election,  258. 

Brown,  Mr.,  engages  in  an  unequal  contest,  200. 

Browne,  Sir  T.,  a  pious  and  wise  sentiment  of, 
cited  and  commended,  183. 

Brutus  Four-Corners,  221. 

Buchanan,  a  wise  and  honest  man,  245. 

Buckingham,  Hon.  J.  T.,  editor  of  the  Boston 
Courier,  letters  to,  181,  183,  189,  198  — not 
afraid,  184. 

Buffalo,  apian  hatched  there,  215  —  plaster,  a 
prophecy  in  regard  to,  ib. 

Buffaloes,  herd  of,  probable  influence  of  tracts 
upon,  267. 

Bull,  John,  prophetic  allusion  to,  by  Horace, 
231  —  his  "  Run,"  233  —  his  mortgage,  236  — 
unfortunate  dip  of,  251  —  wool  pulled  over  his 
eyes,  252. 


462 


APPENDIX 


Buncombe,  in  the  other  world  supposed,  192  — 

mutual  privilege  in,  246. 
Bung,  the  eternal,  thought  to  be  loose,  182. 
Bungtown  Feiicibles,  dinner  of,  187. 
Burke,  Mr.,  his  age  of  chivalry  surpassed,  244. 
Burleigh,  Lord,  quoted  for  something  said  in 

Latin  long  before,  241. 
Burns,  Robert,  a  Scottish  poet,  229. 
Bushy  Brook,  242. 
Butler,  Bishop,  249. 
Butter  in  Irish  bogs,  210. 

C.,  General,  commended  for  parts,  188 — for 
ubiquity,  ib.  —  for  consistency,  ib.  —  for  fidel 
ity,  ib.  — -  is  in  favor  of  war,  ib.  —  his  curious 
valuation  of  principle,  ib. 

Cabbage-heads,  the,  always  in  majority,  279. 

Cabinet,  English,  makes  a  blunder,  232. 

Caesar,  tribute  to,  201  —  his  veni,  vidi,  wet,  cen 
sured  for  undue  prolixity,  20G. 

Cainites,  sect  of,  supposed  still  extant,  183. 

Caleb,  a  monopoly  of  his  denied,  184  —  curious 
notions  of,  as  to  meaning  of  "  shelter,"  186  — 
his  definition  of  Anglo-Saxon,  ib.  —  charges 
Mexicans  (not  with  bayonets  but)  with  im 
proprieties,  ib. 

Calhoun,  Hon.  J.  C.,  his  cow-bell  curfew,  light 
of  the  nineteenth  century  to  be  extinguished 
at  sound  of,  197  —  cannot  let  go  apron-string 
of  the  Past,  ib.  —  his  unsuccessful  tilt  at 
Spirit  of  the  Age,  ib.  —  the  Sir  Kay  of  mod 
ern  chivalry,  ib.  —  his  anchor  made  of  a 
crooked  pin,  198  —  mentioned,  198, 199. 

Calyboosus,  career,  272. 

Cambridge  Platform,  use  discovered  for,  187. 

Canaan  in  quarterly  instalments,  255. 

Canary  Islands,  210. 

Candidate,  presidential,  letter  from,  204  — 
smells  a  rat,  ib.  —  against  a  bank,  ib.  — takes 
a  revolving  position,  ib.  —  opinion  of  pledges, 
ib.  —  is  a  periwig,  205  —  fronts  south  by  north, 
ib. —  qualifications  of,  lessening,  206  —  wooden 
leg  (and  head)  useful  to,  209. 

Cape  Cod  clergyman,  what,  187  —  Sabbath- 
breakers,  perhaps,  reproved  by,  ib. 

Captains,  choice  of,  important,  279. 

Carolina,  foolish  act  of,  280. 

Caroline,  case  of,  231. 

Carpini,  Father  John  de  Piano,  among  the  Tar 
tars,  217. 

Cartier,  Jacques,  commendable  zeal  of,  217. 

Cass,  General,  198  —  clearness  of  his  merit,  199 
—  limited  popularity  at  "Bellers's,"  214. 

Castles,  Spanish,  comfortable  accommodations 
in,  211. 

Cato,  letters  of,  so  called,  suspended  naso 
adunco,  203. 

C.  D.,  friends  of,  can  hear  of  him,  203. 

Century,  nineteenth,  245. 

Chalk  egg,  we  are  proud  of  incubation  of,  203. 

Chamberlayne,  Doctor,  consolatory  citation 
from,  241. 

Chance,  an  apothegm  concerning,  223  —  is  im 
patient,  265. 

Chaplain,  a  one-horse,  stern-wheeled  variety  of, 

Chappelow  on  Job,  a  copy  of,  lost,  200. 


Charles  I.,  accident  to  his  neck,  265. 

Charles  II.,  his  restoration,  how  brought  about. 
264. 

Cherubusco,  news  of,  its  effects  on  English  roy 
alty,  196. 

Chesterfield  no  letter-writer,  203. 

Chief  Magistrate,  dancing  esteemed  sinful  by, 
187. 

Children  naturally  speak  Hebrew,  183. 

China-tree,  210. 

Chinese,  whether  they  invented  gunpowder  be 
fore  the  Christian  era  not  considered,  187. 

Choate  hired,  214. 

Christ  shuffled  into  Apocrypha,  187  —  conjec 
tured  to  disapprove  of  slaughter  and  pillage, 
188  —  condemns  a  certain  piece  of  barbarism, 
200. 

Christianity,  profession  of,  plebeian,  whether, 
183. 

Christian  soldiers,  perhaps  inconsistent,  wheth 
er,  191. 

Cicero,  279  —  an  opinion  of,  disputed,  206. 

Cilley,  Ensign,  author  of  nefarious  sentiment, 
187. 

Cimex  lectularius,  185. 

Cincinnati,  old,  law  and  order  party  of,  259. 

Cincinnatus,  a  stock  character  in  modern  com 
edy,  212. 

Civilization,  progress  of,  an  alias,  200  —  rides 
upon  a  powder-cart,  204. 

Clergymen,  their  ill  husbandry,  200  —  their 
place  in  processions,  212  —  some,  cruelly  ban 
ished  for  the  soundness  of  their  lungs,  217. 

Clotho,  a  Grecian  lady,  266. 

Cocked-hat,  advantages  of  being  knocked  into, 
204. 

College  of  Cardinals,  a  strange  one,  187. 

Colman,  Dr.  Benjamin,  anecdote  of,. 191. 

Colored  folks,  curious  national  diversion  of 
kicking,  185. 

Colquitt,  a  remark  of,  199  —  acquainted  with 
some  principles  of  aerostation,  ib. 

Columbia,  District  of,  its  peculiar  climatic 
effects,  193  —  not  certain  that  Martin  is  for 
abolishing  it,  215. 

Columbiads,  the  true  fifteen-inch  ones,  258. 

Columbus,  a  Paul  Pry  of  genius,  203  —  will  per 
haps  be  remembered,  253  —  thought  by  some 
to  have  discovered  America,  281. 

Columby,  213. 

Complete  Letter- Writer,  fatal  gift  of,  205. 

Compostella,  Saint  James  of ,  seen,  186. 

Compromise  system,  the,  illustrated,  257. 

Conciliation,  its  meaning,  267. 

Congress,  singular  consequence  of  getting  into, 
193  — a  stumbling-block,  246. 

Congressional  debates  found  instructive,  196. 

Constituents,  useful  for  what,  194. 

Constitution  trampled  on,  198  —  to  stand  upon, 
what,  204. 

Convention,  what,  193. 

Convention,  Springfield,  193. 

Coon,  old,  pleasure  in  skinning,  198. 

Co-operation  defined,  244,  245. 

Coppers,  caste  in  picking  up  of,  208. 

Copres,  a  monk,  his  excellent  method  of  argu 
ing,  197. 


INDEX   TO   THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


463 


•Corduroy-road,  a  novel  one,  223. 

Corner-stone,  patent  safety,  246. 

Coriiwallis,  a,  184  —  acknowledged  entertaining, 
ib.  note. 

Cotton  loan,  its  imaginary  nature,  226. 

Cotton  Mather,  summoned  as  witness,  186. 

Country,  our,  its  boundaries  more  exactly  de 
fined,  189 —  right  or  wrong,  nonsense  about, 
exposed,  ib.  —  lawyers,  sent  providentially,  ib. 
— TCarth's  biggest,  gets  a  soul,  269. 

Courier,  The  Boston,  an  unsafe  print,  196. 

Court,  General,  farmers  sometimes  attain  seats 
in,  212. 

Court,  Supreme,  247. 

Courts  of  law,  English,  their  orthodoxy,  255. 

Cousins,  British,  our  ci-devant,  232. 

Cowper,  W.,  his  letters  commended,  203. 

Credit  defined,  251. 

Creditors  all  on  Lincoln's  side,  246. 

Creed,  a  safe  kind  of,  209. 

Crockett,  a  good  rule  of,  226. 

Cruden,  Alexander,  his  Concordance,  222. 

Crusade,  first  American,  187. 

Cuneiform  script  recommended,  206. 

Curiosity  distinguishes  man  from  brutes,  203. 

Currency,  Ethiopian,  inconveniences  of,  226. 

Cynthia,  her  hide  as  a  means  of  conversion,  228. 

Daedalus  first  taught  men  to  sit  on  fences,  242. 

Daniel  in  the  lion's  den,  225. 

Darkies  dread  freedom,  246. 

Davis,  Captain  Isaac,  finds  out  something  to 
his  advantage,  233. 

Davis,  Jefferson  (a  new  species  of  martyr)  has 
the  latest  ideas  on  all  subjects,  226  —  supe 
rior  in  financiering  to  patriarch  Jacob,  ib. 

—  is  some,   245  —  carries  Constitution  in  his 
hat,  246  —  knows  how  to  deal  with  his  Con 
gress,  ib.  —  astonished  at  his  own  piety,  250 

—  packed  up  for  Nashville,  252  —  tempted  to 
believe  his  own  lies,  ib.  —  his  snake  egg,  257 

—  blood  on  his  hands,  277. 

Davis,  Mr.,  of  Mississippi,  a  remark  of  his,  198. 

Day  and  Martin,  proverbially  "  on  hand,"  181. 

Death,  rings  down  curtain,  202. 

De  Bow  (a  famous  political  economist),  244. 

Delphi,  oracle  of,  surpassed,  196,  note  —  alluded 
to,  205. 

Democracy,  false  notion  of,  247  —  its  privileges, 
268. 

Demosthenes,  279. 

Destiny,  her  account,  195. 

Devil,  the,  unskilled  in  certain  Indian  tongues, 
186  — letters  to  and  from,  204. 

Dey  of  Tripoli,  197. 

Didymus,  a  somewhat  voluminous  grammarian, 
205. 

Dighton  rock  character  might  be  usefully  em 
ployed  in  some  emergencies,  206. 

Dimitry  Bruisgins,  fresh  supply  of,  202. 

Diogenes,  his  zeal  for  propagating  certain  va 
riety  of  olive,  210. 

Dioscuri,  imps  of  the  pit,  187. 

District- Attorney,  contemptible  conduct  of  one, 

Ditchwater  on  bvain,  a  too  common  ailing,  197. 
Dixie,  the  land  of,  246. 


Doctor,  the,  a  proverbial  saying  of,  186. 

Doe,  Hon.  Preserved,  speech  of,  253-260. 

Donatus,  profane  wish  of,  193,  note. 

Doughface,  yeast-proof,  202. 

Downing  Street,  231. 

Drayton,  a  martyr,  197  —  north  star,  culpable 

for  aiding,  whether,  199. 
Dreams,  something  about,  263. 
Dwight,  President,  a  hymn  unjustly  attributed 

to,  265. 
D.  Y.,  letter  of,  203. 

Eagle,  national,  the  late,  his  estate  administered 
upon,  227. 

Earth,  Dame,  a  peep  at  her  housekeeping,  197. 

Eating  words,  habit  of,  convenient  in  time  of 
famine,  195. 

Eavesdroppers,  203. 

Echetlaeus,  187. 

Editor,  his  position,  200  —  commanding  pulpit 
of,  ib.  —  large  congregation  of,  ib.  —  name  de 
rived  from  what,  201  —  fondness  for  mutton, 
ib.  —  a  pious  one,  his  creed,  ib.  —  a  showman, 
202  —  in  danger  of  sudden  arrest,  without 
bail,  ib. 

Editors,  certain  ones  who  crow  like  cockerels, 
182. 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  274. 

Eggs,  bad,  the  worst  sort  of,  259. 

Egyptian  darkness,  phial  of,  use  for,  206. 

Eldorado,  Mr.  Sawin  sets  sail  for,  210. 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  mistake  of  her  ambassador, 
192. 

Emerson,  229. 

Emilius,  Paulus,  232. 

Empedocles,  203. 

Employment,  regular,  a  good  thing,  208. 

Enfield's  Speaker,  abuse  of,  259. 

England,  late  Mother  -  Country,  her  want  of 
tact,  230  —  merits  as  a  lecturer,  ib.  —  her  real 
greatness  not  to  be  forgotten,  232  —  not  con 
tented  (unwisely)  with  her  own  stock  of  fools, 
234  —  natural  maker  of  international  law, 
ib.  —  her  theory  thereof,  235  —  makes  a  par 
ticularly  disagreeable  kind  of  sarse,  ib.  — 
somewhat  given  to  bullying,  ib.  —  has  re 
spectable  relations,  ib.  —  ought  to  be  Colum 
bia's  friend,  236  —  anxious  to  buy  an  ele 
phant,  246. 

Epaulets,  perhaps  no  badge  of  saintship,  188. 

Epimenides,  the  Cretan  Rip  Van  Winkle,  240. 

Episcopius,  his  marvellous  oratory,  217. 

Eric,  king  of  Sweden,  his  cap,  211. 

Ericsson,  his  caloric  engine,  228. 

Eriksson,  Thorwald,  slain  by  natives,  255. 

Essence-peddlers,  247. 

Ethiopian,  the,  his  first  need,  249. 

Evangelists,  iron  ones,  187. 

Eyelids,  a  divine  shield  against  authors,  197. 

Ezekiel,  text  taken  from,  200. 

Ezekiel  would  make  a  poor  figure  at  a  caucus, 
260. 

Faber,  Johannes,  274. 
Factory-girls,  expected  rebellion  of,  199. 
Facts,  their  unamiability,  252  —  compared  to  an 
old-fashioned  stage-coach,  256. 


464 


APPENDIX 


Falstaffii,  legio,  270. 

Family-trees,  fruit  of  jejune,  210  —  a  primitive 
forest  of,  256. 

Faneuil  Hall,  a  place  where  persons  tap  them 
selves  for  a  species  of  hydrocephalus,  197  —  a 
bill  of  fare  mendaciously  advertised  in,  210. 

Father  of  country,  his  shoes,  213. 

Female  Papists,  cut  off  in  the  midst  of  idol 
atry,  211. 

Fenianorum,  rixce,  270. 

Fergusson,  his  "Mutual  Complaint,"  etc.,  229. 

F.  F.,  singular  power  of  their  looks,  246. 

Fire,  we  all  like  to  play  with  it,  197. 

Fish,  emblematic,  but  disregarded,  where,  197. 

Fitz,  Miss  Parthenia  Almira,  a  sheresiarch, 
273. 

Flam,  President,  untrustworthy,  194. 

Flirt,  Mrs.,  241. 

Flirtilla,  elegy  on  death  of,  274. 

Floyd,  a  taking  character,  251. 

Floydus,furcifer,  270. 

Fly-leaves,  providential  increase  of,  197. 

Fool,  a  cursed,  his  inalienable  rights,  268. 

Foote,  Mr.,  his  taste  for  field-sports,  198. 

Fourier,  a  squinting  toward,  196. 

Fourth  of  July  ought  to  know  its  place,  258. 

Fourth  of  Julys,  boiling,  192. 

France,  a  strange  dance  begun  in,  199  —  about 
to  put  her  foot  in  it,  246. 

Friar  John,  232. 

Fuller,  Dr.  Thomas,  a  wise  saying  of,  188. 

Funnel,  old,  hurraing  in,  184. 

Gabriel,  his  last  trump,  its  pressing  nature,  256. 

Gardiner,  Lieutenant  Lion,  233. 

Gawain,  Sir,  his  amusements,  198. 

Gay,  S.  H.,  Esquire,  editor  of  National  Anti- 
slavery  Standard,  letter  to,  203. 

Geese,  how  infallibly  to  make  swans  of,  234. 

Gentleman,  high-toned  Southern,  scientifically 
classed,  241,  242. 

Getting  up  early,  181,  186. 

Ghosts,  some,  presumed  fidgety,  (but  see  Still- 
ing's  Pneumatology,)  203. 

Giants  formerly  stupid,  198. 

Gideon,  his  sword  needed,  237. 

Gift  of  tongues,  distressing  case  of,  196. 

Gilbert,  Sir  Humphrey,  255. 

Globe  Theatre,  cheap  season-ticket  to,  202. 

Glory,  a  perquisite  of  officers,  208  —  her  account 
with  B.  Sawin,  Esq.,  210. 

Goatsnose,  the  celebrated  interview  with,  206. 

God,  the  only  honest  dealer,  239. 

Goings,  Mehetable,  unfounded  claim  of,  dis 
proved,  230. 

Gomara  has  a  vision,  186 — his  relationship  to 
the  Scarlet  Woman,  ib. 

Governor,  our  excellent,  221. 

Grandfather,  Mr.  Biglow's,  safe  advice  of,  233. 

Grandfathers,  the,  knew  something,  237. 

Grand  jurors,  Southern,  their  way  of  finding  a 
true  bill,  225. 

Grantus,  Dux,  271. 

Gravestones,  the  evidence  of  Dissenting  ones 
held  doubtful,  255. 

Gray's  letters  are  letters,  203. 

Great  horn  spoon,  sworn  by,  198. 


Greeks,  ancient,  whether  they  questioned  can 
didates,  206. 
Green  Man,  sign  of,  190. 

Habeas  corpus,  new  mode  of  suspending  it,  250. 

Hail  Columbia,  raised,  225. 

Ham,  sandwich,  an  orthodox  (but  peculiar)  one, 
199  —  his  seed,  243  —  their  privilege  in  the 
Bible,  ib.  —  immoral  justification  of,  ib. 

Hamlets,  machine  for  making,  207. 

Hammon,  196,  note,  205. 

Hampton  Roads,  disaster  in,  249. 

Hannegan,  Mr.,  something  said  by,  199. 

Harrison,  General,  how  preserved,  205. 

Hat,  a  leaky  one,  225. 

Hat-trees  in  full  bearing,  210. 

Hawkins,  his  whetstone,  228. 

Hawkins,  Sir  John,  stout,  something  he  saw. 
210. 

Hawthorne,  229. 

Hay-rick,  electrical  experiments  with,  268. 

Headlong,  General,  232. 

Hell,  the  opinion  of  some  concerning,  263 — • 
breaks  loose,  267. 

Henry  the  Fourth  of  England,  a  Parliament  of. 
how  named,  192. 

Hens,  self-respect  attributed  to,  223. 

Herb,  the  Circean,  255. 

Herbert,  George,  next  to  David,  240. 

Hercules,  his  second  labor  probably  what,  217. 

Hermon,  fourth-proof  dew  of,  243. 

Herodotus,  story  from,  183. 

Hesperides,  an  inference  from,  211. 

Hessians,  native  American  soldiers,  247. 

Hickory,  Old,  his  method,  268. 

Higgses,  their  natural  aristocracy  of  feeling-, 
244. 

Hitchcock,  Doctor,  254. 

Hitchcock,  the  Rev.  Jeduthun,  colleague  of 
Mr.  Wilbur,  221  —  letter  from,  containing 
notices  of  Mr.  Wilbur,  265  —  ditto,  enclos 
ing  macaronic  verses,  269  —  teacher  of  high- 
school,  274. 

Hogs,  their  dreams,  223. 

Holden,  Mr.  Shearjashub,  Preceptor  of  Jaalam 
Academy,  205  —  his  knowledge  of  Greek 
limited,  ib.  —  a  heresy  of  his,  ib.  —  leaves  a 
fund  to  propagate  it,  ib. 

Holiday,  blind  man's,  284. 

Hollis,  Ezra,  goes  to  Cornwallis,  184. 

Hollow,  why  men  providentially  so  constructed, 
192. 

Holmes,  Dr.,  author  of  "  Annals  of  America," 
221. 

Homer,  a  phrase  of,  cited,  200. 

Homer,  eldest  son  of  Mr.  Wilbur,  274. 

Homers,  democratic  ones,  plums  left  for,  194. 

Hotels,  big  ones,  humbugs,  237. 

House,  a  strange  one  described,  223. 

Howell,  James,  Esq.,  story  told  by,  192  — let 
ters  of,  commended,  203. 

Huldah,  her  bonnet,  264. 

Human  rights  out  of  order  on  the  floor  of  Con 
gress,  198. 

Humbug,  ascription  of  praise  to,  202  —  gen 
erally  believed  in,  ib. 

Husbandry,  instance  of  bad,  188. 


INDEX  TO   THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


465 


Icarius,  Penelope's  father,  189. 

Icelander,  a  certain  uncertain,  255. 

Idea,  the  Southern,  its  natural  foes,  251  —  the 
true  American,  280. 

Ideas,  friction  ones  unsafe,  258. 

Idyl  defined,  229. 

Indecision,  mole-blind,  280. 

Infants,  prattlings  of,  curious  observation  con 
cerning,  183. 

Information  wanted  (universally,  but  especially 
at  page),  203. 

Ishmael,  young,  238. 

Jaalam,  unjustly  neglected  by  great  events,  255. 

Jaalam  Centre,  Anglo-Saxons  unjustly  sus 
pected  by  the  young  ladies  there,  186 —  "  In 
dependent  Blunderbuss,"  strange  conduct  of 
editor  of,  200  —  public  meeting  at,  204  — 
meeting-house  ornamented  with  imaginary 
clock,  211. 

Jaalam,  East  Parish  of,  222. 

Jaalam  Point,  lighthouse  on,  charge  of,  pro- 
spectively  offered  to  Mr.  H.  Biglow,  205. 

Jacobus,  rex,  270. 

Jakes,  Captain  216  —  reproved  for  avarice, 
ib. 

Jamaica,  280. 

James  the  Fourth,  of  Scots,  experiment  by, 
183. 

Jarnagin,  Mr.,  his  opinion  of  the  completeness 
of  Northern  education,  199. 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  well-meaning,  but  injudi 
cious,  258. 

Jeremiah,  hardly  the  best  guide  in  modern 
politics,  260. 

Jerome,  Saint,  his  list  of  sacred  writers,  203. 

Jerusha,  ex-Mrs.  Sawin,  227. 

Job,  Book  of,  183,  222  —  Chappelow  on,  200. 

Johnson,  Andrew,  as  he  used  to  be,  258  —  as  he 
is :  see  Arnold,  Benedict,, 

Johnson,  Mr.,  communicates  some  intelligence, 
199. 

Jonah,  the  inevitable  destiny  of,  199  —  proba 
bly  studied  internal  economy  of  the  cetacea, 
203  —  his  gourd,  243  —  his  unanimity  in  the 
whale,  245. 

Jonathan  to  John,  238. 

Jortin,  Dr.,  cited,  191,  196,  note. 

Journals,  British,  their  brutal  tone,  231. 

Juanito,  253. 

Judea,  everything  not  known  there,  189  —  not 
identical  with  A.  D.,  264. 

Judge,  the,  his  garden,  229  —  his  hat  covers 
many  things,  ib. 

Juvenal,  a  saying  of,  195,  note. 

Kay,  Sir,  the,  of  modern  chivalry,  197. 

Key,  brazen  one,  197. 

Keziah,  Aimt,  profound  observation  of,  181. 

Kinderhook,  212. 

Kingdom  Come,  march  to,  easy,  207. 

Konigsmark,  Count,  183. 

Lablache  surpassed,  248. 
Lacedasmonians  banish  a  great  talker,  197. 
Lamb,  Charles,  his  epistolary  excellence,  203. 
Latimer,  Bishop,  episcopizes  Satan,  183. 


Latin  tongue,  curious  information  concerning, 
190. 

Launcelot,  Sir,  a  trusser  of  giants  formerly, 
perhaps  would  find  less  sport  therein  now, 
198. 

Laura,  exploited,  274. 

Learning,  three-story,  262. 

Letcher,  de  la  vieille  roche,  244. 

Letcherus,  nebulo,  270. 

Letters  classed,  203  —  their  shape,  204— of 
candidates,  205  —  often  fatal,  ib. 

Lettres  Cabalistiques,  quoted,  231. 

Lewis,  Dixpn  H.,  gives  his  view  of  slavery,  199. 

Lewis  Philip,  a  scourger  of  young  native  Amer 
icans,  196 — commiserated  (though  not  de 
serving  it),  196,  note. 

Lexington,  233. 

Liberator,  a  newspaper,  condemned  by  implica 
tion,  190. 

Liberty,  unwholesome  for  men  of  certain  com 
plexions,  201. 

Licking,  when  constitutional,  247. 

Lignum  vitaa,  a  gift  of  this  valuable  wood  pro 
posed,  186. 

Lincoln,  too  shrewd  to  hang  Mason  and  Slidell, 
252. 

Literature,  Southern,  its  abundance,  244. 

Little  Big  Boosy  River,  227. 

Longinus  recommends  swearing,  184,  note  (Fu- 
seli  did  same  thing). 

Long-sweetening  recommended,  207. 

Lord,  inexpensive  way  of  lending  to,  226. 

Lords,  Southern,  prove  pur  sang  by  ablution, 
244. 

Lost  arts,  one  sorrowfully  added  to  list  of,  217. 

Louis  the  Eleventh  of  France,  some  odd  trees 
of  his,  210. 

Lowell,  Mr.  J.  R.,  unaccountable  silence  of, 
189,  190. 

Luther,  Martin,  his  first  appearance  as  Europa, 
186. 

Lyseus,  272. 

Lyttelton,  Lord,  his  letters  an  imposition,  203. 

Macrobii,  their  diplomacy,  206. 

Magoffin,  a  name  naturally  noble,  244. 

Mahomet,  got  nearer  Sinai  than  some,  200. 

Mahound,  his  filthy  gobbets,  186. 

Mandeville,  Sir  John,  quoted,  231. 

Mangum,  Mr.,  speaks  to  the  point,  198. 

Manichffian,  excellently  confuted,  197. 

Man-trees,  grow  where,  210. 

Maori  chieftains,  230. 

Mapes,  Walter,  quoted,  232  —  paraphrased,  ib. 

Mares '-nests,  finders  of,  benevolent,  203. 

Marius,  quoted,  241. 

Marshfield,  212.  ^ 

Martin,  Mr.  Sawin  used  to  vote  for  him,  215. 

Mason  and  Dixon's  line,  slaves  north  of,  198. 

Mason  an  P.  F.  V.,  252. 

Mason  and  Slidell,  how  they  might  have  been 
made  at  once  useful  and  ornamental,  252. 

Mass,  the,  its  duty  defined,  198. 

Massachusetts  on  her  knees,  182 ;  something 
mentioned  in  connection  with,  worthy  the 
attention  of  tailors,  193;  citizen  of,  bakedf 
boiled,  and  roasted  (nefandum  /),  209. 


466 


APPENDIX 


Masses,  the,  used  as  butter  by  some,  194. 
Maury,  an  intellectual  giant,  twin  birth  with 

Simms  (which  see),  244. 
Mayday  a  humbug,  261. 
M.  C.,  an  invertebrate  animal,  195. 
Me,  Mister,  a  queer  creature,  262. 
Mechanics'  Fair,  reflections  suggested  at,  206. 
Medium,  ardentispirituale,  270. 
Mediums,  spiritual,  dreadful  liars,  264. 
Memminger,  old,  226. 
Mentor,  letters  of,  dreary,  203. 
Mephistopheles  at  a  nonplus,  199. 
Mexican  blood,  its  effect  in  raising  price  of 

cloth,  211. 
Mexican  polka,  187. 
Mexicans   charged  with  various    breaches    of 

etiquette,   186  —  kind    feelings    beaten    into 

them,  202. 

Mexico,  no  glory  in  overcoming,  193. 
Middleton,  Thomas,  quoted,  241. 
Military  glory  spoken  disrespectfully  of,  185, 

note  —  militia  treated  still  worse,  ib. 
Milk-trees,  growing  still,  210. 
Mill,  Stuart,  his  low  ideas,  251. 
Millenniums  apt  to  miscarry,  264. 
Millspring,  252. 
Mills  for  manufacturing  gabble,  how  driven, 

1%. 

Mills,  Josiah's,  262^ 
Milton,  an  unconscious  plagiary,  192,  note  —  a 

Latin  verse  of,  cited,  201  —  an  English  poet, 

254  — his  "  Hymn  of  the  Nativity,"  266. 
Missionaries,   useful  to  alligators,   224 — culi 
nary  liabilities  of,  243. 
Missions,  a  profitable  kind  of,  201. 
Monarch,   a    pagan,   probably  not  favored  in 

philosophical  experiments,  183. 
Money-trees,   desirable,   210 — that  they  once 

existed  shown  to  be  variously  probable,  ib. 
Montaigne,  274. 

Montaigne,  a  communicative  old  Gascon,  203. 
Monterey,   battle    of,    its    singular    chromatic 

effect   on   a  species    of  two-headed   eagle, 

195. 

Montezuma,  licked,  224. 
Moody,  Seth,  his  remarkable  gun,   227  —  his 

brother  Asaph,  ib. 

Moquis  Indians,  praiseworthy  custom  of,  255. 
Moses,  held  up  vainly  as  an   example,  200  — 

construed  by  Joe  Smith,    ib.  —  (not,  A.  J. 

Moses)  prudent  way  of  following,  255. 
Muse  invoked,  270. 
Myths,  how  to  interpret  readily,  206. 

Naboths,  Popish  ones,  how  distinguished,  187. 

Nana  Sahib,  230. 

Nancy,  presumably  Mrs.  Biglow,  233. 

Napoleon  III.,  his  new  chairs,  250. 

Nation,  rights  of,  proportionate  to  size,  186  — 

young,  its  first  needs,  250. 
National  pudding,  its  effect  on  the  organs  of 

speech,  a  curious  physiological  fact,  187. 
Negroes,  their  double  usefulness,  226  —  getting 

too  current,  251. 
Nephelim,  not  yet  extinct,  217. 
New  England  overpoweringly  honored,  195  — 

wants  no  more  speakers,  to.  —  done  brown  by 


whom,  ib.  —  her  experience  in  beans  beyond 

Cicero's,  206. 
Newspaper,   the,   wonderful,   202  —  a  strolling 

theatre,  ib.  —  thoughts  suggested  by  tearing 

wrapper  of,  ib.  —  a  vacant  sheet,  ib.  —  a  sheet 

in  which  a  vision  was  let  down,  203  —  wrapper 

to  a  bar  of  soap,  ib.  —  a  cheap  impromptu 

platter,  ib. 

New  World,  apostrophe  to,  238. 
New  York,  letters  from,  commended,  203. 
Next  life,  what,  200. 
Nicotiana  Tabacum,  a  weed,  254. 
Niggers,  182  —  area  of  abusing,  extended,  193 — 

Mr.  Sawin's  opinions  of,  215. 
Ninepence  a  day  low  for  murder,  184. 
No,  a  monosyllable,  187  —  hard  to  utter,  ib. 
Noah  enclosed  letter  in  bottle,  probably,  203. 
Noblemen,  Nature's,  245. 
Nornas,  Lapland,  what,  211. 
North,   the,   has  no  business,   198  —  bristling, 

crowded  off  roost,  205  —  its  mind  naturally 

unprincipled,  258. 
North  Bend,  geese  inhumanly  treated  at,  205  — 

mentioned,  212. 

North  star,  a  proposition  to  indict,  199. 
Northern  Dagon,  227. 
Northmen,  gens  indytissima,  253. 
Notre  Dame  de  la  fiaine,  242. 
Now,  its  merits,  262. 
Nowhere,  march  to,  263. 

O'Brien,  Smith,  230. 

Off  ox,  204. 

Officers,  miraculous  transformation  in  character 

of,  186  —  Anglo-Saxon,  come  very  near  being 

anathematized,  ib. 
Old  age,  an  advantage  of,  229. 
Old  One,  invoked,  248. 
Onesimus  made  to  serve  the  cause  of  impiety, 

243. 

O'Phace,  Increase  D.,  Esq.,  speech  of,  191. 
Opinion,  British,  its  worth  to  us,  232. 
Opinions,  certain  ones  compared  to  winter  flies, 

240. 
Oracle  of  Fools,  still   respectfully  consulted, 

192. 

Orion  becomes  commonplace,  202. 
Orrery,  Lord,  his  letters  (lord  !),  203. 
Ostracism,  curious  species  of,  192. 
Ovidii  Nasonis,  carmen  supposititium,  270. 

Palestine,  186. 

Paley,  his  Evidences,  283. 

Palfrey,  Hon.  J.  G.,  192,  195,  (a  worthy  repre 
sentative  of  Massachusetts). 

Pantagruel,  recommends  a  popular  oracle,  192. 

Panurge,  232  —  his  interview  with  Goatsnose, 
206. 

Paper,  plausible-looking,  wanted,  250. 

Papists,  female,  slain  by  zealous  Protestant 
bomb-shell,  211. 

Paralipomenon,  a  man  suspected  of  being,  205. 

Paris,  liberal  principles  safe  as  far  away  as, 
201. 

Parliamentum  Indoctorum  sitting  in  perma 
nence,  192. 

Past,  the,  a  good  nurse,  197. 


INDEX   TO   THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


467 


Patience,  sister,  quoted,  185. 

Patriarchs,  the,  illiterate,  228. 

PotrtetUff,  brogipotens,  270. 

Paynims,  their  throats  propagandistically  cut, 
186. 

Penelope,  her  wise  choice,  189. 

People,  soft  enough,  201  —  want  correct  ideas, 
209  —  the,  decline  to  be  Mexicanized,  256. 

Pepin,  King,  203. 

Pepperell,  General,  quoted,  233. 

Pequash  Junction,  274. 

Periwig,  205. 

Perley,  Mr.  Asaph,  has  charge  of  bass-viol, 
240. 

Perseus,  King,  his  avarice,  232. 

Persius,  a  pithy  saying  of,  194,  note. 

Pescara,  Marquis,  saying  of,  183. 

Peter,  Saint,  a  letter  of  (post-mortem),  203. 

Petrarch,  exploited  Laura,  274. 

Petrpnius,  232. 

Pettibone,  Jabez,  bursts  up,  245. 

Pettus  came  over  with  Wilhelmus  Conquistor, 
244. 

Phaon,  274. 

Pharaoh,  his  lean  kine,  237. 

Pharisees,  opprobriously  referred  to,  201. 

Philippe,  Louis,  in  pea-jacket,  202. 

Phillips,  Wendell,  catches  a  Tartar,  259. 

Phlegyas  quoted,  200. 

Phrygian  language,  whether  Adam  spoke  it, 
183. 

Pickens,  a  Norman  name,  244. 

Pilcoxes,  genealogy  of,  221. 

Pilgrim  Father,  apparition  of,  263. 

Pilgrims,  the,  193. 

Pillows,  constitutional,  195. 

Pine-trees,  their  sympathy,  262. 

Pinto,  Mr.,  some  letters  of  his  commended, 
203. 

Pisgah,  an  impromptu  one,  211. 

Platform,  party,  a  convenient  one,  209. 

Plato,  supped  with,  203  — his  man,  205. 

Pleiades,  the,  not  enough  esteemed,  202. 

Pliny,  his  letters  not  admired,  203. 

Plotinus,  a  story  of,  197. 

Plymouth  Rock,  Old,  a  Convention  wrecked 
on,  193. 

Poets  apt  to  become  sophisticated,  260. 

Point  Tribulation,  Mr.  Sawin  wrecked  on, 
210. 

Poles,  exile,  whether  crop  of  beans  depends  on, 
185,  note. 

Polk,  nomen  gentile,  244. 

Polk,  President,  synonymous  with  our  country, 
189  —  censured,  193  —  in  danger  of  being 
crushed,  194. 

Polka,  Mexican,  187. 

Pomp,  a  runaway  slave,  his  nest,  215  —  hypo 
critically  groans  like  white  man,  ib.  —blind 
to  Christian  privileges,  216—  his  society  val- 
ned  at  fifty  dollars,  ib.  —  his  treachery,  ib.  — 
takes  Mr.  Sawin  prisoner,  ib.  —  cruelly  makes 
him  work,  ib.  —  puts  himself  illegally  under 
his  tuition,  ib.  —  dismisses  him  with  contu 
melious  epithets,  217  —  a  negro,  223. 

Pontifical  bull,  a  tamed  one,  186. 

Pope,  his  verse  excellent,  183. 


Pork,  refractory  in  boiling,  186. 

Portico,  the,  273. 

Portugal,  Alphonso  the  Sixth  of,  a  monster, 
217. 

Post,  Boston,  189  — shaken  visibly,  190  — bad 
guide-post,  ib.  —  too  swift,  ib.  —  edited  by  a 
colonel,  ib.  —  who  is  presumed  officially  in 
Mexico,  ib.  —  referred  to,  196. 

Pot-hooks,  death  in,  206. 

Power,  a  first-class,  elements  of,  250. 

Preacher,  an  ornamental  symbol,  200  —  a 
breeder  of  dogmas,  ib.  —  earnestness  of,  im 
portant,  217. 

Present,  considered  as  an  annalist,  200  —  not 
long  wonderful,  202. 

President,  slaveholding  natural  to,  201  —  must 
be  a  Southern  resident,  210  —  must  own  a 
nigger,  ib.  —  the,  his  policy,  281  —  his  resem 
blance  to  Jackson,  ib. 

Princes  mix  cocktails,  250. 

Principle,  exposure  spoils  it,  192. 

Principles,  bad,  when  less  harmful,  188  —  when 
useless,  258. 

Professor,  Latin,  in College,  269  —  Scaliger, 

270. 

Prophecies,  fulfilment  of,  252. 

Prophecy,  a  notable  one,  196,  note. 

Prospect  Hill,  233. 

Providence  has  a  natural  life-preserver,  237. 

Proviso,  bitterly  spoken  of,  204. 

Prudence,  sister,  her  idiosyncratic  teapot,  208. 

Psammeticus,  an  experiment  of,  183. 

Psyche,  poor,  275. 

Public  opinion,  a  blind  and  drunken  guide,  187 
—  nudges  Mr.  Wilbur's  elbow,  ib.  —  ticklers 
of,  194. 

Punkin  Falls  "Weekly  Parallel,"  265. 

Putnam,  General  Israel,  his  lines,  233. 

Pythagoras  a  bean-hater,  why,  205. 

Pythagoreans,  fish  reverenced  by,  why,  197. 

Quid,  ingens  nicotianum,  271. 
Quixote,  Don,  198. 

Rafn,  Professor,  254. 

Rag,  one  of  sacred  college,  187. 

Rantoul,  Mr.,  talks  loudly,  185  —  pious  reason 

for  not  enlisting,  ib. 
Recruiting  sergeant,  Devil  supposed  the  first, 

183. 
Religion,  Southern,  its  commercial  advantages, 

242. 

Representatives'  Chamber,  197. 
Rhinothism,  society  for  promoting,  203. 
Rhyme,  whether  natural  not  considered,  183. 
Rib,  an  infrangible  one,  207. 
Richard  the  First  of  England,  his  Christian 

fervor,  186. 
Riches  conjectured    to    have  legs  as  well  as 

wings,  199. 
Ricos  Hombres,  241. 
Ringtail  Rangers,  228. 
Roanoke  Island,  252. 
Robinson,  Mr.  John  P.,  his  opinions  fully  stated. 

188,  189. 

Rocks,  pocket  full  of,  208. 
Roosters  in  rainy  weather,  their  misery,  223. 


468 


APPENDIX 


Rotation  insures  mediocrity  and  inexperience, 

247. 
Rough  and  ready,  213  —  a  Wig,  214  —  a  kind  of 

scratch,  ib. 

Royal  Society,  American  fellows  of,  265. 
Rum  and  water  combine  kindly,  256. 
Runes  resemble  bird-tracks,  254. 
Runic  inscriptions,  their  different  grades  of  un- 

intelligibility  and  consequent  value,  254. 
Russell,  Earl,  is  good  enough  to  expound  our 

Constitution  for  us,  230. 
Russian  eagle  turns  Prussian  blue,  195. 
Ryeus,  Bacchi  epithcton,  272. 

Sabbath,  breach  of,  176. 

Sabellianism,  one  accused  of,  205. 

Sailors,  their  rights  how  won,  236. 

Saltillo,  unfavorable  view  of,  185. 

Salt-river,  in  Mexican,  what,  185. 

Samuel,  avunculus,  271. 

Samuel,  Uncle,  224  —  riotous,  195  —  yet  has 
qualities  demanding  reverence,  201  —  a  good 
provider  for  his  family,  ib.  —  an  exorbitant 
bill  of,  211  —  makes  some  shrewd  guesses, 
238,  239  —  expects  his  boots,  245. 

Sansculottes,  draw  their  wine  before  drinking, 
199. 

Santa  Anna,  his  expensive  leg,  209. 

Sappho,  some  human  nature  in,  271. 

Sassycus,  an  impudent  Indian,  233. 

Satan,  never  wants  attorneys,  186  —  an  expert 
talker  by  signs,  ib.  —  a  successful  fisherman 
with  little  or  no  bait,  187  —  cunning  fetch  of, 
188  — dislikes  ridicule,  190  —  ought  not  to 
have  credit  of  ancient  oracles,  196,  not e  —  his 
worst  pitfall,  243. 

Satirist,  incident  to  certain  dangers,  188. 

Savages,  Canadian,  chance  of  redemption  of 
fered  to,  217. 

Sawin,  B.,  Esquire,  his  letter  not  written  in 
verse,  183  —  a  native  of  Jaalam,  ib.  —  not 
regular  attendant  on  Rev.  Mr.  Wilbur's 
preaching1,  ib.  —  a  fool,  184  —  his  statements 
trustworthy,  ib.  —  his  ornithological  tastes, 
16.  —  letters  from,  183,  206,  212  — his  curious 
discovery  in  regard  to  bayonets,  184  —  dis 
plays  proper  family  pride,  ib.  — modestly  con 
fesses  himself  less  wise  than  the  Queen  of 
Sheba,  186  —  the  old  Adam  in,  peeps  out,  ib. 

—  a  miles  emeritus,  206  —  is  made  text  fora 
sermon,  ib. — loses  a  leg,  207  —  an  eye,  ib.  — 
left  hand,  ib.  — four  fingers  of  right  hand,  ib. 

—  has  six  or  more  ribs  broken,  ib.  —  a  rib  of 
his  infrangible,  ib.  —  allows  a  certain  amount 
of  preterite  greenness  in  himself,  ib.  —  his 
share  of  spoil  limited,  208  —  his  opinion  of 
Mexican  climate,  ib.  —  acquires  property  of  a 
certain  sort,  ib. — his  experience  of  glory,  ib. 

—  stands  sentry,  and  puns  thereupon,  209  — 
undergoes  martyrdom  in  some  of  its  most 
painful  forms,  ib.  —  enters  the   candidating 
business,    ib.  —  modestly  states    the   (avail) 
abilities  which  qualify  him  for  high  politi 
cal  station,  ib.  —  has   no  principles,   ib.  —  a 
peace-man,  ib. —  unpledged,  ib. — has  no  ob 
jections    to  owning   peculiar  property,  but 
would  not  like  to  monopolize  the  truth,  210 


—  his  account  with  glory,  ib.  —  a  selfish  mo 
tive  hinted  in,  ib.  — sails  for  Eldorado,  ib.  — 
shipwrecked  on  a  metaphorical  promontory, 
ib.  — parallel  between,  and  Rev.  Mr.  Wilbur 
(not  Plutarchian),  211  —  conjectured  to  have 
bathed  in  river  Selemnus,  212  —  loves  plough 
wisely,  but  not  too  well,  ib.  —  a  foreign  mis 
sion  probably  expected  by,  ib.  —  unanimously 
nominated  for  presidency,  ib.  — his  country's 
father-in-law,  213  —  nobly  emulates  Cinein- 
natus,  ib.- — is  not  a  crooked  stick,  ib.  —  ad 
vises  his  adherents,  ib.  — views  of,  on  present 
state  of  politics,  213-215  —  popular  enthusi 
asm  for,  at  Bellers's,  and  its  disagreeable 
consequences,  214  —  inhuman  treatment  of, 
by  Bellers,  ib.  — his  opinion  of  the  two  par 
ties,  ib,  —  agrees  with  Mr.  Webster,  ib.  — 
his  antislavery  zeal,  215  —  his  proper  self- 
respect,  ib.  —  his  unaffected  piety,  ib.  —  his 
not  intemperate  temperance,  ib.  —  a  thrilling 
adventure  of,  215-217  —  his  prudence  and 
economy,  215  —  bound  to  Captain  Jakes,  but 
regains  his  freedom,  216  —  is  taken  prisoner, 
ib.  —  ignominiously  treated,  ib.  —  his  conse 
quent  resolution,  217. 

Sawin,  Honorable  B.  O'F.,  a  vein  of  humor  sus 
pected  in,  222  —  gets  into  an  enchanted  castle, 
223  —  finds  a  wooden  leg  better  in  some  re 
spects  than  a  living  one,  224  —  takes  some 
thing  hot,  ib.  —  his  experience  of  Southern 
hospitality,  ib.  —  waterproof  internally,  ib.  — 
sentenced  to  ten  years'  imprisonment,  225  — 
his  liberal-handedness,  226  —  gets  his  arrears 
of  pension,  ib.  — marries  the  widow  Shannon, 
227  —  confiscated,  ib.  —  finds  in  himself  a  nat 
ural  necessity  of  income,  228  —  his  missionary 
zeal,  ib.  —  never  a  stated  attendant  on  Mr. 
Wilbur's  preaching,  239  —  sang  bass  in  choir, 
240 —  prudently  avoided  contribution  toward 
bell,  ib.  —  abhors  a  covenant  of  works,  242  — 
if  saved  at  all,  must  be  saved  genteelly,  ib.  — 
reports  a  sermon,  243 — experiences  religion, 
ib.  —  would  consent  to  a  dukedom,  244  —  con 
verted  to  unanimity,  245  —  sound  views  of, 

247  —  makes  himself  an  extempore  marquis, 

248  — extract  of  letter  from,  283,   284  — his 
opinion  of  Paddies,  284  —  of  Johnson,  ib. 

Sayres,  a  martyr,  197. 

Scaliger,  saying  of,  188. 

Scarabceus  pilularius,  185. 

Scott,  General,  his  claims  to  the  presidency, 
190,  191. 

Scrimgour,  Rev.  Shearjashub,  273. 

Scythians,  their  diplomacy  commended,  206. 

Sea,  the  wormy,  255. 

Seamen,  colored,  sold,  182. 

Secesftia,  licta,  271. 

Secession,  its  legal  nature  defined,  227. 

Secret,  a  great  military,  260. 

Selemnus,  a  sort  of  Lethean  river,  212. 

Senate,  debate  in,  made  readable,  197. 

Seneca,  saying  of,  188 — another,  196,  note  — 
overrated  by  a  saint  (but  see  Lord  Boling- 
broke's  opinion  of,  in  a  letter  to  Dean  Swift), 
203  —  his  letters  not  commended,  ib.  —  a  son 
of  Rev.  Mr.  Wilbur,  211  — quoted,  266,  267, 

Serbonian  bog  of  literature,  197. 


INDEX  TO   THE   BIGLOW   PAPERS 


469 


Sermons,  some  pitched  too  high,  240. 

Seward,  Mister,  the  late,  his  gift  of  prophecy, 
233,  —  needs  stiffening,  281  —  misunderstands 
parable  of  fatted  calf,  ib. 

Sextons,  demand  for,  185  —  heroic  official  devo 
tion  of  one,  217. 

Seymour,  Governor,  267. 

Shakespeare,  274  —  a  good  reporter,  192. 

Shaking  fever,  considered  as  an  employment, 
208. 

Sham,  President,  honest,  194. 

Shannon,  Mrs.,  a  widow,  225  — her  family  and 
accomplishments,  227  —  has  tantrums,  ib.  — 
her  religious  views,  242  —  her  notions  of  a 
moral  and  intellectual  being,  243  —  her 
maiden  name,  244  —  her  blue  blood,  ib. 

Sheba,  Queen  of,  186. 

Sheep,  none  of  Rev.  Mr.  Wilbur's  turned 
wolves,  183. 

Shem,  Scriptural  curse  of,  217. 

Shiraz  Centre,  lead-mine  at,  245. 

Shirley,  Governor,  233. 

Shoddy,  poor  covering  for  outer  or  inner  man, 
264. 

Shot  at  sight,  privilege  of  being,  245. 

Show,  natural  to  love  it,  185,  note. 

Silver  spoon  born  in  Democracy's  mouth,  what, 
194. 

Simms,  an  intellectual  giant,  twin-birth  with 
Maury  (which  see),  244. 

Sin,  wilderness  of,  modern,  what,  200. 

Sinai  suffers  outrages,  200. 

Skim-milk  has  its  own  opinions,  264. 

Skin,  hole  in,  strange  taste  of  some  for,  208. 

Skippers,  Yankee,  busy  in  the  slave-trade,  243. 

Slaughter,  whether  God  strengthen  us  for,  187. 

Slaughterers  and  soldiers  compared,  212. 

Slaughtering  nowadays  is  slaughtering,  212. 

Slavery,  of  no  color,  182  —  corner-stone  of  lib 
erty,  196  —  also  keystone,  198  —  last  crumb 
of  Eden,  199  —  a  Jonah,  ib.  —  an  institution, 
204  —  a  private  State  concern,  215. 

Slidell,  New  York  trash,  252. 

Sloanshure,  Habakkuk,  Esquire,  President  of 
Jaalam  Bank,  248. 

Smith,  Joe,  used  as  a  translation,  200. 

Smith,  John,  an  interesting  character,  203. 

Smith,  Mr.,  fears  entertained  for,  200  —  dined 
with,  203. 

Smith,  N.  B.,  his  magnanimity,  202. 

Smithius,  dux,  270. 

Soandso,  Mr.,  the  great,  defines  his  position, 
202. 

Soft-heartedness,  misplaced,  is  soft-headedness, 
268. 

Sol,  the  fisherman,  185  —  soundness  of  respira 
tory  organs  hypothetically  attributed  to,  ib. 

Soldiers,  British,  ghosts  of,  insubordinate,  234. 

Solomon,  Song  of,  portions  of  it  done  into  Latin 
verse  by  Mr.  Wilbur,  269. 

Solon,  a  saying  of,  187. 

Soul,  injurious  properties  of,  247. 

South,  its  natural  eloquence,  259 —  facts  have  a 
mean  spite  against,  252,  253. 

South  Carolina,  futile  attempt  to  anchor,  198  — 
her  pedigrees,  241. 

Southern  men,  their  imperfect  notions  of  labor, 


225— of  subscriptions,  225,  226  — too  high- 
pressure,  228 — prima  facie  noble,  244. 

Spanish,  to  walk,  what,  186. 

Speech-making,  an  abuse  of  gift  of  speech,  196. 

Spirit-rapping  does  not  repay  the  spirits  engaged 
in  it,  264. 

Split-Foot,  Old,  made  to  squirm,  228. 

Spring,  described,  261,  262. 

Star,  north,  subject  to  indictment,  whether, 
199. 

Statesman,  a  genuine,  defined,  258. 

Stearns,  Othniel,  fable  by,  282. 

Stone  Spike,  the,  234. 

Store,  cheap  cash,  a  wicked  fraud,  211. 

Strong,  Governor  Caleb,  a  patriot,  189. 

Style,  the  catalogue,  262. 

Sumter,  shame  of,  237. 

Sunday  should  mind  its  own  business,  258. 

Swearing  commended  as  a  figure  of  speech,  184, 
note. 

Swett,  Jethro  C.,  his  fall,  277. 

Swift,  Dean,  threadbare  saying  of,  190. 

Tag,  elevated  to  the  Cardinalate,  187. 

Taney,  C.  J.,  247,  256. 

Tarandfeather,  Rev.  Mr.,  245. 

Tarbox,  Shearjashub,  first  white  child  born  in 

Jaalam,  230. 
Tartars,  Mongrel,  224. 
Taxes,  direct,  advantages  of,  211. 
Taylor,  General,  greased  by  Mr.  Choate,  214. 
Taylor  zeal,  its  origin,  214. 
Teapots,  how  made  dangerous,  267. 
Ten,  the  upper,  245. 

Tesephone,  banished  for  long-windedness,  197. 
Thacker,  Rev.  Preserved,  D.  D.,  265. 
Thanks  get  lodged,  208. 
Thanksgiving,  Feejee,  224. 
Thaumaturgus,  Saint  Gregory,  letter  of,  to  the 

Devil,  203. 

Theleme,  Abbey  of,  248. 

Theocritus,  the  inventor  of  idyllic  poetry,  229. 
Theory,  defined,  256. 
ThermopylaBS,  too  many,  252. 
"  They  '11  say ']  a  notable  bully,  236. 
Thirty-nine  articles  might  be  made  serviceable. 

187. 

Thor,  a  foolish  attempt  of,  198. 
Thoreau,  229. 

Thoughts,  live  ones  characterized,  275. 
Thumb,  General  Thomas,  a  valuable  member 

of  society,  195. 

Thunder,  supposed  in  easy  circumstances,  207. 
Thynne,  Mr.,  murdered,  183. 
Tibullus,  266. 
Time,  an  innocent  personage  to  swear  by,  184, 

note  —  a  scene-shifter,  202. 
Tinkham,  Deacon  Pelatiah,  story  concerning, 

not  told,  225  — alluded  to,  229  — does  a  very 

sensible  thing,  242. 
Toms,  Peeping,  203. 
Toombs,  a  doleful  sound  from,  253. 
Trees,  various  kinds  of  extraordinary  ones,  210. 
Trowbridge,   William,  mariner,  adventure  of, 

187. 
Truth  and  falsehood  start  from  same  point,  188 

—  truth  invulnerable  to  satire,  ib.  —  compared 


470 


APPENDIX 


to  a  river,  192  —  of  fiction  sometimes  truer 

than  fact,  ib.  —  told  plainly,  passim. 
Tuileries,  exciting  scene  at,  196  — front  parlor 

of,  250. 

Tully,  a  saying  of,  192,  note. 
Tunnel,  Northwest-Passage,  a  poor  investment, 

248. 

Turkey-Buzzard  Roost,  227. 
Tuscaloosa,  227. 

Tutchel,  Rev.  Jonas,  a  Sadducee,  255. 
Tweedledee,  gospel  according  to,  201. 
Tweedledum,  great  principles  of,  201. 
Tylerus,  juvenis  insignis,  270 — porphyrogenitus, 

271  —  lohanides,  flito  celeris,  ib.  —  bene  titus, 

272. 
Tyrants,  European,  how  made  to  tremble,  225. 

Ulysses,  husband  of  Penelope,  189  —  borrows 
money,  211  (for  full  particulars  of,  see  Homer 
and  Dante)  —  rex,  270. 

Unanimity,  new  ways  of  producing,  245. 

Union,  its  hoops  off,  245 — its  good  old  mean 
ing,  256. 

Universe,  its  breeching,  246. 

University,  triennial  catalogue  of,  191. 

Us,  nobody  to  be  compared  with,  225  —  and  see 
World,  passim. 

Van  Buren,  fails  of  gaining  Mr.  Sawin's  confi 
dence,  215  —  his  son  John  reproved,  ib. 

Van,  Old,  plan  to  set  up,  215. 

Vattel,  as  likely  to  fall  on  your  toes  as  on  mine, 
238. 

Venetians  invented  something  once,  211. 

Vices,  cardinal,  sacred  conclave  of,  187. 

Victoria,  Queen,  her  natural  terror,  195  —  her 
best  carpets,  250. 

Vinland,  255. 

Virgin,  the,  letter  of,  to  Magistrates  of  Messina, 

Virginia,  descripta,  270. 
Virginians,  their  false  heraldry,  240. 
Voltaire,  esprit  de,  270. 

Vratz,  Captain,  a  Pomeranian,  singular  views 
of,  183. 

Wachuset  Mountain,  236. 

Wait,  General,  232. 

Wales,  Prince  of,  calls  Brother  Jonathan  con- 
sanguineus  noster,  231  —  but  had  not,  appar 
ently,  consulted  the  Garter  King  at  Arms,  ib. 

Walpple,  Horace,  classed,  203— his  letters 
praised,  ib. 

Waltham  Plain,  Cornwallis  at,  184. 

Walton,  punctilious  in  his  intercourse  with 
fishes,  187. 

War,  abstract,  horrid,  204— its  hoppers,  grist 
of,  what,  208. 

Warren,  Fort,  267. 

Warton,  Thomas,  a  story  of,  191. 

Washington,  charge  brought  against,  213. 

Washington,  city  of,  climatic  influence  of,  on 
coats,  193  —  mentioned,  197  —  grand  jury  of, 

Washingtons,  two  hatched  at  a  time  by  im 
proved  machine,  213. 
Watchmanus,  noctivagus,  272. 


Water,  Taunton,  proverbially  weak,  215. 

Water-trees,  210. 

Weakwash,  a  name  fatally  typical,  233. 

Webster,  his  unabridged  quarto,  its  deleterious- 
ness,  269. 

Webster,  some  sentiments  of,  commended  by 
Mr.  Sawin,  214. 

Westcott,  Mr.,  his  horror,  199. 

Whig  party  has  a  large  throat,  190  —  but  query 
as  to  swallowing  spurs,  214. 

White-house,  205. 

Wickliffe,  Robert,  consequences  of  his  burst 
ing,  267. 

Wife-trees,  210. 

Wilbur,  Mrs.  Dorcas  (Pilcox),  an  invariable 
rule  of,  191  —  her  profile,  ib.  —  tribute  to, 
265. 

Wilbur,  Rev.  Homer,  A.  M.,  consulted,  181  — 
his  instructions  to  his  flock,  183  —  a  propo 
sition  of  his  for  Protestant  bomb-shells,  187  — 
his  elbow  nudged,  ib.  —  his  notions  of  satire, 
188  —  some  opinions  of  his  quoted  with  ap 
parent  approval  by  Mr.  Biglow,  189  —  geo 
graphical  speculations  of,  ib.  —  a  justice  of 
the  peace,  ib.  —  a  letter  of,  ib.  —  a  Latin  pun 
of,  190  —  runs  against  a  post  without  injury, 
ib.  —  does  not  seek  notoriety  (whatever  some 
malignants  may  affirm),  ib.  —  fits  youths  for 
college,  191  —  a  chaplain  during  late  war 
with  England,  ib.  —  a  shrewd  observation  of, 
192  —  some  curious  speculations  of,  196, 197  — 
his  Martello-tower,  196  —  forgets  he  is  not  in 
pulpit,  200,  206  —  extracts  from  sermon  of, 
200,  201,  202  —  interested  in  John  Smith,  203 

—  his  views  concerning  present  state  of  let 
ters,  ib.  —  a  stratagem  of,  205  —  ventures  two 
hundred  and  fourth  interpretation  of  Beast  in 
Apocalypse,  ib.  —  christens  Hon.  B.  Sawin, 
then  an  infant,  206  —  an  addition  to  our  sylva 
proposed  by,  210  —  curious  and  instructive 
adventure  of,  211  —  his  account  with  an  un 
natural  uncle,  ib.  —  his  uncomfortable  imagi 
nation,  ib. — speculations  concerning  Cincin- 
natus,  212 — confesses  digressive  tendency  of 
mind,  217  —  goes   to    work  on    sermon  (not 
without  fear  that  his  readers  will  dub  him 
with  a  reproachful  epithet   like  that  with 
which  Isaac  Allerton,  a  Mayflower  man,  re 
venges  himself  on  a  delinquent  debtor  of  his, 
calling  him  in  his  will,  and  thus  holding  him 
up    to    posterity,    as    "  John  Peterson,  THE 
BORE"),  ib. — his  modesty,   220  —  disclaims 
sole  authorship  of  Mr.  Biglow's  writings,  221 

—  his  low  opinion  of  prepensive  autographs, 
ib.  —a  chaplain  in  1812,  222  — cites  a  hea 
then    comedian,    ib.  —  his  fondness  for  the 
Book  of  Job,  ib.  —  preaches  a  Fast-Day  dis 
course,  223  —  is  prevented  from  narrating  a 
singular  occurrence,  ib.  —  is  presented  with  a 
pair  of  new  spectacles,  228  —  his  church  ser 
vices  indecorously  sketched  by  Mr.  Sawin, 
243  —  hopes  to  decipher  a  Runic  inscription, 
248  — a  fable  by,   ib.  —  deciphers  Runic  in 
scription,  253-255  — his  method  therein,  254 

—  is  ready  to  reconsider  his  opinion  of  to 
bacco,  255  —  his  opinion  of  the  Puritans,  260  — 
his  death,  265  — born  in  Pigsgusset,  ib.  —let- 


NOTES   AND  ILLUSTRATIONS 


ter  of  Rev.  Mr.  Hitchcock  concerning,  265, 
266  —  fond  of  Milton's  Christmas  hymn,  266 

—  his  monument  (proposed),  ib,  —  his  epitaph, 
16.  — his  last  letter,  266,  267  — his  supposed 
disembodied  spirit,  269  — table  belonging  to, 
{£,.  —  sometimes  wrote  Latin  verses,  ib.  —  his 
table-talk,  272-275  —  his    prejudices,   273  — 
against  Baptists,  ib.  —  his  sweet  nature,  277 

—  his  views  of  style,  278  — a  story  of  his,  ib. 
Wildbore,  a  vernacular  one,  how  to  escape,  197. 
Wilkes,  Captain,  borrows  rashly,  234. 

Wind,  the,  a  good  Samaritan,  206. 

Wingfield,  his  "Memorial,"  241. 

Wooden  leg,  remarkable  for  sobriety,  207  — 

never  eats  pudding,  ib. 
Woods,  the.    See  Belmont. 
Works,  covenants  of,  condemned,  242. 
World,  this,  its  unhappy  temper,  223. 
Wright,  Colonel,  providentially  rescued,  185. 
Writing,  dangerous  to  reputation,  222. 
Wrong,  abstract,  safe  to  oppose,  194. 

Yankees,  their  worst  wooden  nutmegs,  253. 
Zack,  Old,  213. 

IV.    NOTES  AND   ILLUSTRATIONS 

Page  111.     On  any  pot  that  ever  drew  tea. 

When  Mr.  Garrison  visited  Edinburgh  in 
1846,  a  handsome  silver  tea-set  was  presented 
to  him  by  his  friends  in  that  city.  On  the  ar 
rival  of  this  gift  at  the  Boston  custom-house,  it 
was  charged  with  an  enormous  entrance  duty, 
which  would  have  been  remitted  if  the  articles 
had  ever  been  used.  It  was  supposed  that  if 
the  owner  had  not  been  the  leader  of  the  unpop 
ular  abolitionists,  this  heavy  impost  would  not 
have  been  laid  on  a  friendly  British  tribute  to 
an  eminent  American. 

Page  111.     There  jokes  our  Edmund. 

Edmund  Quincy.     [See  page  383.] 

Page  112.    Let  Austin's  total  shipwreck  say. 

On  the  occasion  of  the  murder  of  Rev.  Elijah 
P.  Lovejoy,  editor  of  an  anti-slavery  newspaper 
at  Alton,  Illinois,  an  indignation  meeting  was 
held  in  Boston,  at  which  Mr.  Austin,  Attorney- 
General  of  Massachusetts,  made  a  violent  pro- 
slavery  speech,  which  called  forth  a  crushing 
reply  from  Wendell  Phillips,  who  thenceforth 
became  a  main  pillar  of  abolitionism. 

Page  112.  Smiles  the  reviled  and  pelted 
Stephen. 

Stephen  S.  Foster. 

Page  112.    Sits  Abby  in  her  modest  dress. 

Abby  Kelley. 

Page  131.  There  is  Bryant,  as  quiet,  as  cool, 
and  as  dignified. 

[I  am  quite  sensible  now  that  I  did  not  do 
Mr.  Bryant  justice  in  the  "  Fable. "  But  there 
was  no  personal  feeling  in  what  I  said  —  though 
I  have  regretted  what  I  did  say  because  it 
might  seem  personal.  I  am  now  asked  to  write 
a  review  of  his  poems  for  the  North  American. 
If  I  do,  I  shall  try  to  do  him  justice.  Letters 
I.  221.] 


Page  137.    But  there  comes  Miranda,  Zeus ! 

where  shall  I  flee  to  ? 

[If  it  be  not  too  late,  strike  out  these  four 

verses  in  4k  Miranda :  " 

There  is  one  thing  she  owns  in  her  own  private  right, 
It  is  native  and  genuine  —  namely,  her  spite  ; 
When  she  acts  as  a  censor,  she  privately  blows 
A  censer  of  vanity,  'neath  her  own  nose. 

Lowell  to  C.  F.  Briggs,  October  4, 1848.] 

THE  BIGLO'W  PAPERS 
I  am  indebted  to  Mr.  Frank  Beverly  Wil 
liams  for  these  illustrative  notes. 

FIRST    SERIES 

This  series  of  the  Biglow  Papers  relates  to 
the  Mexican  War.  It  expresses  the  sentiment 
of  New  England,  and  particularly  of  Massachu 
setts,  on  that  conflict,  which  in  its  aim  and 
conduct  had  little  of  honor  for  the  American 
Republic.  The  war  was  begun  and  prosecuted 
in  the  interest  of  Southern  slaveholders.  It 
was  essential  to  the  vitality  of  slavery  that 
fresh  fields  should  constantly  be  opened  to  it. 
Agriculture  was  almost  the  sole  industry  in 
which  slaves  could  be  profitably  employed. 
That  their  labor  should  be  wasteful  and  care 
less  to  preserve  the  productive  powers  of  the 
soil  was  inevitable.  New  land  was  ever  in 
demand,  and  the  history  of  slavery  in  the 
United  States  is  one  long  series  of  struggles  for 
more  territory.  It  was  with  this  end  in  view 
that  a  colony  of  roving,  adventurous  Americans, 
settled  in  the  thinly  populated  and  poorly  gov 
erned  region  now  known  as  Texas,  revolted 
from  the  Mexican  government  and  secured 
admission  to  the  Union,  thus  bringing  on  the 
war  with  Mexico.  The  Northern  Whigs  had 
protested  against  annexation,  but  after  the  war 
began  their  resistance  grew  more  and  more 
feeble.  In  the  vain  effort  to  retain  their  large 
Southern  constituent,  they  sacrificed  justice  to 
expediency  and  avoided  an  issue  that  would  not 
be  put  down.  The  story  of  the  Mexican  War  is 
the  story  of  the  gradual  decline  of  the  great 
Whig  party,  and  of  the  growth  of  that  organi 
zation,  successively  known  as  the  Liberty,  Free- 
Soil,  and  Republican  party,  whose  policy  was 
the  exclusion  of  slavery  from  all  new  territory. 
One  more  victory  was  granted  to  the  Whigs  in 
1848.  After  that  their  strength  failed  rapidly. 
Northern  sentiment  was  being  roused  to  a  sense 
of  righteous  indignation  by  Southern  aggres 
sions  and  the  fervid  exhortations  of  Garrison 
and  his  co-workers  in  the  anti-slavery  cause. 
Few,  however,  followed  Garrison  into  disloyalty 
to  the  Constitution.  The  greater  number  pre 
ferred  to  stay  in  the  Union  and  use  such  lawful 
political  means  as  were  available  for  the  re 
striction  of  slavery.  Their  wisdom  was  de 
monstrated  by  the  election  of  Abraham  Lincoln 
twelve  years  after  the  Mexican  War  closed. 

Page  181.    A  cruetin  Sarjunt. 

The  act  of  May  13, 1846,  authorized  President 
Polk  to  employ  the  militia,  and  call  out  50,000 
volunteers,  if  necessary.  He  immediately  called 


472 


APPENDIX 


for  the  full  number  of  volunteers,  asking  Massa 
chusetts  for  777  men.  On  May  26  Governor 
Briggs  issued  a  proclamation  for  the  enrol 
ment  of  the  regiment.  As  the  President's  call 
was  merely  a  request  and  not  an  order,  many 
Whigs  and  the  Abolitionists  were  for  refusing 
it.  The  Liberator  for  June  5  severely  censured 
the  governor  for  complying,  and  accused  him  of 
not  carrying  out  the  resolutions  of  the  last  Whig 
Convention,  which  had  pledged  the  party  "  to 
present  as  firm  a  front  of  opposition  to  the 
institution  as  was  consistent  with  their  alle 
giance  to  the  Constitution." 

Page  182.  Massachusetts  .  .  .  she  's  akneelin1 
with  the  rest. 

An  allusion  to  the  governor's  call  for  troops 
(cf.  note  to  p.  181)  as  well  as  to  the  vote  on  the 
War  Bill.  On  May  11,  1846,  the  President  sent 
to  the  House  of  Representatives  his  well-known 
message  declaring  the  existence  of  war  brought 
on  "by  the  act  of  Mexico,"  and  asking  for  a 
supply  of  $10,000,000.  Of  the  seven  members 
from  Massachusetts,  all  Whigs,  two,  Robert 
C.  Winthrop,  of  Boston,  and  Amos  Abbott, 
of  Andover,  voted  for  the  bill.  The  Whigs 
throughout  the  country,  remembering  the  fate 
of  the  party  which  had  opposed  the  last  war 
with  England,  sanctioned  the  measure  as  neces 
sary  for  the  preservation  of  the  army,  then  in 
peril  by  the  unauthorized  acts  of  the  President,, 

Page  182. 

Hadn't  they  sold  your  colored  seamen  ? 
Ha? n't  they  made  your  env'ys  w'iz  ? 

South  Carolina,  Louisiana,  and  several  other 
Southern  States  at  an  early  date  passed  acts 
to  prevent  free  persons  of  color  from  entering 
their  jurisdictions.  These  acts  bore  with  par 
ticular  severity  upon  colored  seamen,  who  were 
imprisoned,  fined,  or  whipped,  and  often  sold 
into  slavery.  On  the  petition  of  the  Massa 
chusetts  Legislature,  Governor  Briggs,  in  1844, 
appointed  Mr.  Samuel  Hoar  agent  to  Charles 
ton,  and  Mr.  George  Hubbard  to  New  Orleans, 
to  act  on  behalf  of  oppressed  colored  citizens  of 
the  Bay  State.  Mr.  Hoar  was  expelled  from 
South  Carolina  by  order  of  the  Legislature  of 
that  State,  and  Mr.  Hubbard  was  forced  by 
threats  of  violence  to  leave  Louisiana.  The 
obnoxious  acts  remained  in  force  until  after  the 
Civil  War. 

Page  183.     Go  to  work  an1  part. 

Propositions  to  secede  were  not  uncommon  in 
New  England  at  this  time.  The  rights  of  the 
States  had  been  strongly  asserted  on  the  acqui 
sition  of  Louisiana  in  1803,  and  on  the  admis 
sion  of  the  State  of  that  name  in  1812.  Among 
the  resolutions  of  the  Massachusetts  Legislature 
adopted  in  1845,  relative  to  the  proposed  annex 
ation  of  Texas,  was  one  declaring  that  "  such 
an  act  of  admission  would  have  no  binding 
force  whatever  on  the  people  of  Massachusetts." 

John  Quincy  Adams,  in  a  discourse  before 
the  New  York  Historical  Society,  in  1839, 
claimed  a  right  for  the  States  "to  part  in 
friendship  with  each  other  .  .  .  when  the  fra 
ternal  spirit  shall  give  way,"  etc.  The  Garri- 
Bonian  wing  of  the  Abolitionists  notoriously 


advocated  secession.  There  were  several  other 
instances  of  an  expression  of  this  sentiment,  but 
for  the  most  part  they  were  not  evoked  by 
opposition  to  slavery. 

Page  184.    Hoorawin?  in  ole  Funnel. 

The  Massachusetts  regiment,  though  called 
for  May  13,  1846,  was  not  mustered  into  the 
United  States'  service  till  late  in  January  of 
the  next  year.  The  officers,  elected  January  5, 
1847,  were  as  follows :  Caleb  Gushing,  of  New- 
buryport,  Colonel ;  Isaac  H.  Wright,  of  Rox- 
bury,  Lieutenant-Colonel ;  Edward  W.  Abbott, 
of  Andover,  Major,,  Shortly  before  the  troops 
embarked  for  the  South,  on  the  evening  of 
Saturdayv  January  23,  1847,  a  public  meeting 
was  held  in  Faneuil  Hall,  where  an  elegant 
sword  was  presented  to  Mr.  Wright  by  John 
A.  Bolles,  on  behalf  of  the  subscribers.  Mr. 
Bolles'  speech  on  this  occasion  is  the  one  re 
ferred  to. 

Page  184.     Mister  Bolles. 

Mr.  John  Augustus  Bolles  was  the  author  of 
a  prize  essay  on  a  Congress  of  Nations,  pub 
lished  by  the  American  Peace  Society,  an  essay 
on  Usury  and  Usury  Laws,  and  of  various 
articles  in  the  North .  American  Review  and 
other  periodicals.  He  was  also  the  first  editor 
of  the  Boston  Journal.  In  1843  he  was  Secre 
tary  of  State  for  Massachusetts. 

Page  185.    Rantoul. 

Mr.  Robert  Rantoul  (1805-1852),  a  prominent 
lawyer  and  a  most  accomplished  gentleman, 
was  at  this  time  United  States  District  Attor 
ney  for  Massachusetts.  In  1851  he  succeeded 
Webster  in  the  Senate,  but  remained  there  a 
short  time  only.  He  was  a  Representative  in 
Congress  from  1851  till  his  death.  Although  a 
Democrat,  Mr.  Rantoul  was  strongly  opposed 
to  slavery. 

Page  185.    Achokin'  on  'em. 

Mr.  Rantoul  was  an  earnest  advocate  of  the 
abolition  of  capital  punishment.  Public  atten 
tion  had  recently  been  called  to  his  views  by 
some  letters  to  Governor  Briggs  on  the  subject, 
written  in  February,  1846. 

Page  186.     Caleb. 

Caleb  Gushing,  of  Newburyport,  Colonel  of 
the  Massachusetts  Regiment  of  Volunteers. 

Page  188.     Guvener  B. 

George  Nixon  Briggs  was  the  Whig  Governor 
of  Massachusetts  from  1844  to  1851.  The  cam 
paign  referred  to  here  is  that  of  1847.  Gover 
nor  Briggs  was  renominated  by  acclamation 
and  supported  by  his  party  with  great  enthu 
siasm.  His  opponent  was  Caleb  Gushing,  then 
in  Mexico,  and  raised  by  President  Polk  to  the 
rank  of  Brigadier-General.  Gushing  was  de 
feated  by  a  majority  of  14,060. 

Page  188.     John  P.  Robinson. 

John  Paul  Robinson  (1799-1864)  was  a  resi 
dent  of  Lowell,  a  lawyer  of  considerable  ability, 
and  a  thorough  classical  scholar.  He  repre 
sented  Lowell  in  the  State  Legislature  in  1829, 
1830,  1831,  1833,  and  1842,  and  was  Senator 
from  Middlesex  in  1836.  Late  in  the  guber 
natorial  contest  of  1847  it  was  rumored  that 
Robinson,  heretofore  a  zealous  Whig,  and  a 


NOTES   AND   ILLUSTRATIONS 


473 


delegate  to  the  recent  Springfield  Convention, 
had  gone  over  to  the  Democratic  or,  as  it  was 
then  styled,  the  "  Loco  "  camp.  The  editor  of 
the  Boston  Palladium  wrote  to  him  to  learn  the 
truth,  and  Robinson  replied  in  an  open  letter 
avowing  his  intention  to  vote  for  Gushing. 

Page  188.     Gineral  C. 

General  Caleb  Gushing. 

Page  189.     "  Our  country,  however  bounded." 

Mr.  R.  C.  Winthrop,  M.  C.,  in  a  speech  at 
Faneuil  Hall,  July  4,  1845,  said  in  deprecation 
of  secession :  "Our  country  —  bounded  by  the 
St.  John's  and  the  Sabine,  or  however  otherwise 
bounded  or  described,  and  be  the  measure 
ments  more  or  less  —  still  our  country  —  to  be 
cherished  in  all  our  hearts,  to  be  defended  by  all 
our  hands."  The  sentiment  was  at  once  taken 
up  and  used  effectively  by  the  "  Cotton  "  Whigs, 
those  who  inclined  to  favor  the  Mexican  War. 

Page  190.     The  Liberator. 

The  Liberator  was  William  Lloyd  Garrison's 
anti-slavery  paper,  published  from  1831  to  1865. 
The  "heresies"  of  which  Mr.  Wilbur  speaks 
were  Garrison's  advocacy  of  secession,  his  well- 
known  and  eccentric  views  on  "no  govern 
ment,"  woman  suffrage,  etc. 

Page  191.     Scott. 

General  W.  Scott  was  mentioned  as  a  possible 
Whig  candidate  for  the  Presidency  in  the  sum 
mer  of  1847,  but  was  soon  overshadowed  by 
General  Taylor. 

Page  192.    Palfrey. 

December  6,  1847,  Mr.  R.  C.  Winthrop,  of 
Boston,  the  Whig  candidate  for  Speaker  of  the 
House  in  the  Thirtieth  Congress,  was  elected 
after  three  ballots.  Mr.  John  Gorham  Palfrey, 
elected  a  Whig  member  from  Boston,  and  Mr. 
Joshua  Giddings,  of  Ohio,  refused  to  vote  for 
Winthrop,  and  remained  firm  to  the  last  in 
spite  of  the  intensity  of  public  opinion  in  their 
party.  The  election  of  a  Whig  Speaker  in  a 
manner  depended  on  their  votes.  Had  they 
supported  Winthrop,  he  could  have  been  elected 
on  the  second  ballot.  At  the  third  he  could 
not  have  been  elected  without  them  had  not 
Mr.  Levin,  a  Native  American  member, 
changed  his  vote,  and  Mr.  Holmes,  a  Democrat 
from  South  Carolina,  left  the  hall.  Mr.  Palfrey 
refused  to  vote  for  Mr.  Winthrop  because  he 
was  assured  the  latter  would  not,  though  his 
power  over  the  committees,  exert  his  influence 
to  arrest  the  war  and  obstruct  the  extension  of 
slavery  into  new  territory.  So  bold  and  decided 
a  stand  at  so  critical  a  time  excited  great  in 
dignation  for  a  time  among  the  "Cotton" 
Whigs  of  Boston. 

Page  193.    Springfield  Convention. 

This  convention  was  held  September  29, 1847. 
The  substance  of  the  resolutions  is  given  by  Mr. 
Biglow. 

Page  195.    Monteery. 

Monterey,  the  capital  of  Nueva  Leon,  capit 
ulated  September  24,  1846,  thus  giving  the 
United  States'  troops  control  over  about  two 
thirds  of  the  territory  and  one  tenth  of  the 
population  of  Mexico. 

Page  196.     Cherry  Buster. 


August  20,  1847,  General  Scott  stormed  the 
heights  of  Cherubusco,  and  completely  routed 
the  30,000  Mexicans  stationed  there  under  Santa 
Anna.  Scott  could  have  entered  the  capital  at 
once  in  triumph  had  he  not  preferred  to  delay 
for  peace  negotiations. 

Page  196.     The  Tooleries. 

The  French  Revolution  of  1848,  which  re 
sulted  in  the  deposition  of  Louis  Philippe,  was 
at  this  time  impending. 

Page  196.     The  Post. 

The  Boston  Post,  a  Democratic,  or  Loco 
newspaper. 

Page  196.     The  Courier^. 

The  Boston  Courier,  in  which  the  Biglow 
Papers  first  appeared,  was  a  "Conscience" 
Whig  paper. 

Page  197.    Drayton  and  Sayres. 

In  April,  1848,  an  attempt  was  made  to 
abduct  seventy-seven  slaves  from  Washington 
in  the  schooner  Pearl,  under  the  conduct  of 
Captain  Drayton  and  Sayres,  or  Sayers,  his 
mate.  The  slaves  were  speedily  recaptured 
and  sold  South,  while  their  brave  defenders 
barely  escaped  with  their  lives  from  an  in 
furiated  mob.  The  Abolitionists  in  Congress 
determined  to  evoke  from  that  body  some  ex 
pression  of  sentiment  on  the  subject.  On  the 
20th  of  April  Senator  Hale  introduced  a  reso 
lution  implying  but  not  expressing  sympathy 
with  the  oppressed.  It  stirred  the  slavehold 
ers  to  unusual  intemperance  of  language.  Cal- 
houn  was  "  amazed  that  even  the  Senator  from 
New  Hampshire  had  so  little  regard  for  the 
Constitution,"  and,  forgetting  his  usual  dig 
nity,  declared  he  "  would  as  soon  argue  with  a 
maniac  from  Bedlam"  as  with  Mr.  Hale.  Mr. 
Foote,  of  Mississippi,  was,  perhaps,  the  most 
violent  of  all.  He  denounced  any  attempt  of 
Congress  to  legislate  on  the  subject  of  slavery 
as  "a  nefarious  attempt  to  commit  grand  lar 
ceny."  He  charged  Mr.  Hale  with  being  "as 
guilty  as  if  he  had  committed  highway  rob 
bery,"  and  went  on  to  say,  "I  invite  him  to 
visit  Mississippi,  and  will  tell  him  beforehand, 
in  all  honesty,  that  he  could  not  go  ten  miles 
into  the  interior  before  he  would  grace  one 
of  the  tallest  trees  of  the  forest  with  a  rope 
around  his  neck,  with  the  approbation  of  all 
honest  and  patriotic  citizens ;  and  that,  if 
necessary,  I  should  myself  assist  in  the  opera 
tion." 

Mr.  Hale  stood  almost  alone  with  his  reso 
lution,  which  was  soon  arrested  by  an  adjourn 
ment.  A  similar  resolution  failed  in  the  House. 

Drayton  and  Sayres  were  convicted  by  the 
District  Court  and  sentenced  to  long  terms  of 
imprisonment.  In  1852  Senator  Sumner  secured 
for  them  an  unconditional  pardon  from  Presi 
dent  Fillmore. 

Page  198.    Mr.  Foote. 

Cf.  note  above.  Mr.  Henry  S.  Foote  was 
Senator  from  Mississippi  from  1847  to  1852.  He 
was  a  member  of  the  Confederate  Congress, 
and  the  author  of  The  War  of  the  Rebellion,  and 
Personal  Recollections  of  Public  Men. 

Page  198.    Mangum. 


474 


APPENDIX 


W.  P.  Mangum  (1792-1861)  was  Senator  from 
North  Carolina  from  1831  to  1837,  and  from 
1841  to  1847.  He  was  President  pro  tern,  of 
the  Senate  during  Tyler's  administration,  1842- 
1845. 

Page  198.    Cass. 

Lewis  Cass  (1782-1866)  was  Jackson's  Secre 
tary  of  War  from  1831  to  1836,  Minister  to 
France  from  1836  to  1842,  Senator  from  Michi 
gan  from  1845  to  1848,  and  candidate  for  the 
Presidency  on  the  Democratic  ticket  in  1848. 
After  his  defeat  by  Taylor  he  was  in  1849  re 
turned  to  the  Senate  to  fill  out  his  unexpired 
term.  He  was  Buchanan's  Secretary  of  State 
until  the  famous  message  of  December,  1860, 
when  he  resigned. 

Page  198.    Davis. 

Jefferson  Davis,  the  President  of  the  so- 
called  Confederate  States,  was  a  Senator  from 
Mississippi  from  1847  to  1850. 

Page  199.    Hannegan. 

Edward  A.  Hannegan  was  Senator  from  In 
diana  from  1843  to  1849.  He  was  afterwards 
Minister  to  Prussia  and  died  in  1859. 

Page  199.    Jarnagin. 

Spencer  Jarnagin  represented  the  State  of 
Tennessee  in  the  Senate  from  1841  to  1847.  He 
died  in  1851. 

Page  199.    Atherton. 

Charles  G.  Atherton  (1804-1853)  was  Senator 
from  New  Hampshire  from  1843  to  1849. 

Page  199.     Colquitt. 

W.  T.  Colquitt  (1799-1855)  was  Senator  from 
Georgia,  from  1843  to  1849. 

Page  199.    Johnson. 

Reverdy  Johnson  was  Senator  from  Mary 
land,  1845-1849. 

Page  199.     Westcott. 

James  D.  Westcott,  Senator  from  Florida, 
1845-1849. 

Page  199.    Lewis. 

Dixon  H.  Lewis  represented  Alabama  in  the 
House  of  Representatives  from  1829  to  1843,  and 
in  the  Senate  from  1844  till  his  death  in  1848. 

Page  201.     "Payris." 

The  revolution  in  France  was  hailed  with  de 
light  in  the  United  States  as  a  triumph  of  free 
dom  and  popular  government.  In  Congress 
the  event  gave  opportunity  for  much  sounding 
declamation,  in  which  the  Southern  members 
participated  with  as  much  enthusiasm  as  those 
from  the  North.  At  the  same  time  when  the 
Abolitionists  sought  to  turn  all  this  philosophy 
to  some  more  practical  application  nearer  home, 
the  attempt  was  bitterly  denounced  at  Wash 
ington  and  by  the  Democratic  press  generally. 
A  striking  instance  of  this  inconsistency  is  af 
forded  by  a  speech  of  Senator  Foote.  "  The 
age  of  tyrants  and  slavery,"  said  he,  in  allusion 
to  France,  "  is  drawing  to  a  close.  The  happy 
period  to  be  signalized  by  the  universal  emanci 
pation  of  man  from  the  fetters  of  civil  oppres 
sion,  and  the  recognition  in  all  countries  of  the 
great  principles  of  popular  sovereignty,  equal 
ity,  and  brotherhood,  is  at  this  moment  visibly 
commencing."  A  few  days  later,  when  Mr. 
Mann,  the  attorney  for  Drayton  and  Sayres, 


quoted  these  very  words  in  palliation  of  his 
clients'  offence,  he  was  peremptorily  checked 
by  the  judge  for  uttering  "  inflammatory  " 
words  that  might  "  endanger  our  institutions." 

Page  203.     Candidate  for  the  Presidency. 

In  the  campaign  of  1848  the  Whigs  deter 
mined  to  have  substantially  no  platform  or  pro 
gramme  at  all,  in  order  to  retain  the  Southern 
element  in  their  party.  Accordingly  a  colorless 
candidate  was  selected  in  the  person  of  General 
Zachary  Taylor,  who,  it  was  said,  had  never 
voted  or  made  any  political  confession  of  faith. 
He  was  nominated  as  the  "  people's  candidate," 
and  men  of  all  parties  were  invited  to  support 
him.  He  refused  to  pledge  himself  to  any 
policy  or  enter  into  any  details,  unless  on  some 
such  obsolete  issue  as  that  of  a  National  Bank. 
After  it  became  apparent  that  his  followers 
were  chiefly  Whigs,  he  declared  himself  a  Whig 
also,  "  although  not  an  ultra  one."  He  par 
ticularly  avoided  compromising  himself  on  the 
slavery  question.  When,  in  the  beginning  of 
1847,  Mr.  J.  W.  Taylor,  of  the  Cincinnati  Sig 
nal,  questioned  him  on  the  Wilmot  Proviso,  he 
answered  in  such  vague  phrases  that  the  con 
fused  editor  interpreted  them  first  as  favoring 
and  finally  as  opposing  the  measure.  This 
declaration,  together  with  the  candidate's  an 
nouncement  that  he  was  a  Whig,  was  taken  in 
the  North  to  mean  that  he  was  opposed  to  the 
extension  of  slavery.  The  fact  that  he  was  a 
Southerner  and  a  slaveholder  was  sufficient  to 
reassure  the  South. 

Page  203.    Pinto. 

Pseudonym  of  Mr.  Charles  F.  Briggs  (1810- 
1877),the  same  who  was  afterwards  associated 
with  Edgar  A.  Poe  on  the  Broadway  Review. 

Page  204.     Thet  darned  Proviso. 

August  8,  1846,  the  President  addressed  a 
message  to  both  Houses  asking  for  $2,000,000 
to  conclude  a  peace  with  Mexico  and  recom 
pense  her  for  her  proposed  cession  of  territory. 
On  the  same  day  McKay,  of  North  Carolina? 
introduced  a  bill  into  the  lower  House  for  this 
purpose.  David  Wilmot,  of  Pennsylvania,  a 
Democrat  and  a  zealous  friend  of  annexation, 
moved  as  a  proviso  that  slavery  should  forever 
be  excluded  from  the  new  territory.  The  mo 
tion  was  suddenly  and  unexpectedly  carried  by 
a  vote  of  83  to  54.  It  did  not  come  to  a  vote 
in  the  Senate,  for  John  Davis,  of  Massachu 
setts,  talked  it  to  death  by  a  long  speech  in  its 
favor.  Nevertheless  it  became  at  once  a  burn 
ing  question  in  both  North  and  South.  The 
more  pronounced  antislavery  men  of  the  former 
section  tried  to  make  it  the  political  test  in  the 
coming  campaign.  The  refusal  of  the  Whig 
party  to  take  up  the  question  caused  large  ac 
cessions  to  the  old  Liberty  party,  now  known 
as  the  Free-Soil,  and  later  to  become  the  Re 
publican  party. 

Page  212.    Ashland,  etc. 

It  hardly  need  be  said  that  Ashland  was  the 
home  of  Henry  Clay:  North  Bend,  of  Harri 
son;  Marshfield,  of  Webster;  Kinderhook,  of 
Van  Buren ;  and  Baton  Rouge,  of  General 
Taylor. 


NOTES   AND   ILLUSTRATIONS 


475 


Page  213.    Pheladelphy  nomernee. 

The  Philadelphia  nominee  was  General  Zach- 
ary  Taylor. 

Page  214.    McuhfieT  speech. 

The  speech  here  referred  to  is  the  one  deliv 
ered  by  Webster  at  Marshfield,  September  1, 
1848.  While  he  affirmed  that  the  nomination 
of  Taylor  was  "  not  fit  to  be  made,"  he  never 
theless  declared  that  he  would  vote  for^  him, 
and  advised  his  friends  to  do  the  same.  "  The 
sagacious,  wise,  and  far-seeing  doctrine  of  avail 
ability,"  said  he,  "lay  at  the  root  of  the  whole 
matter." 

Page  214.     Choate. 

Into  none  of  his  political  addresses  did  Ruf  us 
Choate  throw  so  much  of  his  heart  and  soul 
as  into  those  which  upheld  the  failing  policy  of 
the  Whig  party  from  1848  to  1852. 

Page  215.    Bvrffalo. 

On  August  9,  1848,  the  convention  containing 
the  consolidated  elements  of  constitutional  op 
position  to  the  extension  of  slavery  met  at  Buf 
falo.  The  party,  calling  itself  the  Free-Soil 
party  now,  declared  its  platform  to  be  "no 
more  slave  States  and  no  more  slave  territory." 
Martin  Van  Buren  and  Charles  Francis  Adams 
were  the  candidates  selected.  Van  Buren  was 
chosen  because  it  was  thought  he  might  attract 
Democratic  votes.  His  opposition  to  the  ex 
tension  of  slavery  was  not  very  energetic.  In 
his  letter  accepting  the  nomination  he  com 
mended  the  convention  for  having  taken  no 
decisive  stand  against  slavery  in  the  District  of 
Columbia. 

Page  216.     To  act  agin  the  law. 

The  slaveholding  States  early  legislated  to 
forbid  education  and  free  religious  meetings  to 
slaves  and  free  people  of  color.  Stroud's  Sketch 
of  the  Slave  Laws  (Philadelphia,  1827)  shows 
that  the  principal  acts  of  this  character  date 
from  the  period  between  1740  and  1770.  This 
was  long  before  the  oldest  anti-slavery  societies 
were  organized.  Thus  these  laws  cannot  be 
represented  as  having  been  the  result  of  imper 
tinent  and  intemperate  agitation  on  the  part  of 
Northern  Abolitionists.  They  were  frequently 
defended  on  this  ground  in  the  heat  of  the  anti- 
slavery  conflict. 

SECOND   SERIES 

Page  226.     The  Cotton  Loan. 

In  1861  a  magnificent  scheme  was  devised  for 
bolstering  up  the  Confederate  government's 
credit.  The  planters  signed  agreements  sub 
scribing  a  certain  portion  of  the  next  cotton  and 
tobacco  crop  to  the  government.  Using  this  as 
a  basis  for  credit,  the  government  issued  bonds 
and  placed  about  $15,000,000  in  Europe,  chiefly 
in  England.  A  much  greater  loan  might  have 
been  negotiated  had  it  not  suddenly  appeared 
that  the  agreements  made  by  the  planters  were 
almost  worthless.  By  the  end  of  the  year  the 
plan  was  quietly  and  completely  abandoned. 
The  English  bondholders  had  the  audacity  to 
apply  for  aid  to  the  United  States  after  the 
war. 


Page  226.    Mem'nger. 

Charles  Gustavus  Memminger,  although  he 
had  opposed  nullification,  was  one  of  the  lead 
ers  in  the  secession  movement  which  began  in 
his  own  State,  South  Carolina.  On  the  form 
ation  of  the  Confederate  government  he  was 
made  Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  Although  not 
without  experience  in  the  management  of  his 
State's  finances  he  showed  little  skill  in  his 
new  position. 

Page  226.     Cornfiscatin\  all  debts. 

After  the  failure  of  the  Produce  Loan  and 
one  or  two  other  measures  on  a  similarly  grand 
scale,  the  Confederate  government  resorted  to 
simpler  means.  Chief  among  these  were  the 
acts  confiscating  the  property  of  and  all  debts 
due  to  alien  enemies.  No  great  number  of  rep 
utable  persons  in  the  South  could  resolve  to 
compound  or  wipe  out  debts  involving  their 
personal  honor,  so  the  results  of  the  scheme 
were  meagre. 

Page  228.    MASON  AND  SLIDELL. 

In  the  latter  part  of  1861  President  Davis 
undertook  to  send  agents  or  commissioners  to 
England  and  France  to  represent  the  Southern 
cause.  The  men  chosen  were  James  M.  Mason, 
of  Virginia,  and  John  Slidell,  of  Louisiana.  On 
the  12th  of  October  they  left  Charleston,  eluded 
the  blockading  squadron,  and  landed  at  Havana. 
Thence  they  embarked  for  St.  Thomas  on  the 
British  mail-steamer  Trent.  On  the  way  the 
Trent  was  stopped  by  Captain  Wilkes,  of 
the  American  man-of-war  San  Jacinto,  and  the 
Confederate  agents  were  transferred  as  prisoners 
to  the  latter  vessel.  The  British  Government 
at  once  proclaimed  the  act  "a  great  outrage," 
and  sent  a  peremptory  demand  for  the  release 
of  the  prisoners  and  reparation.  At  the  same 
time,  without  waiting  for  any  explanation,  it 
made  extensive  preparations  for  hostilities.  It 
seemed  and  undoubtedly  was  expedient  for  the 
United  States  to  receive  Lord  Russell's  demand 
as  an  admission  that  impressment  of  British 
seamen  found  on  board  neutral  vessels  was 
unwarrantable.  Acting  on  the  demand  as  an 
admission  of  the  principle  so  long  contended  for 
by  the  United  States,  Mr.  Seward  disavowed 
the  act  of  Wilkes  and  released  the  commis 
sioners.  But  it  was  held  then  and  has  since 
been  stoutly  maintained  by  many  jurists  that 
the  true  principles  of  international  law  will  not 
justify  a  neutral  vessel  in  transporting  the 
agents  of  a  belligerent  on  a  hostile  mission.  On 
the  analogy  of  despatches  they  should  be  con 
traband.  The  difficulty  of  amicable  settlement 
at  that  time,  however,  lay  not  so  much  in  the 
point  of  law  as  in  the  intensity  of  popular  feel 
ing  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic. 

Page  231.    Belligerent  rights. 

One  month  after  Sumter  was  attacked,  on 
May  13,  1861,  the  Queen  issued  a  proclamation 
of  neutrality,  according  belligerent  rights  to  the 
Confederacy.  This  was  done  even  before  Mr. 
Adams,  the  new  minister  from  the  Lincoln 
administration,  could  reach  England.  Com 
mercial  interest  cannot  excuse  so  precipitate  a 
recognition.  It  cannot  be  regarded  as  anything 


476 


APPENDIX 


but  a  deliberate  expression  of  unfriendliness 
towards  the  United  States.  It  coldly  contem 
plated  the  dissolution  of  the  Union,  favored 
the  establishment  of  an  independent  slave-em 
pire,  and  by  its  moral  support  strengthened 
the  hands  of  the  Rebellion  and  prolonged  the 
war. 

Page  231.     Confederate  privateers. 

It  is  notorious  that  Confederate  cruisers  were 
built,  equipped,  and  even  partially  manned 
in  England  in  open  disregard  of  the  inter 
national  law  respecting  neutrals.  Mr.  Adams 
protested  constantly  and  emphatically  against 
this,  but  in  vain  for  the  time.  No  notice  was 
taken  officially  of  the  matter  until  it  was  forced 
on  the  British  government  in  1864.  The  sub 
sequent  negotiations  concerning  the  Alabama 
claims,  the  Treaty  of  Washington  in  1871,  and 
the  Geneva  award  to  the  United  States  of  some 
fifteen  million  dollars,  are  too  well  known  to 
require  any  mention. 

Page  231.     The  Caroline. 

In  1837  an  insurrection  broke  out  in  Canada, 
and  armed  bodies  of  men  styling  themselves 
44  patriots  "  were  in  open  rebellion  against  the 
government.  In  spite  of  the  President's  mes 
sage  exhorting  citizens  of  the  United  States  not 
to  interfere,  and  in  defiance  of  the  troops  sent 
to  Buffalo  to  carry  out  his  orders,  numbers  of 
sympathizers  from  New  York  crossed  the  Ni 
agara  River  and  gave  assistance  to  the  insur 
gents.  The  British  authorities  would  have  been 
warranted  in  seizing  the  American  vessel  Caro 
line,  which  was  used  to  transport  citizens  to 
the  Canadian  shore,  had  the  seizure  been  made 
in  flagrante  delicto,  or  out  of  our  territorial 
waters.  But  in  crossing  to  the  American  side 
of  the  river  and  taking  the  offending  vessel 
from  her  moorings  these  authorities  commit 
ted  a  grave  breach  of  neutrality.  After  five 
years  of  negotiation  the  Englisti  government 
finally  apologized  and  made  reparation  for  the 
injury. 

Page  233.    Seward  sticks  a  three-months'*  pin. 

Mr.  W.  H.  Seward,  Lincoln's  Secretary  of 
State,  was  at  the  outbreak  of  the  Rebellion  an 
earnest  advocate  of  conciliation.  He  seemed 
to  think  that  if  war  could  be  averted  for  a  time, 
until  the  people  of  the  seceding  States  perceived 
the  true  intention  of  the  administration  to  be 
the  preservation  of  the  Union,  not  the  promot 
ing  of  Abolitionism,  the  Southern  movement 
would  fail.  In  this  belief  he  frequently  de 
clared  that  the  trouble  would  all  be  over  in 
sixty  days. 

Page  237.    Bull  Run. 

On  the  21st  of  July,  1861,  the  Union  troops 
tinder  General  McDowell  were  completely 
routed  by  Beauregard  at  Bull  Run  in  Virginia. 
The  North  was  finally  convinced  that  the  South 
was  equipped  for  and  determined  on  a  desper 
ate  struggle,  while  the  victory  gave  immense 
encouragement  to  the  insurgents. 

Page  243.     Ones'mus. 

The  "Scriptural"  view,  according  to  the 
mind  of  Mr.  Sawin,  would  have  been  that  of 
Jeremiah  S.  Black,  who  saw  in  the  case  of 


Ouesimus  St.  Paul's  express  approval  of  the  Fit 
gitive  Slave  Law  of  1850. 

Page  244.    Debow. 

De  Bow's  Commercial  Review,  published  in 
New  Orleans,  Louisiana,  was  for  some  years 
before  the  war  very  bitter  against  the  North, 
its  institutions,  and  its  society  in  general. 

Page  244.     Simms  an*  Maury. 

William  Gilmore  Simms,  the  South  Carolina 
novelist  and  poet,  is  here  referred  to.  Matthew 
Fontaine  Maury,  of  Virginia,  naval  officer  and 
hydrographer,  was  a  man  of  some  scientific  at 
tainments.  He  was  the  author  of  several  works 
on  the  physical  geography  of  the  sea,  naviga 
tion,  and  astronomy.  Both  men  were  born  in 
the  same  year,  1806. 

Page  245.    Arms  an'  cannon. 

John  B.  Floyd,  while  Secretary  of  War  in 
Mr.  Buchanan's  Cabinet,  was  detected  in  the 
act  of  stripping  Northern  arsenals  of  arms  and 
ammunition  to  supply  the  South.  He  began 
this  work  as  early  as  December,  1859,  and  it  is 
not  known  to  what  extent  he  carried  it.  Pol 
lard,  a  Southern  historian,  says  the  South  en 
tered  the  war  with  150,000  small-arms  of  the 
most  approved  modern  pattern,  all  of  which  it 
owed  to  the  government  at  Washington.  Floyd 
resigned  because  some  forts  and  posts  in  the 
South  were  not  given  up  to  the  rebels. 

Page  245.    Admittin1  we  wuz  naClly  right. 

President  Buchanan's  message  of  the  first 
Monday  of  December,  1860,  declared  "  the 
long  -  continued  and  intemperate  interference 
of  the  Northern  people  with  the  question  of 
slavery  in  the  Southern  States"  had  at  last 
produced  its  natural  effect ;  disunion  was  im 
pending,  and  if  those  States  could  not  obtain 
redress  by  constitutional  means,  secession  was 
justifiable  and  the  general  government  had  no 
power  to  prevent  it.  The  effect  these  utter 
ances  had  in  spreading  and  intensifying  the 
spirit  of  secession  is  incalculable. 

Page  246.     On  the  jump  to  interfere. 

During  the  larger  part  of  the  war  great  ap 
prehension  of  attempts  on  the  part  of  foreign 
powers  to  interfere  prevailed  in  the  Northern 
States.  With  the  exception  of  Russia  and  Den 
mark,  all  Europe  inclined  toward  the  South. 
Our  form  of  government  was  not  favored  by 
them,  and  they  were  not  unwilling  to  see  its 
failure  demonstrated  by  a  complete  disruption. 
For  a  long  time  it  was  very  generally  believed 
that  the  South  would  be  victorious  in  the  end. 
Had  the  Confederacy  at  any  time  had  a  bright 
prospect  of  success,  it  is  likely  that  England 
or  France  might  have  offered  to  interfere.  In 
deed,  the  success  of  the  French  scheme  to  set 
up  a  military  empire  in  Mexico  in  defiance  of 
the  Monroe  doctrine  entirely  depended  on  the 
contingency  of  a  victory  for  secession.  Napo 
leon  therefore  was  urgent  for  mediation.  The 
subject  was  suggested  several  times  by  the 
French  foreign  minister  in  his  correspondence 
with  Mr.  Seward,  and  was  pressed  on  the 
British  Government  by  France. 

Page  249.     The  Border  States. 

The  Border  States,  by  contiguity  to  the  North 


NOTES   AND   ILLUSTRATIONS 


477 


and  natural  unfitness  for  a  very  profitable 
system  of  slave-labor,  were  slow  to  take  a  defi 
nite  stand.  President  Lincoln's  policy  was  to 
proceed  cautiously  at  first,  keep  the  slavery 
question  in  the  background,  and  enlist  the  sym 
pathies  of  these  States  by  appeals  to  their  at 
tachment  to  the  Union.  Although  the  people 
of  Delaware,  Maryland,  Kentucky,  and  Missouri 
were  pretty  evenly  divided,  the  State  govern 
ments  were  kept  from  seceding.  Without  the 
support  of  the  Republican  Congressmen  from 
this  section,  Lincoln  could  not  have  carried  out 
his  abolition  policy. 

Page  249.    Hampton  Eoads. 

The  battle  of  Hampton  Roads,  at  the  en 
trance  of  Chesapeake  Bay  in  Virginia,  is  re 
markable  for  the  revolution  in  naval  warfare 
which  it  began.  The  utter  worthlessness  of 
wooden  against  armored  vessels  was  suddenly 
and  convincingly  demonstrated.  On  the  8th 
of  March,  1862,  the  Confederate  armored  ram 
Virginia,  formerly  Merrimac,  made  terrible 
havoc  among  the  old  wooden  men-of-war  sta 
tioned  about  Fortress  Monroe.  But  at  nine 
o'clock  that  night  the  little  Monitor  steamed 
into  the  Roads  to  the  assistance  of  the  shat 
tered  Federal  navy.  The  next  day's  battle  is 
one  of  the  romances  of  war.  Had  Mr.  Wil 
bur  waited  for  the  next  Southern  mail  before 
writing  this  letter,  the  Devil  might  have  had 
less  credit  given  him. 

.Page  251.  From  the  banks  o'  my  own  Massis- 
sippi. 

Tn  the  period  from  1830  to  1840,  the  sud 
den  and  healthy  increase  of  immigration  and 
the  flattering  industrial  prospect  induced  many 
Western  and  Southern  States  to  make  lavish 
expenditures  for  internal  improvements.  Their 
credit  was  good  and  they  borrowed  too  largely. 
After  the  financial  crisis  of  1837,  insolvency 
stared  them  in  the  face.  A  number  repudiated, 
among  whom  Mississippi  in  particular  was 
heavily  indebted.  Her  securities  were  largely 
held  in  England.  It  added  nothing  to  the 
credit  of  the  Confederacy  that  Jefferson  Da 
vis  had  been  an  earnest  advocate  of  repudia 
tion. 

Page  252.    Roanoke,  Bufort,  Millspring. 

The  loss  of  Roanoke  Island,  on  the  coast  of 
North  Carolina,  February  8,  1862,  was  a  severe 
one  to  the  South.  The  finest  harbor  on  the 
Southern  coast  was  that  of  Port  Royal,  South 
Carolina,  in  the  centre  of  the  sea-island  cotton 
district.  This  point  the  North  fixed  on  as  the 
best  for  a  base  of  operations,  and  on  October 
29, 1861,  a  fleet  of  fifty  vessels,  including  thirty- 
three  transports,  was  sent  against  it.  A  fierce 
attack  was  begun  on  November  7,  and  on  the 
next  day  the  two  forts,  Walker  and  Beauregard, 
capitulated.  Without  encountering  further  op 
position  the  Federal  troops  took  possession  of 
the  town  of  Beaufort,  on  an  island  in  the  har 
bor.  January  19,  1862,  the  Confederates  under 
Crittenden  were  defeated  with  considerable  loss 
at  Millspring,  Kentucky,  by  General  G.  H. 
Thomas. 

Page  252.    Beecognition. 


Recognition  of  independence  by  the  Euro 
pean  powers,  particularly  France  and  England, 
would  of  course  have  been  of  the  greatest  value 
to  the  South.  It  is  said  that  Mr.  Roebuck's 
motion  in  the  House  of  Commons  to  recognize 
the  Confederate  States  would  have  passed  but 
for  the  timely  news  of  Gettysburg.  Certainly 
if  it  had,  France  would  not  have  been  slow  to 
follow.  It  is  difficult  to  overestimate  the  dis 
astrous  effect  such  events  would  have  had  on 
the  Northern  cause. 

Page  253.  Your  Belmonts,  Vallandighams, 
Woodses. 

Mr.  August  Belmont,  of  New  York,  Chair 
man  of  the  Democratic  National  Committee 
from  1860  to  1872,  although  opposed  to  seces 
sion,  still  attributed  the  cause  and  the  responsi 
bility  for  the  continuance  of  the  war  to  the 
Republican  Administration.  He  led  his  party 
in  clamoring  for  peace  and  conciliation,  espe 
cially  in  1864,  and  bitterly  opposed  reconstruc 
tion.  Clement  L.  Vallandigham,  of  Dayton, 
Ohio,  was  the  most  conspicuous  and  noisy  one 
of  the  Peace  Democrats  during  the  war.  His 
treasonable  and  seditious  utterances  finally  led 
to  his  banishment  to  the  South  in  May,  1863. 
Thence  he  repaired  to  Canada,  where  he  re 
mained  while  his  party  made  him  their  candi 
date  in  the  next  gubernatorial  campaign,  in 
which  he  was  ignominiously  defeated.  The 
Woodses  were  the  brothers  Benjamin  and  Fer 
nando  Wood,  prominent  Democrats  of  New  York 
city.  The  former  was  editor  of  the  Daily  News 
and  a  Representative  in  Congress.  The  latter 
was  several  times  Mayor  of  New  York,  and 
for  twelve  years  a  Representative  in  Congress. 

Page  253.     C'lumbus. 

After  the  fall  of  Fort  Donelson,  Columbus, 
Kentucky,  was  no  longer  tenable,  and  Beau- 
regard  ordered  General  Polk  to  evacuate  it. 
March  3, 1862,  a  scouting  party  of  Illinois  troops, 
finding  the  post  deserted,  occupied  it,  and  when 
Sherman  approached  the  next  day  he  found  the 
Union  flag  flying  over  the  town. 

Page  253.    Donelson. 

The  capture  of  Fort  Donelson,  in  Tennessee, 
February  16,  1862,  by  General  Grant,  was  one 
of  several  Union  successes  in  the  West,  whose 
value  was  almost  entirely  neutralized  by  Mc- 
Clellan's  dilatory  conduct  of  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac.  General  John  B.  Floyd's  precipitate 
retreat  from  the  fort  as  the  Union  forces  ap 
proached  was  afterwards  represented  in  one  of 
his  official  reports  as  an  heroic  exploit. 

Page  256.     Taney. 

Roger  B.  Taney,  of  Maryland,  Chief  Justice 
of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States 
from  1836  to  1864.  He  is  chiefly  notable  for 
the  Dred  Scott  decision,  in  1857,  in  which  he 
held  that  a  negro  was  not  a  "person"  in  the 
contemplation  of  the  Constitution,  and  henc^ 
"  had  no  rights  a  white  man  was  bound  to 
respect ;  "  that  the  Constitution  recognized 
property  in  slaves,  and  that  this  ownership 
was  as  much  entitled  to  protection  in  the 
Territories  as  any  other  species  of  property. 
According  to  this,  all  legislation  by  Congress 


478 


APPENDIX 


on  slavery,  except  in  its  aid,  was  unconstitu 
tional. 

Page  257.     Compromise  System. 

Henry  Clay  was  the  "great  compromiser." 
The  aim  of  his  life  was  the  preservation  of  the 
Union  even  at  the  cost  of  extending  slave  terri 
tory.  The  three  compromises  for  which  he  is 
famous  were  the  Missouri  in  1820,  the  Tariff  in 
1833,  and  the  California  or  "Omnibus"  Com 
promise  in  1850,  the  most  conspicuous  feature 
of  which  was  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law. 

Page  257.    S.  J.  Court. 

At  the  beginning  of  Lincoln's  administration, 
five  of  the  Supreme  Court  Justices,  an  absolute 
majority,  were  from  the  South,  and  had  always 
been  State-rights  Democrats. 

Page  259.  The  Law-' rf- Order  Party  of  ole 
Cincinnater. 

In  Cincinnati,  on  March  24,  1862,  Wendell 
Phillips,  while  attempting  to  deliver  one  of  his 
lectures  on  slavery  and  the  war,  was  attacked 
by  a  mob  and  very  roughly  handled. 

Page  267.     Gov'nor  Seymour. 

Horatio  Seymour  (1810-1886),  of  Utica,  New 
York,  was  one  of  the  most  prominent  and  re 
spected  men  in  the  Democratic  party,  and  a 
bitter  opponent  of  Lincoln.  He  had  at  this 
time  been  recently  elected  Governor  of  New 
York  on  a  platform  that  denounced  almost 
every  measure  the  government  had  found  it 
necessary  to  adopt  for  the  suppression  of  the 
Rebellion.  His  influence  contributed  not  a  lit 
tle  to  the  encouragement  of  that  spirit  which 
inspired  the  Draft  Riot  in  the  city  of  New  York 
in  July,  1863. 

Page  268.     Pres'dunfs  proclamation. 

In  the  autumn  of  1862  Mr.  Lincoln  saw  that 
he  must  either  retreat  or  advance  boldly  against 
slavery.  He  had  already  proceeded  far  enough 
against  it  to  rouse  a  dangerous  hostility  among 
Northern  Democrats,  and  yet  not  far  enough  to 
injure  the  institution  or  enlist  the  sympathy  of 
pronounced  anti-slavery  men.  He  determined 
on  decisive  action.  On  September  22,  1862,  he 
issued  a  monitory  proclamation  giving  notice 
that  on  the  first  day  of  the  next  year  he  would, 
in  the  exercise  of  his  war-power,  emancipate  all 
slaves  of  those  States  or  parts  of  States  in  re 
bellion,  unless  certain  conditions  were  complied 
with.  This  proclamation  was  at  once  violently 
assailed  by  the  Democrats,  led  by  such  men  as 
Seymour,  and  for  a  time  the  opposition  threat 
ened  disaster  to  the  administration.  The  elec 
tions  in  the  five  leading  free  States  —  New 
York,  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  Indiana,  and  Illinois 
—  went  against  the  Republicans.  But  with  the 
aid  of  New  England,  the  West,  and,  not  least 
of  all,  the  Border  Slave  States,  the  President 
was  assured  a  majority  of  about  twenty  in  the 
new  House  to  carry  out  his  abolition  policy. 

Page  269.    KETTELOPOTOMACHIA. 

.The  incident  furnishing  the  occasion  for  this 
poem  was  a  Virginia  duel,  or  rather  a  free 
fight.  f  Mr.  H.  R.  Pollard,  of  the  Richmond 
Examiner,  had  some  difficulty  with  Messrs. 
Coleman  and  N.  P.  Tyler,  of  the  Enquirer, 
concerning  the  public  printing.  On  Friday, 


January  5,  1866,  all  three  gentlemen  met  in  the 
rotunda  of  the  Virginia  Capitol,  and  proceeded 
to  settle  their  dispute  by  an  appeal  to  revolvers. 
Six  shots  were  fired,  but  no  damage  resulted, 
except  to  a  marble  statue  of  Washington. 

Page  270.  Letcheris  et  Floydis  magnisque 
Extra  ordine  Billis. 

John  Letcher  (1813-1884),  a  Virginia  lawyer 
and  politician,  was  several  times  in  Congress, 
and  was  Governor  of  his  State  from  1860  to 
1864.  John  B.  Floyd  (1805-1863)  was  Governor 
of  Virginia  from  1849  to  1852,  Secretary  of  War 
in  Buchanan's  Cabinet,  and  a  brigadier  in  the 
Confederate  service.  William  Smith,  of  King 
George  County,  Virginia,  was  the  proprietor  of 
an  old  line  of  coaches  running  through  Virginia 
and  the  Carolinas.  He  was  called  "  Extra 
Billy  "  because  he  charged  extra  for  every 
package,  large  or  small,  which  his  passengers 
carried.  Mr.  Smith  himself,  however,  attrib 
uted  his  nickname  to  his  extra  service  to  the 
State.  He  was  several  times  a  Congressman, 
twice  Governor  of  Virginia,  and  a  Confederate 
Brigadier-General. 

Page  281.     Seward. 

Under  the  influence  of  Mr.  Seward,  Presi 
dent  Andrew  Johnson  developed  a  policy  of 
reconstruction  directly  opposed  to  the  views 
of  Congress  and  the  mass  of  the  Republican 
party.  He  believed  in  punishing  individuals, 
if  necessary,  but  that  all  the  States  ought  to  be 
re-installed  at  once  in  the  position  they  had 
occupied  in  1860.  The  guarantees  against  dis 
loyalty  he  proposed  to  exact  from  the  South 
were  few  and  feeble.  Congress,  on  the  other 
hand,  determined  to  keep  the  subdued  States 
in  a  position  somewhat  resembling  that  of  ter 
ritories  and  under  military  surveillance  until  it 
could  be  satisfied  that  four  years'  war  would 
not  be  without  good  results.  Its  chief  aim  was 
to  secure  the  safety  of  the  negro,  who  had  been 
freed  by  the  thirteenth  Amendment  in  Decem 
ber,  1865.  These  differences  of  plan  led  to 
a  protracted  and  bitter  contest  between  the 
executive  and  legislative  departments,  culmi 
nating  in  the  unsuccessful  attempt  to  impeach 
Johnson  in  March,  1868.  The  Congressional 
policy  was  carried  out  over  the  President's 
vetoes.  Among  other  conditions  the  Southern 
States  were  required  to  ratify  the  fourteenth 
and  fifteenth  Amendments,  giving  citizenship 
and  suffrage  to  the  blacks,  before  being  quali 
fied  for  readmission  to  the  Union. 

Page  283.    Mac. 

General  George  B.  McClellan  was  one  of  the 
leaders  of  the  Northern  Democracy  during  the 
war,  and  the  presidential  nominee  against  Lin 
coln  in  1864. 

Page  284.    Johnson's  speech  an'  veto  message. 

The  Civil  Rights  Act  of  March,  1866,  had 
just  been  the  occasion  of  an  open  rupture  be 
tween  Congress  and  the  President.  The  bill, 
conferring  extensive  rights  on  freedmen,  passed 
both  Houses,  but  was  vetoed  by  Johnson.  It 
was  quickly  passed  again  over  his  veto. 

Page  284.    A  temp'ry  party  can  be  based  on  '/. 

Johnson's  plan  of  reconstruction  did,  indeed, 


NOTES   AND   ILLUSTRATIONS 


479 


furnish  the  material  for  the  next  Democratic 
platform  in  the  presidential  campaign  of  1868. 

Page  284.     Tyler. 

John  Tyler,  who  had  been  chosen  Vice-Presi 
dent  in  1840,  succeeded  to  the  Presidency  on 
the  death  of  Harrison  one  month  after  the 
inauguration.  He  abandoned  the  policy  of  the 
party  that  elected  him,  and  provoked  just  such 
a  contest  with  it  as  Johnson  did. 

Page  300.    AN  INVITATION. 

[Lowell  entered  this  poem  in  his  several  edi 
tions  as  addressed  to  J.  F.  H.,  initials  which 
meant  nothing  to  the  general  public,  but  re 
called  to  the  contemporaries  of  his  college  days 
a  Virginian  gentleman,  a  graduate  of  Harvard 
of  the  class  of  1840,  greatly  endeared  by  his 
temper  and  gifts  to  his  early  associates  and 
especially  to  Lowell.  Not  long  after  his  gradu 
ation  he  went  to  Germany  to  study  ;  he  disap 
peared  from  sight,  turning  up  at  odd  times  in 
odd  places.  He  did  much  various  study  and  had 
much  varied  experience.  After  many  years  he 
returned  home.  When  the  war  broke  out  he 
joined  the  Confederate  army  as  a  surgeon,  and 
died  worn  out  with  hard  service  in  1862.] 

Page  308.    AFTER  THE  BURIAL. 

["To  show  you  that  I  am  not  unable  to  go 
along  with  you  in  the  feeling  expressed  in  your 
letter,  I  will  copy  a  few  verses  out  of  my  com 
mon-place  book. 

Yes,  faith  is  a  goodly  anchor 

When  the  skies  are  blue  and  clear ; 

At  the  bows  it  hangs  right  stalwart 
With  a  sturdy  iron  cheer. 

But  when  the  ship  goes  to  pieces, 
And  the  tempests  are  all  let  loose, 

It  rushes  plumb  down  to  the  sea-depths, 
'Mid  slimy  sea-weed  and  ooze. 

Better  then  one  spar  of  memory, 

One  broken  plank  of  the  past, 
For  our  human  hearts  to  cling  to, 

Adrift  in  the  whirling  vast. 

To  the  spirit  the  cross  of  the  spirit, 

To  the  flesh  its  blind  despair, 
Clutching  fast  the  thin-worn  locket 

With  its  threads  of  gossamer  hair. 

O  friend !  thou  reasonest  bravely, 

Thy  preaching  is  wise  and  true  ; 
But  the  earth  that  stops  my  darling's  ears 

Makes  mine  insensate,  too. 

That  little  shoe  in  the  corner, 
So  worn  and  wrinkled  and  brown, 

With  its  emptiness  confutes  you, 
And  argues  your  wisdom  down. 

"  But  enough,  dear  Sydney,  of  death  and  sor 
row.  They  are  not  subjects  which  I  think  it 
profitable  or  wise  to  talk  about,  think  about,  or 
write  about  often.  Death  is  a  private  tutor. 
We  have  no  fellow-scholars,  and  must  lay  our 
lessons  to  heart  alone."  Lowell  to  Sydney 
Howard  Gay,  March  17,  1850.] 

Page  350.    THE  CATHEDRAL. 

["  Now  for  Ruskin's  criticisms.  As  to  words, 


I  am  something  of  a  purist,  though  I  like  best 
the  word  that  best  says  the  thing.  (You  know 
I  have  studied  lingo  a  little.)  I  am  fifty-one 
years  old,  however,  and  have  in  one  sense  won 
my  spurs.  I  claim  the  right  now  and  then  to 
knight  a  plebeian  word  for  good  service  in  the 
field.  But  it  will  almost  always  turn  out  that 
it  has  after  all  good  blood  in  its  veins,  and  can 
prove  its  claim  to  be  put  in  the  saddle.  Rote 
is  a  familiar  word  all  along  our  seaboard  to  ex 
press  that  dull  and  continuous  burden  of  the 
sea  heard  inland  before  or  after  a  great  storm. 
The  root  of  the  word  may  be  in  rumpere,  but 
it  is  more  likely  in  rotare,  from  the  identity  of 
this  sea-music  with  that  of  the  rote  —  a  kind 
of  hurdy-gurdy  with  which  the  jongleurs  ac 
companied  their  song.  It  is  one  of  those  Eliz 
abethan  words  which  we  New-Englanders  have 
preserved  along  with  so  many  others.  It  oc 
curs  in  the  'Mirror  for  Magistrates,'  'the  sea's 
rote,'  which  Nares,  not  understanding,  would 
change  to  rore !  It  is  not  to  be  found  in  any 

grovincial  glossary,   but  I  caught  it  alive  at 
everly  and  the  Isles  of  Shoals.    Like  'mob- 


bled 


'tis 'good.' 


W hiff  Ruskin  calls  '  an  American  elevation 
of  English  lower  word.'  Not  a  bit  of  it.  I 
have  always  thought  '  the  whiff  and  wind  of 
his  fell  sword'  in  'Hamlet'  rather  fine  than 
otherwise.  Ben  also  has  the  word.  Down- 
shod  means  shod  with  down.  I  doubted 
about  this  word  myself  —  but  I  wanted  it.  As 
to  misgave,  the  older  poets  used  it  as  an  ac 
tive  verb,  and  I  have  done  with  it  as  all  poets  do 
with  language.  My  meaning  is  clear,  and  that 
is  the  main  point.  His  objection  to  'spume- 
sliding  down  the  baffled  decuman'  I  do  not 
understand.  I  think  if  he  will  read  over  his 
'ridiculous  Germanism'  (p.  13  seq.)  with  the 
context  he  will  see  that  he  has  misunderstood 
me.  (By  the  way,  '  in  our  life  alone  doth 
Nature  live '  is  Coleridge's,  not  Wordsworth's.) 
I  never  hesitate  to  say  anything  I  have  hon 
estly  felt  because  some  one  may  have  said  it 
before,  for  it  will  always  get  a  new  color  from 
the  new  mind,  but  here  I  was  not  saying  the 
same  thing  by  a  great  deal.  Nihil  in  intellects, 
quod  non  prius  in  sensu  would  be  nearer  — 
though  not  what  I  meant.  Nature  (inanimate), 
which  is  the  image  of  the  mind,  sympathizes 
with  all  our  moods.  I  would  have  numbered 
the  lines  as  Ruskin  suggests,  only  it  looks  as  if 
one  valued  them  too  much.  That  sort  of  thing 
should  be  posthumous.  You  may  do  it  for 
me,  my  dear  Charles,  if  my  poems  survive  me. 
Two  dropt  stitches  I  must  take  up  which  I 
notice  on  looking  over  what  I  have  written. 
Ruskin  surely  remembers  Carlyle's  '  whiff  of 
grape-shot.^  That  is  one.  The  other  is  that 
rote  may  quite  as  well  be  from  the  Icelandic  at 
hriota  =  to  snore  ;  but  my  studies  more  and 
more  persuade  me  that  where  there  is  in  Eng 
lish  a  Teutonic  and  a  Romance  root  meaning 
the  same  thing,  the  two  are  apt  to  melt  into 
each  other  so  as  to  make  it  hard  to  say  from 
which  our  word  comes."  .  .  .  Letters  II.,  pp. 
65-67.] 


480 


APPENDIX 


Page  399.    PHCEBE. 

[The  correspondence  concerning  this  poem 
with  the  original  form  of  the  verses  is  here 
given  in  detail. 

TO  R.  W.  GILDER. 
LEGATION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES, 
LONDON,  September  4,  1881. 
Dear  Mr.   Gilder,  —  Your  telegram   scared 
me,  for,  coming  at  an  unusual  hour,  I  thought 
it  brought  ill  news  from  Washington.    My  re 
lief  on  finding  it  innocent  has  perhaps  made  me 
too  good-natured  towards  the  verses  I  send 
you,   but  I  have  waited  sixty-two  years  for 
them,  and  am  willing  to  wait  as  many  more 
(not  here)  before  they  are  printed.     Do  what 
you    like  with  them.      They  mean  only  my 
hearty  good-will  towards  you  and  my  hope  for 
your  success  in  your  new  undertaking.  .  .  . 
Faithfully  yours,        J.  R.  LOWELL. 

If  I  could  see  the  proofs,  very  likely  I  could 
better  it  —  they  sober  one  and  bring  one  to  his 
bearings.  Perhaps  the  metaphysical  (or  what 
ever  they  are)  stanzas  —  what  I  mean  is  moral 
izing —  were  better  away.  Perhaps  too  many 
compound  epithets  —  but  I  had  to  give  up 
*' visionary"  in  order  to  save  "legendary," 
•which  was  essential.  Perhaps  a  note,  saying 
that  so  long  as  the  author  can  remember,  a  pair 
of  these  birds  (give  ornithological  name  — 
muscicapa  ?)  have  built  on  jutting  brick  in  an 
archway  leading  to  the  house  at  Elmwood  —  or 
does  everybody  know  what  a  phoabe  is  ?  I  am 
so  old  that  I  am  accustomed  to  people's  being 
ignorant  of  whatever  you  please. 

PH(EBE 

Ere  pales  in  heaven  the  morning  star, 

A  bird,  the  loneliest  of  its  kind, 
Hears  Dawn's  faint  footfall  from  afar 

While  all  its  mates  are  dumb  and  blind. 

It  is  a  wee  sad-colored  thing, 

As  shy  and  secret  as  a  maid, 
That,  ere  in  choir  the  robins  ring, 

Pipes  its  own  name  like  one  afraid. 

It  seems  pain-prompted  to  repeat 

The  story  of  some  ancient  ill, 
But  Phoebe  !  Phcebe  !  sadly  sweet 

Is  all  it  says,  and  then  is  still. 

It  calls  and  listens.    Earth  and  sky, 
Hushed  by  the  pathos  of  its  fate, 

Listen,  breath  held,  but  no  reply 
Comes  from  its  doom-divided  mate. 

Phcebe  !  it  calls  and  calls  again, 
And  Ovid,  could  he  but  have  heard, 

Had  hung  a  legendary  pain 

About  the  memory  of  the  bird  ; 

A  pain  articulate  so  long 

In  penance  of  some  mouldered  crime 
Whose  ghost  still  flies  the  Furies'  thong 

Down  the  waste  solitudes  of  Time  ; 

Or  waif  from  young  Earth's  wonder-hour 
When  gods  found  mortal  maidens  fair, 

And  will  malign  was  joined  with  power 
Love's  kindly  laws  to  overbear. 


Phcebe  !  is  all  it  has  to  say 

In  plaintive  cadence  o'er  and  o'er, 

Like  children  that  have  lost  their  way 
And  know  their  names,  but  nothing  more. 

Is  it  a  type,  since  nature's  lyre 

Vibrates  to  every  note  in  man, 
Of  that  insatiable  desire, 

Meant  to  be  so,  since  life  began  ? 

Or  a  fledged  satire,  sent  to  rasp 
Their  jaded  sense,  who,  tired  so  soon 

With  shifting  life's  doll-dresses,  grasp, 
Gray-bearded  babies,  at  the  moon  ? 

I,  in  strange  lands  at  gray  of  dawn 
Wakeful,  have  heard  that  fruitless  plaint 

Through  Memory's  chambers  deep  withdrawn 
Renew  its  iterations  faint. 

So  nigh  !  yet  from  remotest  years 

It  seems  to  draw  its  magic,  rife 
With  longings  unappeased  and  tears 

Drawn  from  the  very  source  of  life. 

TO  THE   SAME. 

LEGATION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES, 
LONDON,  September  5,  1881. 
Dear  Mr.  Gilder,  —  I  sent  off  the  verses  yes 
terday,  and  now  write  in  great  haste  to  say  that 
in  my  judgment  the  stanza  beginning  "  Or  waif 
from  young  Earth's,"  etc.,  were  better  away. 
Also  for  "  doom-divided  "   print  "  doom-dis 
severed."    I  have  not  had  time  to  mull  over 
the  poem  as  I  should  like. 

Faithfully  yours,        J.  R.  LOWELL. 

P.  S.     I  may  write  in  a  day  or  two  suppress 
ing  more,  after  I  have  had  time  to  think. 

TO   THE   SAME. 

LEGATION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES, 
LONDON,  September  6, 1881. 
Dear  Mr.  Gilder,  —  I  bother  you  like  a  boy 
with  his  first  essay  in  verse.    I  wrote  yester 
day  to  ask  the  omission  of  a  stanza  —  but  last 
night,  being  sleepless,  as  old  fellows  like  me 
are  too  often  apt  to  be,  I  contrived  to  make 
a  stanza  which  had  been  tongue-tied  say  what 
I  wished. 
Let  it  go  thus, 

Waif  of  the  young  World's  wonder-hour 


to  overbear,  (comma). 


Then  go  on  — 

Like  Progne,  did  it  feel  the  stress 
And  coil  of  the  prevailing  words 

Close  round  its  being  and  compress 
Man's  ampler  nature  to  a  bird's  ? 

This  manages  the  transition,  which  was  want 
ing.    Perhaps  this  might  follow :  — 

One  only  memory  left  of  all 
The  motley  crowd  of  vanished  scenes, 

Hers  —  and  vain  impulse  to  recall 
By  repetition  what  it  means. 


Faithfully  yours, 

J.  R.  LOWELL. 


A  CHRONOLOGICAL  LIST  OF  MR.   LOWELL'S   POEMS      481 


TO   THE   SAME. 

LEGATION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES, 
LONDON,  September  8,  1881. 
Dear  Mr.  Gilder,  — This   is   positively  the 
last !    I  wish  to  omit  the  stanza  beginning  "  Or 
a  winged  satire,"  etc.     I  have  been  convinced 
by  a  friend  whom  I  have  consulted  that  it  was 
a  cuckoo's  egg  in  my  nest.    Item.    The  verse 
that  bothered  me  most  of  all  was  this : 

Listen,  breath  held,  but  no  reply,  etc. 

I  wished  to  have  a  distinct  pause  after  "  lis 
ten,"  in  accordance  with  the  sense.  Somehow 
I  could  not  get  the  right,  and  "breath  held" 
was  clearly  the  wrong  one,  awkward,  and  with 
the  same  vowel  sound  in  both  halves.  Print  — 

Listen  :  no  whisper  of  reply 
Is  heard  of  doom-dissevered  mate. 

No;  that  won't  do,  either,  with  its  assonance 
of  "  heard  "  and  "  dissevered  "  —  so,  though  I 
prefer  "dissevered"  for  sense,  I  will  go  back 
to  the  original  word  "divided,"  which  I  sup 
pose  was  instinctive. 

This  is  positively  my  last  dying  speech  and 
confession.  You  need  fear  nothing  more  from 
me.  I  fancy  you  ducking  your  head  for  fear  of 
another  rap  every  time  the  postman  comes. 

I  hope  you  will  like  my  little  poem,  and  tell 
me  so  if  you  don't.  Kindest  regards  to  Mrs. 
Gilder. 

Faithfully  yours, 

J.  R.  LOWELL. 

TO  THE  SAME. 

LEGATION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES, 
LONDON,  September  12,  1881. 
...  As  I  am  writing,  I  add  that  if  you  think 
(as  I  am  half  inclined) 

No  whisper  of  reply 
Comes  from  its  doom-dissevered  mate 
better  than  the  other  reading,  print  it  so. 
Faithfully  yours, 

J.  R.  LOWELL. 

P.  S.  We  are  sadly  anxious  to-day  about  the 
President. 

TO   THE  SAME. 
HOTEL  DANIELI,  VENICE,  October  24,  1881. 

.  .  .  Thank  you  for  the  printed  copy.  Of 
course  I  am  disgusted  with  it.  Print  somehow  is 
like  a  staring  plaster-cast  compared  with  the 
soft  and  flowing  outlines,  the  modest  nudity  of 
the  manuscript  clay.  But  it  is  a  real  pleasure 
to  me  that  you  like  it. 

"Robins  ring"  is  right,  and  whenever  you 
spend  a  June  night  at  Elm  wood  (as  I  hope  you 
will  so  soon  as  I  am  safe  there  once  more) 
you  will  recognize  its  truth.  There  are  hun 
dreds  of  'em  going  at  once,  like  the  bells  here 
last  night  (Sunday),  with  a  perfect  indecency  of 
disregard  for  rhythm  or  each  other.  Mr.  Bur 
roughs,  I  hear,  has  been  criticising  my  know 
ledge  of  outdoors.  God  bless  his  soul  I  I  had 
been  living  in  the  country  thirty  years  (I  fancy 


it  must  be)  before  he  was  born,  and  if  anybody 
ever  lived  in  the  open  air  it  was  I.  So  be 
at  peace.  By  the  way,  I  took  Progne  merely 
because  she  was  changed  into  a  little  bird.  I 
should  have  preferred  a  male,  and  was  think 
ing  of  a  fellow  (transformed,  I  think  by  Me 
dea),  but  can't  remember  his  name.  While  I 
am  about  it  I  question  "  wee."  Is  it  English  ? 
I  had  no  dictionary  at  hand.  But  there  is  one 
atrocity — "moldered."  Why  do  you  give  in 
to  these  absurdities  ?  Why  abscond  in  to  this 
petty  creek  from  the  great  English  main  of 
orthography?  'T  is  not  quite  so  bad  as  "I 
don't  know  as i "  for  "  I  don't  know  that,"  but 
grazes  it  and  is  of  a  piece  with  putting  one's 
knife  in  one's  mouth.] 


V.    A   CHRONOLOGICAL   LIST   OF 
MR.  LOWELL'S    POEMS 

IN  arranging  this  list  the  editor  has  relied 
first  on  the  dates  supplied  by  the  author,  and 
then  on  the  dates  of  periodicals  and  books  in 
which  the  poems  otherwise  undated  first  ap 
peared.  Whenever  the  first  appearance  of  a 
poem  has  not  been  determined  precisely,  the 
title  is  printed  in  italic  under  the  year  when  the 
volume  first  including  it  was  published. 

1839.  Threnodia. 
The  Beggar. 
Summer  Storm. 

1840.  The  Sirens. 
Love. 

Sonnet  :  To  A.  C.  L. 

Sonnet  (I  would  not  have  this  perfect 

love  of  ours). 
Sonnet  (For  this  true  nobleness  I  seek 

in  vain). 

Remembered  Music. 
Irene*. 
Serenade. 

With  a  Pressed  Flower. 
My  Love. 

1841.  To  Perdita,  Singing. 
The  Moon. 

Ode  (In  the  old  days  of  awe  and  keen- 
eyed  wonder). 
A  Prayer. 

Song  (Violet !  sweet  violet ! ). 
Rosaline. 
Sonnet  (What  were  I,  Love,  if  I  were 

stripped  of  thee). 
Sonnet :  To  the  Spirit  of  Keats. 
Sonnet  (Great  truths  are  portions  of  the 

soul  of  man). 
Sonnet  (I  ask  not  for  those  thoughts, 

that  sudden  leap). 

Sonnet:  To  M.  W.,  on  her  Birthday. 
Sonnet  (My  Love,   I  have  no  fear  that 

thou  shouldst  die). 
Sonnet  (I  cannot  think  that  thou  shouldst 

pass  away). 
Sonnet  (There  never  yet  was  flower  so 

fair  in  vain). 
Sonnet :  Sub  Pondere  crescit. 


482 


APPENDIX 


Si  descendero  in  Infernum,  ades. 

1842.  The  Forlorn. 
Midnight. 

The  Rose :  A  Ballad. 

A  Parable  (Worn  and  footsore  was  the 
Prophet). 

Song  (O  moonlight  deep  and  tender). 

Sonnet  (Beloved,  in  the  noisy  city  here). 

Sonnets :  On  Reading  Wordsworth's  Son 
nets  in  Defence  of  Capital  Punishment. 
(Six  sonnets.) 

Sonnet :  To  M.  O.  S. 

Sonnet  (Our  love  is  not  a  fading  earthly 
flower). 

The  Shepherd  of  King  Admetus. 

An  Incident  in  a  Railroad  Car. 

Elegy  on  the  Death  of  Dr.  Channing. 

1843.  The  Fountain. 
The  Fatherland. 
Sonnet :  In  Absence. 
Sonnet:  The  Street. 
A  Legend  of  Brittany. 
Prometheus. 

A  Glance  Behind  the  Curtain. 

Stanzas  on  Freedom. 

IS  Envoi  (Whether  my  heart  hath  wiser 

grown  or  not). 
Allegra. 
The  Heritage. 
A  Requiem. 

Sonnet :   Wendell  Phillips. 
Sonnet  (I  grieve  not  that  ripe  Knowledge 

takes  away). 

Sonnet :  To  J.  E.  Giddings. 
The  Token. 
Rhoecus. 
A  Chippewa  Legend. 

1844.  Columbus. 

On  the  Death  of  a  Friend's  Child. 
Hunger  and  Cold. 
The  Present  Crisis. 

1845.  An  Incident  of  the  Fire  at  Hamburg. 
To  the  Past. 

To  the  Future. 

A  Contrast. 

On  the  Capture  of  Fugitive  Slaves  near 

Washington. 
To  the  Dandelion.  • 
The  Ghost-Seer. 
Eurydice. 
An  Interview  with  Miles  Standish. 

1846.  The  Falcon. 
The  Oak. 

Letter  from  Boston. 

The  Biglow  Papers  [Beginning  of]. 

On  the  Death  of  Charles  Turner  Torrey. 

An  Indian-Summer  Reverie. 

1847.  The  Landlord. 
Extreme  Unction. 
Above  and  Below. 

The  Growth  of  the  Legend. 

Song :  To  M.  L. 

To  a  Pine-Tree. 

The  Search. 

The  Captive. 

The  Birch-Tree. 

Studies  for  Two  Heads. 


On  a  Portrait  of  Dante  by  Giotto. 

The  Changeling. 

The  Pioneer. 

Longing. 

Hebe. 

1848.  The  Sower. 
Ambrose. 
Ode  to  France. 

A  Parable  (Said  Christ  our  Lord,  "I 
will  go  and  see). 

Freedom. 

Ode  written  for  the  Celebration  of  the 
Introduction  of  the  Cochituate  Water 
into  the  City  of  Boston. 

To  Lamartine. 

To  the  Memory  of  Hood. 

The  Vision  of  Sir  Launfal. 

A  Fable  for  Critics. 

The  Biglow  Papers.  First  Series.  [Pub 
lished  in  book  form.] 

1849.  Trial. 

Lines  suggested  by  the  Graves  of  Two 
English  Soldiers  on  Concord  Battle 
Ground. 

To 

Bibliolatres. 

Beaver  Brook. 

Kossuth. 

An  Oriental  Apologue. 

The  First  Snow-Fall. 

The  Parting  of  the  Ways. 

The  Lesson  of  the  Pine  (later,  with  two 
stanzas  added,  A  Mood). 

A  Day  in  June  (later,  revised  and  en 
larged,  Al  Fresco). 

Sonnet  (I  thought  our  love  at  full,  but  I 
did  err). 

She  came  and  went. 

To  John  Gorham  Palfrey. 

To  W.  L.  Garrison. 

1850.  The  Fountain  of  Youth. 
Dara. 

New  Year's  Eve,  1850. 

An  Invitation. 

Mahmood  the  Image-Breaker. 

The  Unhappy  Lot  of  Mr.  Knott. 

1851.  Anti-Apis. 

1852.  A  Parable   (An  ass   munched  thistles,. 

while  a  nightingale). 

1854.  The  Singing  Leaves. 
Without  and  Within. 
Pictures  from  Appledore. 
The  Wind-Harp. 

Auf  Wiedersehen. 

A  Winter  Evening  Hymn  to  my  Fire. 
Sonnet  on  an  Autumn  Sketch  of  H.  G* 
Wild. 

1855.  Masaccio. 

1857.  My  Portrait  Gallery. 
Sonnet:  The  Maple. 

The  Origin  of  Didactic  Poetry. 

1858.  The  Dead  House. 
The  Nest. 

Das  Ewig-Weibliche  (original  title,  Bea 
trice). 

1859.  Villa  Franca. 

At  the  Burns  Centennial. 


A  CHRONOLOGICAL  LIST  OF  MR.   LOWELL'S   POEMS     483 


1860.  L'Envoi:  To  the  Muse. 

1861.  Ode  to  Happiness. 

The  Washers  of  the  Shroud. 

1862.  The  Biglow  Papers.    [Beginning  of  the] 

Second  Series. 

1863.  Two  Scenes  from  the  Life  of  Blondel. 
In  the  Half-Way  House. 

1864.  Memoriae  Positum :  R.  G.  Shaw. 
On  Board  the  '76. 

The  Black  Preacher. 

1865.  Gold  Egg:  A  Dream-Fantasy. 

Ode  Recited  at  the  Harvard  Commemo 
ration. 

1866.  The  Miner. 

To  Mr.  John  Bartlett. 
At  the  Commencement  Dinner,  1866. 
The    Biglow    Papers.      Second   Series. 
[Published  in  book  form.] 

1867.  A  Familiar  Epistle  to  a  Friend. 
An  Ember  Picture. 

To  H.  W.  L. 

The  Nightingale  in  the  Study. 

Fitz  Adam's  Story. 

1868.  The  Flying  Dutchman. 
Under  the  Willows. 
After  the  Burial. 

In  the  Twilight. 
The  Foot-Path. 
A  Mood  (earlier,  The  Lesson  of  the 

Pine). 

To  Charles  Eliot  Norton. 
Seaweed. 

The  Finding  of  the  Lyre. 
For  an  Autograph. 
Al  Fresco  (earlier,  A  Day  in  June). 
Godminster  Chimes. 
Aladdin. 
The  Nomades. 
Self-Study. 

The  Voyage  to  Vinland. 
Invita  Minerva. 
Yussouf. 

The  Darkened  Mind. 
What  Rabbi  Jehosha  said. 
All-Saints. 
Fancy's  Casuistry. 
1869.    The  Cathedral. 

1872.  Tempora  Mutantur. 

1873.  Sonnet :  To  Fanny  Alexander. 

1874.  Agassiz. 

An  Epistle  to  George  William  Curtis. 
Sonnet :  Jeffries  Wyman. 

1875.  Ode  read  at  the  One  Hundredth  An 

niversary  of  the  Fight  at  Concord 
Bridge. 

Under  the  Old  Elm. 

Prison  of  Cervantes. 

Sonnet :  Scottish  Border  (original  title 
English  Border). 

Sonnet:  On  being  asked  for  an  Auto 
graph  in  Venice. 

Sonnet :  The  Dancing  Bear. 

Sonnet :  Joseph  Winlock. 

1876.  An  Ode  for  the  Fourth  of  July,  1876. 
A  Misconception. 

The  Boss  (originally  entitled,  Defrauding 
Nature). 


1877.  Sonnets:  Bankside. 
Birthday  Verses. 
Sonnet:  Nightwatches. 
Sonnet :  Pessimoptimism. 
Sonnet :  The  Brakes. 

1878.  Sonnet:  Death  of  Queen  Mercedes. 
Sonnet :  With  a  Copy  of  Aucassin  and 

Nicolete. 

1879.  Sonnet :  E.  G.  de  R. 
The  Protest. 

The  Petition. 

Sonnet:    To    a   Lady   Playing   on    the 

Cithern. 
Auspex. 

1880.  On  Planting  a  Tree  at  Inveraray. 

1881.  Phoebe. 

Sonnets :  With  an  Armchair. 

Agro-Dolce. 

A  New  Year's  Greeting. 

Sun- Worship. 

1882.  Verses  intended  to  go  with  a  Posset  Dish 

to  my  Dear  Little  Goddaughter,  1882. 
Sonnet :  To  Whittier. 
The  Secret. 

1884.  To  Holmes. 
The  Optimist. 

Eleanor  makes  Macaroons. 
Bon  Voyage. 
The  Recall. 
Changed  Perspective. 

1885.  On  Hearing  a   Sonata   of  Beethoven's 

played  in  the  Next  Room. 
Under  the  October  Maples. 
International  Copyright. 

1886.  Fact  or  Fancy  ? 
Paolo  to  Francesca. 

With  a  Pair  of  Gloves  lost  in  a  Wager. 

1887.  Postscript  to  An  Epistle  to  George  Wil 

liam  Curtis. 

Credidimus  Jovem  regnare. 
Sixty-Eighth  Birthday. 

1888.  Endymion. 

Turner's  Old  Te*me*raire. 

St.  Michael  the  Weigher. 

Absence. 

In  a  Copy  of  Omar  Khayyam. 

On  Receiving  a  Copy  of  Mr.  Austin  Dob- 
son's  "  Old  World  Idylls." 

To  C.  F.  Bradford. 

Sonnet :  To  a  Friend. 

Sonnet :  To  Miss  D.  T. 

Arcadia  Rediviva. 

A  Youthful  Experiment  in  English 
Hexameters. 

Estrangement. 

Monna  Lisa. 

On  Burning  some  Old  Letters. 

The  Broken  Tryst. 

Casa  sin  Alma. 

A  Christmas  Carol. 

Sonnet :  The  Eye's  Treasury. 

Sonnet :  A  Foreboding. 

Love's  Clock. 

Telepathy. 

Scherzo. 

"  Franciscus  de  Verulamiosic  Cogitavit." 

The  Pregnant  Comment. 


484 


APPENDIX 


The  Lesson. 
Science  and  Poetry. 
The  Discovery. 
With  a  Seashell. 
In  an  Album. 
Sayings. 
Inscriptions  : 

For  a  Bell  at  Cornell  University. 
For  a  Memorial  Window  to  Sir  Walter 
Raleigh,    set  up   in   St.  Margaret's, 
Westminster,  by  American  Contrib 
utors. 


1889. 

1890. 
1891. 
1895. 


Proposed  for  a  Soldiers1  and  Sailors' 

Monument  in  Boston. 
How  I  consulted  the  Oracle  of  the  Gold- 


Fragments  of  an  Unfinished  Poem. 

On  a  Bust  of  General  Grant. 

A  Valentine. 

An  April  Birthday  —  at  Sea. 

Love  and  Thought. 

The  Nobler  Lover. 


INDEX  OF  FIRST  LINES 


A  beggar  through  the  world  am  I,  5. 

A  camel-driver,  angry  with  his  drudge,  432. 

A  heap  of  bare  and  splintery  crags,  302. 

A  hundred  years !  they  're  quickly  fled,  427. 

A  legend  that  grew  in  the  forest's  hush,  74. 

A  lily  thou  wast  when  I  saw  thee  first,  10. 

A  poet  cannot  strive  for  despotism,  23. 

A  presence  both  by  night  and  day,  302. 

A  race  of  nobles  may  die  out,  100. 

A  stranger  came  one  night  to  Yussouf's  tent, 

318. 
About  the  oak  that  framed  this  chair,  of  old, 

385. 

Alike  I  hate  to  be  your  debtor,  327. 
Along  a  river-side,  I  know  not  where,  334. 
Amid  these  fragments  of  heroic  days,  404. 
An  ass  munched  thistles,  while  a  nightingale, 

"  And  how  could  you  dream  of  meeting  ?  "  408. 
Another  star  'neath  Time's  horizon  dropped, 

105. 

Are  we,  then,  wholly  fallen  ?    Can  it  be,  97. 
As  a  twig  trembles,  which  a  bird,  89. 
As,  cleansed  of  Tiber's  and  Oblivion's  slime, 

387. 

As,  flake  by  flake,  the  beetling  avalanches,  91. 
As  life  runs  on,  the  road  grows  strange,  433. 
As  sinks  the  sun  behind  yon  alien  hills,  404. 
As  the  broad  ocean  endlessly  upheaveth,  22. 
At  Carnac  in  Brittany,  close  on  the  bay,  395. 
At  length  arrived,  your  book  I  take,  382. 
At  twenty  we  fancied  the  blest  Middle  Ages, 

426. 
Ay,  pale  and  silent  maiden,  18. 

B,  taught  by  Pope  to  do  his  good  by  stealth, 

Beauty  on  my  hearth-stone  blazing !  320. 
Beloved,  in  the  noisy  city  here,  22. 
Beneath  the  trees,  338. 
Bowing  thyself  in  dust  before  a  Book,  99. 

Can  this  be  thou  who,  lean  and  pale,  87. 
Come  back  before  the  birds  are  flown,  400. 
"  Come  forth !  "  my  catbird  calls  to  me.  331. 
Curtis,  whose  Wit,  with  Fancy  arm  in  arm, 
388. 

Dear  common  flower,  that  grow'st  beside  the 
way,  83. 

Dear  M. By  way  of  saving  time,  111. 

Dear  Sir,  —  You  wish  to  know  my  notions,  204. 
Dear  Sir,  —  Your  letter  come  to  han',  275. 
Dear  Wendell,  why  need  count  the  years,  381. 
Death  never  came  so  nigh  to  me  before,  87. 
Don't  believe  in  the  Flying  Dutchman  ?  422. 
Down  'mid  the  tangled  roots  of  things,  325. 


Ef  I  a  song  or  two  could  make,  267. 
Entranced  I  saw  a  vision  in  the  cloud,  370. 
Ere  pales  in  Heaven  the  morning  star,  399. 

Fair  as  a  summer  dream  was  Margaret,  28. 
Far  over  Elf -land  poets  stretch  their  sway,  404. 
Far  through  the  memory  shines  a  happy  day, 

350. 

Far  up  on  Katahdin  thou  towerest,  62. 
Far  'yond  this  narrow  parapet  of  Time,  23. 
Fit  for  an  Abbot  of  Theleme,  322. 
For  this  true  nobleness  I  seek  in  vain,  20. 
Frank-hearted  hostess  of  the  field  and  wood, 

286. 
From  the  close-shut  windows  gleams  no  spark, 

Full  oft  the  pathway  to  her  door,  433. 

Giddings,  far  rougher  names  than  thine  have 

grown,  25. 

Go  !  leave  me,  Priest ;  my  soul  would  be,  75. 
God !  do  not  let  my  loved  one  die,  15. 
God  makes  sech  nights,  all  white  an'  still,  219. 
God  sends  his  teachers  unto  every  age,  46. 
Godminster  ?     Is  it  Fancy's  play  ?  297. 
Gold  of  the  reddening  sunset,  backward  thrown, 

406. 

Gone,  gone  from  us !  and  shall  we  see,  1. 
Great  soul,  thou  sittest  with  me  in  my  room,  20. 
Great  truths  are  portions  of  the  soul  of  man,  20. 
Guvener  B.  is  a  sensible  man,  188. 

He  came  to  Florence  long  ago,  296. 

He  spoke  of  Burns :  men  rude  and  rough,  45. 

He  stood  upon  the  world's  broad  threshold; 

wide,  24. 
He  who  first  stretched  his  nerves  of  subtile 

wire,  410. 

Heaven's  cup  held  down  to  me  I  drain,  88. 
Here  once  my  step  was  quickened,  309. 
Here  we  stan'  on  the  Constitution,  by  thunder! 

198. 
Hers  all  that  Earth  could  promise  or  bestow. 

405. 

Hers  is  a  spirit  deep,  and  crystal-clear,  4. 
How  strange  are  the  freaks  of  memory !  329. 
How  struggles  with  the  tempest's  swells,  322. 
How  was  J  worthy  so  divine  a  loss,  399. 
Hushed  with  broad  sunlight  lies  the  hill,  99. 

I  am  a  man  of  forty,  sirs,  a  native  of  East 

Haddam,  158. 
I  ask  not  for  those  thoughts,  that  sudden  leap, 

21. 

I  call  as  fly  the  irrevocable  hours,  432. 
I  cannot  think  that  thou  shouldst  pass  away,  21. 
I  christened  you  in  happier  days,  before,  383. 


486 


INDEX   OF   FIRST  LINES 


I  could  not  bear  to  see  those  eyes,  401. 
I  did  not  praise  thee  when  the  crowd,  101. 
I  do  not  come  to  weep  above  thy  pall,  104. 
I  don't  much  s'pose,  hows'ever  I  should  plen  it, 

278. 

I  du  believe  in  Freedom's  cause,  201. 
I  go  to  the  ridge  in  the  forest,  310. 
I  grieve  not  that  ripe  knowledge  takes  away, 

25. 

I  had  a  little  daughter,  89. 
I  have  a  fancy:  how  shall  I  bring  it,  411. 
I  hed  it  on  my  min'  las'  time,  when  I  to  write 

ye  started,  242. 

I  know  a  falcon  swift  and  peerless,  48. 
I  love  to  start  out  arter  night 's  begun,  233. 
I  need  not  praise  the  sweetness  of  his  song,  330. 
I  rise,  Mr.  Chairman,  as  both  of  us  know,  430. 
I  sat  and  watched  the  walls  of  night,  410. 
I  sat  one  evening  in  my  room,  80. 
I  saw  a  Sower  walking  slow,  60. 
I  saw  the  twinkle  of  white  feet,  65. 
I  sent  you  a  message,  my  friens,  t'  other  day, 

249. 
I  spose  you  recollect  thet  I  explained  my  gennle 

views,  212. 
I  spose  you  wonder  ware  I  be  ;  I  can't  tell,  fer 

the  soul  o'  me,  207. 
I  swam  with  undulation  soft,  326. 
I  thank  ye,  my  frien's,  for  the  warmth  o'  your 

greetin',  255. 

I  thought  our  love  at  full,  but  I  did  err,  25. 
I  treasure  in  secret  some  long,  fine  hair,  307. 
I,  walking  the  familiar  street,  396. 
I  was  with  thee  in  Heaven :  I  cannot  tell,  403. 
I  watched  a  moorland  torrent  run,  410. 
I  went  to  seek  for  Christ,  66. 
I  would  more  natures  were  like  thine,  10. 
I  would  not  have  this  perfect  love  of  ours,  20. 
If  he  be  a  nobler  lover,  take  him  !  438. 
If  I  let  fall  a  word  of  bitter  mirth,  360. 
If  I  were  the  rose  at  your  window,  433. 
In  a  small  chamber,  friendless  and  unseen,  103. 
In  good  old  times,  which  means,  you  know,  438. 
In  his  tower  sat  the  poet,  16. 
In  life's  small  things  be  resolute  and  great,  432. 
In  the  old  days  of  awe  and  keen-eyed  wonder, 

In  town  I  hear,  scarce  wakened  yet,  402. 
In  vain  we  call  old  notions  fudge,  433. 
Into  the  sunshine,  11. 
It  don't  seem  hardly  right,  John,  238. 
It  is  a  mere  wild  rosebud,  44. 
It  mounts  athwart  the  windy  hill,  333. 
It  was  past  the  hour  of  trysting,  78. 
It's  some  consid'ble  of  a  spell  sence  I  hain't 
writ  no  letters,  223. 

Leaves  fit  to  have  been  poor  Juliet's  cradle- 
rhyme,  387. 

Let  others  wonder  what  fair  face,  437. 

Light  of  triumph  in  her  eyes,  408. 

Look  on  who  will  in  apathy,  and  stifle  they 
who  can,  82. 

Looms  there  the  New  Land,  313. 

Maiden,  when  such  a  soul  as  thine  is  born,  21. 
Mary,  since  first  1  knew  thee,  to  this  hour,  23. 


Men  say  the  sullen  instrument,  332. 

Men !  whose  boast  it  is  that  ye,  55. 

My  coachman,  in  the  moonlight  there,  297. 

My  day  began  not  till  the  twilight  fell,  392. 

My  heart,  I  cannot  still  it,  409. 

My  Love,  I  have  no  fear  that  thou  shouldst  die, 

My  name  is  Water  :  I  have  sped,  96. 

My  soul  was  like  the  sea,  9. 

My  worthy  friend,  A.  Gordon  Knott,  149. 

Never,  surely,  was  holier  man,  77. 
New  England's  poet,  rich  in  love  as  years,  386. 
Nine  years  have  slipt  like  hour-glass  sand,  300. 
No?    Hez    he?     He   haint,    though?    Wut? 

Voted  agin  him  V  192. 

Nor  deemed  he  lived  unto  himself  alone,  384. 
Not  always  unimpeded  can  I  pray,  294. 
Not  as  all  other  women  are,  6. 
Now  Biorn,  the  son  of  Heriulf,  had  ill  days. 

311. 

0  days  endeared  to  every  Muse,  423. 

"  O  Dryad  feet,"  407. 

O  dwellers  in  the  valley-land,  78. 

0  Land  of  Promise  !  from  what  Pisgah's  height, 

O  moonlight  deep  and  tender,  19. 

O  wandering  dim  on  the  extremest  edge,  63. 

Of  all  the  myriad  moods  of  mind,  91. 

Oft  round  my  hall  of  portraiture  I  gaze,  403. 

Oh,  tell  me  less  or  tell  me  more,  402. 

Old  events  have  modern  meanings ;  only  that 

survives,  315. 
Old  Friend,  farewell  1    Your  kindly  door  again, 

384. 
On  this  wild  waste,  where  never  blossom  came, 

437. 

Once  git  a  smell  o'  musk  into  a  draw,  260. 
Once  hardly  in  a  cycle  blossometh,  22. 
Once  on  a  time  there  was  a  pool,  248. 
One  after  one  the  stars  have  risen  and  set,  39. 
One  feast,  of  holy  days  the  crest,  319. 
One  kiss  from  all  others  prevents  me,  402. 
Opening  one  day  a  book  of  mine,  409. 
Our  love  is  not  a  fading,  earthly  flower,  24. 
Our  ship  lay  tumbling  in  an  angry  sea,  339. 
Over  his  keys  the  musing  organist,  106. 

Phoebus,  sitting  one  day  in  a  laurel-tree's  shade, 

117. 
Praisest  Law,  friend  ?    We,  too,  love  it  much  as 

they  that  love  it  best,  94. 
Propped  on  the  marsh,  a  dwelling  now,  I  see, 

174. 
Punctorum  garretos  colens  et  cellafa  Quinque, 

270. 

Rabbi  Jehosha  used  to  say,  319. 

Reader  !  Walk  up  at  once  (it  will  soon  be  too 
late),  114. 

Rippling  through  thy  branches  goes  the  sun 
shine,  79. 

Said  Christ  our  Lord,  I  will  go  and  see,  95. 
Seat  of  all  woes  ?    Though  Nature 's  firm  decree, 
405. 


INDEX   OF   FIRST   LINES 


487 


She  gave  me  all  that  woman  can,  400. 

Shell,  whose  lips,  than  mine  more  cold,  411. 

Ship,  blest  to  bear  such  freight  across  the  blue, 
386. 

Shy  soul  and  stalwart,  man  of  patient  will,  384. 

Silencioso  por  la  puerta,  403. 

Sisters  two,  all  praise  to  you,  61. 

Skilled  to  pull  wires,  he  baffles  Nature's  hope, 
433. 

Sleep  is  Death's  image,  —  poets  tell  us  so,  400. 

So  dreamy-soft  the  notes,  so  far  away,  406. 

Some  sort  of  heart  I  know  is  hers,  85. 

Sometimes  come  pauses  of  calm,  when  the  rapt 
bard,  holding  his  heart  back,  398. 

Somewhere  in  India,  upon  a  time,  161. 

Spirit,  that  rarely  comest  now,  323. 

Still  thirteen  years  :  't  is  autumn  now,  308. 

Stood  the  tall  Archangel  weighing,  436. 

Strong,  simple,  silent  are  the  [steadfast]  laws, 
439. 

Swiftly  the  politic  goes  :  is  it  dark? — he  bor 
rows  a  lantern,  432. 

Thank  God,  he  saw  you  last  in  pomp  of  May, 

384. 

Thanks  to  the  artist,  ever  on  my  wall,  387. 
That 's  a  rather  bold  speech,  my  Lord  Bacon, 

409. 

The  Bardling  came  where  by  a  river  grew,  315. 
The  century  numbers  fourscore  years,  410. 
The  cordage  creaks  and  rattles  in  the  wind,  55. 
The  dandelions  and  buttercups,  295. 
The  electric  nerve,  whose  instantaneous  thrill, 

374. 

The  fire  is  burning  clear  and  blithely,  319. 
The  hope  of  Truth  grows  stronger,  day  by  day, 

22. 

The  little  gate  was  reached  at  last,  308. 
The  love  of  all  things  springs  from  love  of  one, 

23. 

The  Maple  puts  her  corals  on  in  May,  405. 
The  misspelt  scrawl,  upon  the  wall,  430. 
The  moon  shines  white  and  silent,  15. 
The  New  World's  sons,  from  England's  breasts 

we  drew,  432. 

The  next  whose  fortune 't  was  a  tale  to  tell,  412. 
The  night  is  dark,  the  stinging  sleet,  14. 
The  old  Chief,  feeling  now  wellnigh  his  end,  53. 
The  path  from  me  to  you  that  led,  398. 
The  pipe  came  safe,  and  welcome  too,  383. 
The  rich  man's  son  inherits  lands,  15. 
The  same  good  blood  that  now  refills,  96. 
The  sea  is  lonely,  the  sea  is  dreary,  2. 
The  snow  had  begun  in  the  gloaming,  292. 
The  tower  of  old  Saint  Nicholas  soared  upward 

to  the  skies,  59. 

The  wind  is  roistering  out  of  doors,  285. 
The  wisest  man  could  ask  no  more  of  Fate,  385. 
The  world  turns  mild  ;  democracy,  they  say, 

425. 

There  are  who  triumph  in  a  losing  cause,  102. 
There  came  a  youth  upon  the  earth,  44. 
There  lay  upon  the  ocean's  shore,  294. 
There  never  yet  was  flower  fair  in  vain,  21. 
Therefore  think  not  the  Past  is  wise  alone,  23. 
These  pearls  of  thought  in  Persian  gulfs  were 

bred,  382. 


These  rugged,  wintry  days  I  scarce  could  bear, 

24. 
They   pass  me  by  like    shadows,   crowds  on 

crowds,  24. 

Thick-rushing,  like  an  ocean  vast,  10. 
This  is  the  midnight  of  the  century, — hark! 

295. 

This  kind  p'  sogerin'  aint  a  mite  like  our  Oc 
tober  trainin',  184. 
This  little  blossom  from  afar,  5. 
Thou  look'dst  on  me  all  yesternight,  17. 
Thou  wast  the  fairest  of  all  man-made  things. 

436. 

Though  old  the  thought  and  oft  exprest,  295. 
Thrash  away,  you  '11  hev  to  rattle,  181. 
Through  suffering  and  sorrow  thou  hast  passed. 

19. 

Thy  love  thou  sentest  oft  to  me,  75. 
Thy  voice  is  like  a  fountain,  8. 
'T  is  a  woodland  enchanted  !  316. 
To  those  who  died  for  her  on  land  and  sea, 

432. 
True  as  the  sun's  own  work,  but  more  refined, 

385. 

True  Love  is  a  humble,  low-born  thing,  8. 
Turbid  from  London's  noise  and  smoke,  400. 
'T  was  sung  of  old  in  hut  and  hall,  398. 
'T  were  no  hard  task,  perchance,  to  win,  336. 
Two  brothers  once,  an  ill-matched  pair,  176. 
Two  fellers,  Isrel  named  and  Joe,  176. 

Unconscious  as  the  sunshine,  simply  sweet,  385. 
Unseen  Musician,  thou  art  sure  to  please,  438. 
Untremulous  in  the  river  clear,  7. 

Violet !  sweet  violet !  17. 

Wait  a  little :  do  we  not  wait  ?  324. 
Walking  alone  where  we  walked  together,  402. 
We  see  but  half  the  causes  of  our  deeds,  49. 
We,  too,  have  autumns,  when  our  leaves,  97. 
We  wagered,  she  for  sunshine,  I  for  rain,  433. 
Weak-winged  is  song,  342. 
What  boot  your  houses  and  your  lands  ?  61. 
What  countless  years  and  wealth  of  brain  were 

spent,  406. 

"  What  fairings  will  ye  that  I  bring  ?  "  293. 
What  gnarled  stretch,  what  depth  of  shade,  is 

his!  76. 

What  hath  Love  with  Thought  to  do  ?  438. 
What  know  we  of  the  world  immense,  433. 
What  man  would  live  coffined  with  brick  and 

stone,  90. 

What  mean  these  banners  spread,  407. 
"  What  means  this  glory  round  our  feet,"  403. 
What  Nature  makes  in  any  mood,  301. 
What  visionary  tints  the  year  puts  on,  69. 
What  were  I,  Love,  if  I  were  stripped  of  thee, 

20. 
What  were  the  whole  void  world,  if  thou  wert 

dead,  407. 
When  a  deed  is  done  for  Freedom,  through  the 

broad  earth's  aching  breast,  67. 
When  I  was  a  beggarly  boy,  300. 
When  oaken  woods  with  buds  are  pink,  397. 
When  Persia's  sceptre  trembled  in  a  hand,  291. 
When  the  down  is  on  the  chin,  408. 


488 


INDEX   OF   FIRST  LINES 


When  wise  Minerva  still  was  young,  421. 
Where  is  the  true  man's  fatherland  ?  14. 
"  Where  lies  the  capital,  pilgrim,  seat  of  who 

governs  the  Faithful?  "  432. 
Whether  my  heart  hath  wiser  grown  or  not,  25. 
Whether  the  idle  prisoner  through  his  grate,  48. 
While  the  slow  clock,  as  they  were  miser's  gold, 

405. 

Whither  ?    Albeit  I  f ollow  fast,  347. 
Who  cometh  over  the  hills,  361. 
Who  does  his  duty  is  a  question,  387. 
Who  hath  not  been  a  poet  ?    Who  hath  not, 

298. 


Why  should  I  seek  her  spell  to  decompose,  386. 
With  what  odorous  woods  and  spices,  401. 
Woe  worth  the  hour  when  it  is  crime,  104. 
Wondrous  and  awful  are  thy  silent  halls,  63. 
Words  pass  as  wind,  but  where  great  deeds 

were  done,  364. 
Worn  and  footsore  was  the  Prophet,  19. 

Ye  little  think  what  toil  it  was  to  build,  406. 
Ye  who,  passing  graves  by  night,  83. 
Yes,  faith  is  a  goodly  anchor,  308. 

Zekle  crep'  up,  quite  unbeknown,  170. 


INDEX   OF  TITLES 


[TJie  titles  of  major  works  and  of  general  divisions  are  set  in  SMALL  CAPITALS.] 


A.  C.  L.,  To,  19. 

Above  and  Below,  78. 

Absence,  400. 

After  the  Burial,  308. 

Agassiz,  374. 

Agro-Dolce,  402. 

Al  Fresco,  295. 

Aladdin,  300. 

Alexander,  Fanny,  To,  385. 

All-Saints,  319. 

Allegra,  10. 

Ambrose,  77. 

Anti-Apis,  94. 

Appledore,  Pictures  from,  302. 

April  Birthday,  An  —  at  Sea,  437. 

Arcadia  Rediviva,  396. 

At  the  Burns  Centennial,  427. 

At  the  Commencement  Dinner,  1866,  430. 

Auf  Wiedersehen,  308. 

Auspex,  409. 

Bankside,  383. 

Bartlett,  Mr.  John,  To,  322. 

Beaver  Brook,  99. 

Beggar,  The,  5. 

Bibliolatres,  99. 

Biglow,  Mr.  Hosea,  to  the  Editor  of  the  At 
lantic  Monthly,  275. 

Biglow,  Mr.,  Latest  Views  of,  265. 

BIGLOW  PAPERS,  THE,  165. 

Biglow's,  Mr.  Hosea,  Speech  in  March  Meet 
ing,  277. 

Birch-Tree,  The,  79. 

Birdofredum  Sawin,  Esq.,  to  Mr.  Hosea  Big- 
low,  220. 

Birdofredum  Sawin,  Esq.,  to  Mr.  Hosea  Big- 
low,  239. 

Birthday  Verses,  398. 

Black  Preacher,  The,  395. 

Blondel,  Two  Scenes  from  the  Life  of,  336. 

Bon  Voyage,  386. 

Boss,  The,  433. 

Boston,  Letter  from,  111. 

Bradford,  C.  F.,  To,  383. 

Brakes,  The,  406. 

Brittany,  A  Legend  of,  28. 

Broken  Tryst,  The,  402. 

Burns  Centennial,  At  the,  427. 

Captive,  The,  78. 

Capture  of  Fugitive  Slaves  near  Washington, 

On  the,  82. 
Casa  sin  Alma,  403. 
CATHEDRAL,  THE,  349. 
Cervantes,  Prison  of,  405. 
Changed  Perspective,  433. 
Changeling,  The,  89. 


Channing,  Dr.,  Elegy  on  the  Death  of,  104. 

Chippewa  Legend,  A,  53. 

Christmas  Carol,  A,  403. 

Cochituate  Water,  Ode  written  for  the  Cele 
bration  of  the  Introduction  of  the,  into  the 
City  of  Boston,  96. 

Columbus,  55. 

Commemoration,  Ode  recited  at  the  Harvard, 
340. 

Concord  Bridge,  Ode  read  at  the  One  Hun 
dredth  Anniversary  of  the  Fight  at,  361. 

Contrast,  A,  75. 

Courtin',  The,  170,  219. 

Credidimus  Jovem  regnare,  423. 

Curtis,  George  William,  An  Epistle  to,  388. 

Dancing  Bear,  The,  404. 
Dandelion,  To  the,  83. 
Dante,  On  a  Portrait  of,  by  Giotto,  87. 
Dara,  291. 

Darkened  Mind,  The,  319. 
Dead  House,  The,  309. 
Death  of  a  Friend's  Child,  On  the,  87. 
Death  of  Queen  Mercedes,  405. 
Debate  in  the  Sennit,  The,  197. 
Discovery,  The,  410. 

Dobson's,  Mr.  Austin,  "  Old  World  Idylls,"  On 
Receiving  a  Copy  of,  382. 

E.  G.  de  R.,  386. 

EARLIER  POEMS,  1. 

Eleanor  makes  Macaroons,  408. 

Elegy  on  the  Death  of  Dr.  Channing,  104. 

Ember  Picture,  An,  329. 

Endymion,  392. 

Epistle  to  George  William  Curtis,  An,  388. 

Estrangement,  398. 

Eurydice,  88. 

Ewig-Weibliche,  Das,  399. 

Extreme  Unction,  75. 

Eye's  Treasury,  The,  406. 

FABLE  FOR  CRITICS,  A,  113. 

Fact  or  Fancy  ?  402. 

Falcon,  The,  48. 

Familiar  Epistle  to  a  Friend,  A,  327. 

Fancy's  Casuistry,  322. 

Fatherland,  The,  14. 

Festina  Lente,  248. 

Finding  of  the  Lyre,  The,  294. 

First  Snow-Fail,  The,  292. 

Fitz  Adam's  Story,  411. 

Flying  Dutchman,  The,  422. 

Foot-Path,  The,  333. 

For  an  Autograph,  295. 

Foreboding,  A,  407. 

Forlorn,  The,  14. 


490 


INDEX   OF  TITLES 


Fountain,  The,  11. 

Fountain  of  Youth,  The,  316. 

Fourth  of  July,  1876,  An  Ode  for  the,  370. 

FRAGMENTS  OF  AN  UNFINISHED  POEM,  158. 

France,  Ode  to,  91. 

"  Franciscus  de  Verulamio  sic  cogitavit,"  409. 

Freedom,  97. 

Future,  To  the,  64. 

Garrison,  W.  L.,  To,  102. 

Ghost-Seer,  The,  83. 

Giddings,  J.  R.,  To,  25. 

Glance  behind  the  Curtain,  A,  49. 

Godminster  Chimes,  297. 

Gold  Egg :  A  Dream-Fantasy,  326. 

Grant,  General,  On  a  Bust  of,  439. 

Graves  of  Two  English  Soldiers  on  Concord  Bat- 

tle-Ground,  Lines  suggested  by  the,  96. 
Growth  of  the  Legend,  The,  74. 

H.  W.  L.,  To,  330. 

Hamburg,  An  Incident  of  the  Fire  at,  59. 

Happiness,  Ode  to,  323. 

Harvard  Commemoration,  Ode  recited  at  the, 

340. 

HEARTSEASE  AND  RUE,  374. 
Hebe,  65. 
Heritage/The,  15. 
Holmes,  To,  381. 
Hood,  To  the  Memory  of,  105. 
How  I  consulted  the  Oracle  of  the  Goldfishes, 

433. 
Hunger  and  Cold,  61. 

In  a  Copy  of  Omar  Khayyam,  382. 

In  Absence,  24. 

In  an  Album,  430. 

In  the  Half-Way  House,  426. 

In  the  Twilight,  332. 

Incident  in  a  Railroad  Car,  An,  45. 

Incident  of  the  Fire  at  Hamburg,  An,  59. 

Indian-Summer  Reverie,  An,  68. 

Inscriptions,  432. 

For  a  Bell  at  Cornell  University. 

For  a  Memorial  Window  to  Sir  Walter  Ra 
leigh,  set  up  in  St.  Margaret's,  Westmin 
ster,  by  American  Contributors. 

Proposed  for  a  Soldiers'  and  Sailors'  Monu 
ment  in  Boston. 
International  Copyright,  433. 
Interview  with  Miles  Standish,  An,  80. 
Inveraray,  On  Planting  a  Tree  at,  387. 
Invita  Minerva,  315. 
Invitation,  An,  300. 
Iren^  4. 

Jonathan  to  John,  238. 

Keats,  To  the  Spirit  of,  20. 
Kettelopotomachia,  269. 
Kossuth,  100. 

Lamartine,  To,  101. 

Landlord,  The,  61. 

LAST  POEMS,  433. 

Latest  Views  of  Mr.  Biglow,  265. 

Leaving  the  Matter  open,  176. 


Legend  of  Brittany,  A,  28. 

L'ENVOI  (To  the  Muse),  347. 

L'Envoi  (Whether  my  heart  hath  wiser  grown 
or  not),  25. 

Lesson,  The,  410. 

Letter,  A,  from  a  candidate  for  the  presidency 
in  answer  to  suttin  questions  proposed  by  Mr. 
Hosea  Biglow,  inclosed  in  a  note  from  Mr. 
Biglow  to  S.  H.  Gay,  Esq.,  editor  of  the  Na 
tional  Anti-Slavery  Standard,  203. 

Letter,  A,  from  Mr.  Ezekiel  Biglow  of  Jaalam 
to  the  Hon.  Joseph  T.  Buckingham,  editor  of 
the  Boston  Courier,  inclosing  a  poem  of  his 
son,  Mr.  Hosea  Biglow,  181. 

Letter,  A,  from  Mr.  Hosea  Biglow  to  the  Hon. 
J.  T.  Buckingham,  editor  of  the  Boston  Cou 
rier,  covering  a  letter  from  Mr.  B.  Sawin, 
private  in  the  Massachusetts  Regiment,  183. 

Letter,  A  Second,  from  B.  Sawin,  Esq.,  206. 

Letter,  A  Third,  from  B.  Sawin,  Esq.,  212. 

LETTER  FROM  BOSTON,  111. 

Lines  (suggested  by  the  Graves  of  Two  English 
Soldiers  on  Concord  Battle-Ground),  96. 

Longing,  91. 

Love,  8. 

Love  and  Thought,  438. 

Love's  Clock,  407. 

M.  O.  S.,  To,  23. 

Mahmood  the  Image-Breaker,  315. 

Maple,  The,  405. 

Masaccio,  296. 

Mason  and  Slidell :  a  Yankee  Idyll,  228. 

Memorise  Positum,  337. 

MEMORIAL  VERSES,  100. 

Message  of  Jeff  Davis  in  Secret  Session,  A,  248. 

Midnight,  15. 

Miner,  The,  325. 

MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS,  28. 

Misconception,  A,  432. 

Miss  D.  T.,  To,  387. 

Monna  Lisa,  400. 

Mood,  A,  310. 

Moon,  The,  9. 

My  Love,  6. 

My  Portrait  Gallery,  403. 

Nest,  The,  397. 
New-Year's  Eve,  1850,  295. 
New  Year's  Greeting,  A,  410. 
Nightingale  in  the  Study,  The,  331. 
Nightwatches,  405. 
Nobler  Lover,  The,  438. 
Nomades,  The,  301. 
Norton,  Charles  Eliot,  To,  285. 

Oak,  The,  76. 

Ode,  An  (for  the  Fourth  of  July,  1876),  370. 

Ode  (In  the  old  days  of  awe  and  keen-eyed  won- 

Ode  (read  at  the  One  Hundredth  Anniversary 
of  the  Fight  at  Concord  Bridge),  361. 

Ode  recited  at  the  Harvard  Commemoration, 
340. 

Ode  to  France,  91. 

Ode  to  Happiness,  323. 

Ode  (written  for  the  Celebration  of  the  Intro- 


INDEX   OF   TITLES 


491 


duction  of  the  Cochituate  Water  into  the 

City  of  Boston),  96. 
Omar  Khayyam,  In  a  Copy  of,  382. 
On  a  Bust  of  General  Grant,  439. 
On  a  Portrait  of  Dante  by  Giotto,  87. 
On  an  Autumn  Sketch  of  H.  G.  Wild,  387. 
On  being  asked  for  an  Autograph  in  Venice,  404. 
On  Board  the  '76,  339. 
On  burning  some  Old  Letters,  401. 
On  hearing  a  Sonata  of  Beethoven's  played  in 

the  Next  Room,  438. 
On  planting  a  Tree  at  Inveraray,  387. 
On  reading  Wordsworth's  Sonnets  in  Defence 

of  Capital  Punishment,  22. 
On  receiving  a  Copy  of  Mr.  Austin  Dobson's 

"Old  World  Idylls,"  382. 

On  the  Capture  of  Fugitive  Slaves  near  Wash 
ington,  82. 

On  the  Death  of  a  Friend's  Child,  87. 
On  the  Death  of  Charles  Turner  Torrey,  104. 
Optimist,  The,  400. 
Oracle  of  the  Goldfishes,  How  I  consulted  the, 

433. 

ORIENTAL  APOLOGUE,  AN,  161. 
Origin  of  Didactic  Poetry,  The,  421. 

Palfrey,  John  Gorham,  To,  101. 

Palinode,308. 

Paolo  to  Francesca,  403. 

Parable,  A  (An  ass  munched  thistles,  while  a 

nightingale),  432. 
Parable,   A   (Said  Christ  our  Lord,  I  will  go 

and  see ),  95. 
Parable,  A  (Worn  and  footsore  was  the  Prophet), 

19. 

Parting  of  the  Ways,  The,  298. 
Past,  To  the,  63. 
Perdita,  singing.  To,  8. 
Pessimoptimism,  406. 
Petition,  The,  402. 
Phillips,  Wendell,  24. 
Phoebe,  399. 

Pictures  from  Appledore,  302. 
Pine-Tree,  To  a,  62. 
Pioneer,  The,  90. 
Pious  Editor's  Creed,  The,  200. 
POEMS  OF  THE  WAR,  334. 
Portrait  Gallery,  My,  403. 
Portrait  of  Dante  by  Giotto,  On  a,  87. 
Prayer,  A,  15. 

Pregnant  Comment,  The,  409. 
Present  Crisis,  The,  67. 
Prison  of  Cervantes,  405. 
Prometheus,  38. 
Protest,  The,  401. 

Recall,  The,  400. 

Remarks  of  Increase  D.  O'Phace,  Esquire,  at 
an  extrumpery  caucus  in  State  Street,  re 
ported  by  Mr.  H.  Biglow,  191. 

Remembered  Music,  10. 

Requiem,  A,  18. 

Rhoecus,  46. 

Rosaline,  17. 

Rose,  The :  a  Ballad,  16. 

St.  Michael  the  Weigher,  436. 


Sayings,  432. 

Scherzo,  408. 

Science  and  Poetry,  410. 

Scottish  Border,  404. 

Search,  The,  66. 

Seaweed,  294. 

Secret,  The,  411. 

Self-Study,  302. 

Serenade,  5. 

She  came  and  went,  89. 

Shepherd  of  King  Admetus,  The,  44. 

Si  descendero  in  Inf ernum,  ades,  63. 

Singing  Leaves,  The,  293. 

Sirens,  The,  2. 

Sixty-Eighth  Birthday,  433. 

Song  (O  moonlight  deep  and  tender),  19. 

Song  (to  M.  L.),  10. 

Song  (Violet !  sweet  violet !),  17. 

SONNETS. 

Bankside,  383. 

"  Beloved,  in  the  noisy  city  here,"  22. 

Bon  Voyage !  386. 

Brakes,  The,  406. 

Dancing  Bear,  The,  404. 

Death  of  Queen  Mercedes,  405. 

E.  G.  de  R.,  386. 

Eye's  Treasury,  The,  406. 

"  For  this  true  nobleness  I  seek  in  vain,"  20. 

Foreboding,  A,  407. 

44  Great  truths  are   portions  of  the  soul  of 
man,"  20. 

"I  ask  not  for  those  thoughts,  that  sudden 
leap,"  21. 

"I    cannot    think  that  thou  shouldst  pass 
away,"  21. 

"I  grieve  not  that   ripe    knowledge    takes 
away,"  25. 

"I  thought  our  love  at  full,  but  I  did  err," 
25. 

"I  would    not    have    this   perfect   love  of 
ours,"  20. 

In  Absence,  24. 

Maple,  The,  405. 

"My  Love,  I  have  no  fear  that  thou  shouldst 
die,"  21. 

Nightwatches,  405. 

On  an  Autumn  Sketch  of  H.  G.  Wild,  387. 

On  being  asked  for  an  Autograph  in  Venice, 
404. 

On  reading  Wordsworth's  Sonnets  in  Defence 
of  Capital  Punishment,  22. 

"  Our  love  is  not  a  fading,  earthly  flower,"  24. 

Paolo  to  Francesca,  403. 

Pessimoptimism,  406. 

Phillips,  Wendell,  24. 

Prison  of  Cervantes,  405. 

Scottish  Border,  404. 

Street,  The,  24. 

Sub  Pondere  crescit,  22. 

"  There  never  yet  was  flower  fair  in  vain,"  21. 

To  A.  C.  L.,  19. 

To  a  Friend,  385. 

To  a  Lady  playing  on  the  Cithera,  406. 

To  Fanny  Alexander,  385. 

To  J.  R.  Giddings,  25. 

To  M.  O.  S.,  23. 

To  M.  W.,  on  her  Birthday,  21. 


492 


INDEX   OF  TITLES 


To  Miss  D.  T.,  387. 

To  the  Spirit  of  Keats,  20. 

To  Whittier,  386. 

"  What  were  I,  Love,  if  I  were  stripped  of 
thee,"  20. 

Winlock,  Joseph,  384. 

With  a  copy  of  Aucassin  and  Nicolete,  387. 

With  an  Armchair,  385. 

Wyman,  Jeffries,  385. 
Sower,  The,  60. 
Speech  of  Honourable  Preserved  Doe  in  Secret 

Caucus,  253. 

Standish,  Miles,  An  Interview  with,  80. 
Stanzas  on  Freedom,  55. 
Street,  The,24. 
Studies  for  Two  Heads,  85. 
Sub  Pondere  crescit,  22. 
Summer  Storm,  7. 
Sun-Worship,  433. 
Sunthin'  in  the  Pastoral  Line,  260. 

Telepathy,  408. 
Tempora  Mutantur,  425. 
THREE  MEMORIAL,  POEMS,  360. 
Threnodia,  1. 

To ,  97. 

To  A.  C.  L.,  19. 

To  a  Friend,  385. 

To  a  Lady  playing  on  the  Cithern,  406. 

To  a  Pine-Tree,  62. 

To  C.  F.  Bradford,  383. 

To  Charles  Eliot  Norton,  285. 

To  H.  W.  L.,  330. 

To  Holmes,  381. 

To  J.  R.  Giddings,  25. 

To  John  Gorham  Palfrey,  101. 

To  Lamartine,  101. 

To  M.  O.  S.,  23. 

To  M.  W.,  on  her  Birthday,  21. 

To  Miss  D.  T.,  387. 

To  Mr.  John  Bartlett,  322. 

To  Perdita,  singing,  8. 

To  the  Dandelion,  83. 

To  the  Future,  64. 

To  the  Memory  of  Hood,  105. 


To  the  Past,  63. 

To  the  Spirit  of  Keats,  20. 

To  W.  L.  Garrison,  102. 

To  Whittier,  386. 

Token,  The,  44. 

Torrey,  Charles  Turner,  On  the  Death  of,  104. 

Trial,  48. 

Turner's  Old  Te"me*raire,  436. 

Two  Gunners,  The,  176. 

Two  Scenes  from  the  Life  of  Blondel,  336. 

Under  the  October  Maples,  407. 

Under  the  Old  Elm,  364. 

UNDER  THE  WILLOWS,  AND  OTHER  POEMS, 

285. 

Under  the  Willows,  286. 
UNHAPPY  LOT  OF  MR.  KNOTT,  THE,  149. 

Valentine,  A,  437. 

Verses,  intended  to  go  with  a  Posset  Dish,  438. 

Villa  Franca,  324. 

VISION  OF  SIR  LAUNFAL,  THE,  106. 

Voyage  to  Vinland,  The,  311. 

Washers  of  the  Shroud,  The,  334. 

What  Mr.  Robinson  thinks,  187. 

What  Rabbi  Jehosha  said,  319. 

Whittier,  To,  386. 

Wild,  H.  G.,  On  an  Autumn  Sketch  of,  387. 

Wind-Harp,  The,  307. 

Winlock,  Joseph,  384. 

Winter-Evening  Hymn  to  my  Fire,  A,  320. 

With  a  Copy  of  Aucassin  and  Nicolete,  387. 

With  a  Pair  of  Gloves  lost  in  a  Wager,  433. 

With  a  Pressed  Flower,  5. 

With  a  Seashell,  411. 

With  an  Armchair,  385. 

Without  and  Within,  297. 

Wordsworth's  Sonnets  in  Defence  of  Capital 

Punishment,  On  reading,  22. 
Wyman,  Jeffries,  385. 

Youthful  Experiment  in  English  Hexameters, 

A,  398. 
Yussouf ,  318. 


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